Текст книги "Taken by Midnight"
Автор книги: Lara Adrian
Соавторы: Lara Adrian
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
CHAPTER
Twenty-six
The entire second floor of the gutted apartment building was a chaos of flying bullets and coarse shouts from both the Order and Mathias Rowan and his men. The three immense guards in the room with Kellan Archer returned fire, shooting wildly into the shadows, taking out two of Rowan’s Agents within moments of the surprise confrontation.
The third went down with a howl of pain, his kneecap shot out from beneath him just before another round silenced him for good. The relentless fire continued, Brock narrowly dodging a bullet that whisked past his head.
In the confusion and scuffle, the fat pillar candle being used for light in the room with Kellan was kicked over. It rolled underfoot of his captors, its small flame fizzling out on the floor and plunging the place into darkness. The slim light extinguished, Brock hardly noticed its absence, nor did any of his companions. Dragos’s men, however, seemed momentarily disoriented in the dark.
Brock took out one of them with a dead-aim shot to the head. Tegan nailed another not even a second later. While the last remaining assassin showered the air with round after round from his automatic rifle, Brock moved in from the side. He dived low, scrambling for the chair where Kellan Archer sat, now frantically struggling to break loose of his restraints.
The warriors and Rowan closed in on the third black-clad assassin, every weapon trained on him in tandem. There was a frenzied hail of gunfire as the target was swiftly obliterated and fell to the floor in a savaged, bloodied heap.
Brock grabbed Kellan Archer’s narrow shoulders, calming the boy’s terrified screams. “It’s okay, kid. You’re safe now.”
The sudden, unexpected whiff of hemoglobin from somewhere nearby took him aback.
What the fuck?
His fangs tore from his gums, instinctive physiological response, as his Breed senses detected the presence of fresh-spilling blood. He threw an abrupt look at Tegan and the others and saw that they, too, had picked up on the scent of coppery red cells.
“Humans,” Tegan muttered, his transformed amber eyes narrowed on the three dead guards lying in bloodied pools on the floor nearby.
“No collars,” Brock added, realizing only now that below their black head coverings, Kellan’s captors did not wear the UV-rigged obedience devices of Dragos’s true Hunters. “Holy shit. These aren’t the Gen One assassins who abducted the boy.”
Kade and Mathias Rowan both came over at the same time. They stooped down to remove the masks of the felled men. Kade lifted the closed eyelids of one of them and hissed a curse. “They’re Minions.”
“Minions meant to make us think they were Gen One assassins,” Brock added, removing the last of Kellan Archer’s restraints and helping him to his feet. “This was some kind of setup.”
“Yeah,” Kade said. “But for what purpose?”
“Jesus Christ.” Chase stood behind the group, having just arrived that very moment. His eyes threw off a blaze of amber, pupils narrowed down to thin, feral-looking slits, his fangs huge behind the curl of his upper lip. He stared, attention rooted to the bleeding humans. “What the hell happened in here?”
Tegan rounded on him. “Where are the Archers?”
“They’re outside,” he replied, his voice gravelly. It seemed to take some effort for him to wrench his focus back to Tegan. “I left them back there with Freyne and his men when I heard the gunfire up here.”
A look of sudden dread washed over Tegan’s normally impassive face. “Holy fuck, Harvard. I told you not to let them out of your sight.”
Hunter made no sound at all as he returned from his perimeter check of the construction site. He raced back, having heard the racket of weapons fire pouring out of the apartment building, but at the moment he was more interested in the single gunshot that rang out near the Enforcement Agency vehicles in the street.
Through the snow flurries that swirled through the dark night air, he spotted the agent called Freyne holding a smoking pistol in front of the open backseat window of the Agency’s black sedan. In that same instant, Freyne’s companions opened fire on the car, as well, shooting from all sides.
Hunter sprang into a vaulting leap, traveling the several yards that separated him from the scene in barely the blink of an eye. He came down on Freyne. As he took the vampire to the ground, he glimpsed the gore of an exploded skull fouling the interior of the sedan. The stench of gunpowder and death filled the air as the other two Agents continued their assault on the vehicle’s occupants.
Freyne roared beneath Hunter, flailing, trying to throw him off. Hunter clasped his hands on either side of the vampire’s head and gave a sharp, efficient twist. The struggle ceased. Freyne dropped lifeless to the curb, his sightless eyes staring at an unnatural angle over his shoulder.
At the same moment, a rumble shook the car. A howl vibrated the ground, and then the door on the other side blew off its hinges. It sailed several feet before crashing down on the pavement.
Lazaro Archer erupted from within, his coat and face splattered with blood and bits of bone and brain matter.
He launched himself at one of the traitorous Enforcement Agents, catching the other male’s throat under the sharp daggers of his enormous fangs. As the pair flew to the ground in a deadly embrace, Hunter jumped over the hood of the sedan and grabbed the last of the assailants, disabling the Agent as easily as he had Freyne.
He cast an apathetic eye on Lazaro Archer and the Breed male whose throat now gaped open, spurting blood from a vicious, lethal bite. Archer wasn’t finished, even though the Agent pinned beneath him was surely as good as dead. He was savage in his fury, lost to a pain on which Hunter—raised devoid of emotional attachments—could only speculate.
Hunter stood and glanced into the vehicle, where Lazaro’s son lay slumped and lifeless on the floor of the backseat, killed by the bullet Freyne had fired point blank into the side of his head.
Tegan’s dread inside the building hadn’t been misplaced. In fact, what awaited the group as they rushed outside with young Kellan Archer was even worse than they could have imagined.
Death was ripe in the street where the Enforcement Agency vehicles were parked. One of them—the one that had held Lazaro and Christophe Archer—was riddled with bullet holes and shattered windows. On closer look, Brock could see that the opposite side of the sedan was torn wide open, the entire backseat door ripped off its hinges.
There had been an ambush of the car’s occupants, a cowardly attack from outside the vehicle. No question who had perpetrated it … nor how it had ended. Freyne and the other two Agents lay broken and blood-soaked, lifeless on the pavement. Hunter stood over them, impassive, his keen golden eyes scanning the surrounding area for new trouble and ready to take on any threat single-handed.
And seated just inside the sedan, his head and torso bent over a lifeless form sprawled across his lap, was Lazaro Archer. Even at this distance, Brock could see blood and bits of tissue flecked on the Breed elder’s dark coat and caught in his hair. The huge Gen One was weeping quietly, grief-stricken over the loss of his son.
“Jesus,” Chase whispered from next to Brock. “Oh, Jesus Christ … no.”
“Freyne,” Brock snarled. “That bastard must have been working with Dragos.”
Chase shook his head, scrubbed a hand over the top of his scalp in obvious misery. When he spoke, his voice was airless, flat with shock. “I shouldn’t have left them with him. I heard the gunfire inside the building, and I thought … ah, fuck. It doesn’t matter what I thought. Goddamn it, I should have known Freyne was not to be trusted.”
Probably so, Brock thought, though neither he nor the rest of the group voiced any blame aloud. Chase’s anguish was written all over his face. He didn’t need anyone else to tear into him over the lapse in judgment that had cost Christophe Archer his life tonight. The typically cocky Harvard seemed to pale a bit, disappearing into himself as he wheeled away from the carnage and walked deeper into the shadows of the vacant construction lot.
As for Brock and the others, a grave silence had settled over the living in the face of so much bloodshed and death. Lazaro Archer’s grandson had been rescued from his captors, but the price had been steep. Lazaro’s son lay horribly slain in his arms just a few yards away.
While the group absorbed the weight of the night’s grim turn of events, young Kellan Archer suddenly roused from his own state of shock. He came around from behind Brock, apparently just then noticing Lazaro seated in the sedan up ahead.
“Grandfather!” he shouted, tears choking his youthful voice. He pulled out of Brock’s grasp. Then, limping, he started to break into a weak run. “Grandfather! Is Papa with you, too?”
“Hold the boy,” Hunter called out evenly. “Do not let him near.”
Brock caught Kellan by the arm and wheeled him around in the opposite direction, shielding him from the carnage with his body.
“I want to see my grandfather!” the boy cried. “I want to see my family!”
“Soon,” Brock said. “Just be strong right now, my man. You’re gonna be with your family very soon. We’ve got to take care of some things first, all right?”
Kellan’s struggles lessened, but he kept trying to get another look around Brock. Kept trying to see what it was they were hiding from him inside the shot-up sedan on the street.
“Come and wait over here with me,” Kade said as he moved in and corralled the youth, draping his arm around the thin shoulders as he guided the boy farther up the curb, away from the bloodshed at the other end of the street.
After Kellan was safely out of earshot, Mathias Rowan muttered a quiet curse. “I had no idea that Freyne or the others with him were corrupt, I swear it. My God, I can’t believe what happened here tonight. All of my men, Christophe Archer … all dead.” He grabbed for his cell phone. “I have to call this in.”
Before he could touch the first key, Tegan clamped his hand around the Agent’s wrist and gave a sober shake of his head. “I need you to keep this as quiet as you can. Can you delay your report while the Order looks deeper into the abduction and the ambush?”
Rowan inclined his head in agreement. “I can delay it for a few hours, but anything more could prove difficult. Some of these Agents had families. There will be questions.”
“Understood,” Tegan replied. His grasp on the Agent’s wrist didn’t let up, and Brock knew the Gen One’s talent for reading a person with a touch would tell him if Rowan was truly an ally to the Order or not. After a moment, Tegan gave a faint nod. “I know you’ve been Chase’s contact on the inside of the Agency for a while now, Mathias. The Order greatly appreciates your help. But no one is to be trusted now, not even your best Agents.”
Mathias Rowan inclined his head in agreement, his gaze solemn as he took in the destruction then glanced back to Tegan and Brock. “If this is an example of what Dragos is capable of, then he is my enemy, too. Tell me what the Order needs, and I will do whatever I can to help you bring this son of a bitch down.”
“Right now, we need time and silence,” Tegan replied. “I don’t believe Dragos is finished with Lazaro Archer and his family, so their protection is paramount. I’m sure Lucan will agree that the rescue tonight seemed too easy, despite the casualties. Something doesn’t sit right about any of this.”
Brock nodded, having had the same feeling when they’d discovered Kellan’s captors were Minions and not the trio of Gen One assassins who’d been witnessed abducting the boy. “The kidnapping was a ruse. Dragos has something more up his sleeve.”
Tegan’s look was grim. “That’s what my gut is telling me, too.”
“I pray you’re both wrong,” Rowan said, his sober gaze drifting over to the sedan where Lazaro Archer still held his dead son. “These past few hours have been bloody enough.”
“We should vacate the building and the street and clear out of here,” Tegan said. “It’s too risky to let either of the Archers stay out in the open any longer.”
“I’ll get started on the evidence cleanup,” Brock offered.
As soon as he turned to walk toward the apartment building, Rowan was right beside him. “Let me help you, please.”
They strode across the construction site, but hadn’t even gotten halfway there when Rowan’s cell phone trilled with an incoming call. He held it out in front of him, as though to ask Tegan’s permission to take the call. The Gen One warrior nodded.
Rowan put the phone to his ear, and Brock watched in a state of mounting alarm as the Enforcement Agent’s face blanched. “There must be some mistake,” he murmured. “The whole Darkhaven … Good Christ.”
Brock motioned to Tegan, feeling ice begin to settle in his gut as Rowan said a few more words of disbelief, then woodenly disconnected the call.
“What’s going on?” Tegan demanded, having jogged over on Brock’s signal. “What the hell just happened?”
“Lazaro Archer’s Darkhaven,” Rowan murmured. “It burned to the ground tonight. There was an apparent gas leak and a massive explosion. There were no survivors.”
No one said a word for a very long while. A light flurry of snow swirled under the wintry starlight, the only movement in a night gone suddenly cold and dark as a grave.
And then, across the way, young Kellan Archer buried his face in his hands and began to cry. Great, racking sobs of raw anguish. The boy knew what he’d lost tonight. He felt it. And when he glanced up with tear-filled eyes that flashed with furious amber sparks, Brock saw the rage that was already smoldering in the young male’s heart.
As of tonight, the boy he’d been was gone. Like his grandfather, who sat several yards away, covered in his own son’s blood, Kellan Archer would never forget—or forgive—the death and sorrow dealt so treacherously tonight.
“Let’s get this place swept and get the fuck out of here,” Tegan said finally. “I’ll put the boy and his grandfather in the Rover. They are now under the protection of the Order.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-seven
Lazaro Archer stoically refused the Order’s offer to take him past the remains of his Darkhaven for a final good-bye. He’d had no wish to see the rubble of his life, which had claimed nearly a dozen innocent people, including his beloved Breedmate of several long centuries. Although the official report out of the Enforcement Agency had attributed the blaze to a gas leak, everyone in the Order—and Lazaro himself—understood the incident for what it truly was. A wholesale slaughter, carried out at Dragos’s command.
Archer’s grief had to be profound, but by the time he arrived at the compound he was the picture of emotional control. Showered now, his gore-caked clothing thrown away and replaced by a set of fresh black fatigues from the Order’s supply room, Lazaro Archer seemed transformed, a darker, more formidable version of the civilian Breed elder who’d stood in the tech lab just a night before, desperate to find his grandson. Somber, subdued, he appeared determined to rally his entire focus around the health and welfare of his grandson and sole surviving heir.
“Kellan says he doesn’t remember much about the abduction itself,” Lazaro murmured as he and Lucan observed the boy through the window in his infirmary recovery room. The youth was cleaned up and resting, at the moment being kept company by little Mira, who’d taken it upon herself to read to him at his bedside. “He says he woke up in that rat-infested building, freezing cold, held at gunpoint. The beatings didn’t start until he was conscious. He said the bastards told him they wanted him to scream and suffer.”
Lucan’s jaw tensed as he listened to the abuse the youth had been subjected to. “He’s safe now, Lazaro. You both are. The Order will see to that.”
The other Gen One nodded. “I appreciate all you’re doing for us. Like most civilians, I know the Order values its privacy, particularly when it comes to your headquarters. I realize it cannot be easy for you to permit outsiders into the compound.”
Lucan raised a brow in acknowledgment. He could think of only a few rare instances, beginning with Sterling Chase and Tegan’s mate, Elise, more than a year ago, followed most recently by Jenna Darrow. For more than a century before them, there had been no exceptions.
As much as Lucan disliked having his hand forced, he wasn’t such a coldly rigid leader that he would turn his back on someone in need. A long time ago, perhaps—before he’d met and fallen in love with Gabrielle. Before he’d come to know what it was like to have family and a heart that beat out of devotion to another.
He put his hand on the Gen One’s broad shoulder. “You needed a safe house, you and the boy both. You’ll find no more secure shelter than this compound.”
As for any concerns Lucan might have had about entrusting the compound’s location to Archer or his young grandson, Tegan had assured him that both males were free of duplicity. Not that Lucan had suspected either one of being anything less than honorable.
Still, he was careful not to place his trust blindly. He had to be careful. Every time he looked around lately, he felt the weight of so many lives resting on his shoulders. It was a responsibility he took seriously, all too aware that if Dragos wanted to strike at the heart of the Order, he would do so at this very location.
It was a thought he didn’t like to dwell on but one he couldn’t afford to ignore.
He didn’t think he could bear it if the Order—his family—was dealt a blow as staggering as the one that had come down on Lazaro Archer tonight. All the Gen One civilian had left after a thousand years of living was the battered young boy in the infirmary bed and the bullet-ravaged body of the son that Tegan and the rest of tonight’s team had brought back with them to the compound.
Lucan cleared his throat. “If you would like to hold funeral rites for Christophe in the morning, we will make the necessary preparations.”
Lazaro gave a somber nod. “Thank you. For everything, Lucan.”
“Accommodations here at the compound are limited, but we can rearrange a few things to make space for you and Kellan in one of the bunk rooms. You’re welcome to stay for as long as needed.”
Archer held up his hand in polite dismissal. “That’s more than generous; however, I have personal holdings elsewhere. There are other places that my grandson and I can go.”
“Yes,” Lucan replied, “but until we can be certain that you and Kellan are not in imminent danger from Dragos, I’m not comfortable releasing you from the Order’s protection.”
“Dragos,” Archer said, his face hardening with restrained fury. “I recall that name from the Old Times. Dragos and his progeny were forever corrupt. Devious, conniving. Morally decayed. Good Christ, I’d thought the entire line had died out long ago.”
Lucan grunted. “A second-generation son remains, hidden for decades behind multiple aliases but not dead. Not yet. And there is more, Lazaro. Things you don’t know. Things the civilian population would not wish to know about Dragos and his machinations.”
Grim, ageless eyes held his stare. “Tell me. I want to understand. I need to understand.”
“Come,” Lucan said. “Let’s walk.”
He guided Archer away from his grandson’s infirmary room and along the quiet corridor outside. The two Gen Ones strode in silence for a short distance while Lucan considered where to start with the facts they knew about Dragos. At the beginning, he finally decided.
“The seeds of this war with Dragos were sown centuries ago,” he said, as he and Archer progressed up the white marble hallway. “You must remember the violence of those times, Lazaro. You lived through it the same as I did, when the Ancients ran unchecked, driven by their thirst for blood and the thrill of the hunt. They were our fathers, but they had to be stopped.”
Archer nodded gravely. “I do remember how it was then. As a boy, I can’t tell you how often I witnessed my own sire’s savagery. It seemed to escalate over time, growing more feral and uncontrolled, particularly after he’d return from the gatherings.”
Lucan cocked his head. “The gatherings?”
“Yes,” Archer replied. “I don’t know where he and the other Ancients met, but he would be gone for weeks or months at a time. I always knew when he was back in the area because then the killings in the human villages around us would begin again. I was relieved when he finally left for good.”
Lucan frowned. “My father never mentioned gatherings, but I know he roamed for long periods. I know he hunted. When he killed my mother in a fit of Bloodlust, I knew it was time to put an end to all of the savagery.”
“I remember hearing what happened to your mother,” Archer replied. “And I remember your call to arms to all Gen One sons to band with you in war against our alien fathers. I didn’t think it possible that you would succeed.”
“Not many did,” Lucan recalled, but he wasn’t bitter, not then or now. “Eight of us went up against the handful of surviving Ancients. We thought we’d killed the last of them, but we had traitors in our ranks—my brother, Marek, as it turned out, and the Gen One father of Dragos, as well. They plotted in secret and built a hidden mountain crypt to house the last of the Ancients. They’d claimed he was dead but kept him protected in hibernation for centuries. He was later removed from the crypt, and survived under Dragos’s control until only recently. Dragos kept him drugged and starved in a private laboratory. We don’t know the extent of Dragos’s madness, but we are sure of one thing: Over some decades, he’s used the Ancient to breed a small army of Gen Ones. These offspring now serve Dragos as his personal, homegrown assassins.”
“Good God,” Archer murmured, visibly stricken. “I can hardly believe all of this is true.”
Lucan might have felt the same at one point, but he had lived it. He thought back on everything that had occurred in the past year plus. All the betrayals and revelations, the explosive secrets and unexpected tragedies that had stabbed deep into the fabric of the Order and its members.
And the fight wasn’t over. Not even close.
“So far, Dragos has managed to elude us, but we’re getting closer to him every day. We’ve driven him to ground by destroying what was likely his primary location. He lost another key piece when the Ancient escaped some of his men in Alaska. We tracked the creature down and took him out. But a lot of the damage has already been done,” Lucan added. “We don’t know how many Gen One assassins Dragos managed to create or where they might be. We intend to find them, however. And we have one working with us now. He joined the Order not long ago, after freeing himself from Dragos’s bonds.”
Archer’s face drew into a cautious look. “Do you think that’s wise? Placing your trust in anyone who’s been so closely linked to Dragos?”
Lucan inclined his head. “I had the same reservations at first, but Hunter has proven more than worthy of the Order’s trust. You’ve met him yourself, Lazaro. He was there tonight with you, and helped to kill Christophe’s assassins.”
The Gen One exhaled a quiet curse. “That warrior saved my life. No one could have acted swiftly enough to save my son, but if not for Hunter, I would not be here, either.”
“He is an honorable male,” Lucan said. “But he was bred and raised to be a killing machine. Based on the descriptions we received of Kellan’s abductors, we’re all but certain that it was three of Dragos’s Hunters who took him from your home.”
“I thought I heard some of the warriors tonight say that the captors who were killed inside the building earlier were humans—Minions.”
Lucan nodded. “They were. For some reason, they’d been made to look like the same individuals who took Kellan, but the Minions were part of some larger scheme. As was the attack on your Darkhaven, I have no doubt.”
“But why?” Archer murmured. “What did he hope to gain by taking nearly all of my family and reducing my home to ash?”
“We don’t have that answer yet, but we won’t rest until we do.” Lucan paused in the corridor, crossing his arms over his chest. “Dragos has given us a hell of a lot to deal with lately, and my gut tells me we’re only seeing the beginning of what he’s capable of. We’ve recently discovered that he’s got Minions embedded in at least one human government agency, as well. No doubt, there’s more bad news where that came from.”
Archer cursed, low under his breath. “To think all of this has been taking place right under our noses. Lucan, I don’t know what to say, other than I regret not giving you my support sooner. You can’t know how sorry I am for that.”
Lucan shook his head. “It’s not necessary. The fight belongs to the Order.”
Lazaro Archer’s expression was grim with purpose. “As of now, the fight is mine, as well. I am in, Lucan. In whatever means that I can serve you and your warriors, if you’ll accept my offer—belated as it is—then I am in.”
Dragos’s black limousine pulled up to the ice-crusted curb where his lieutenant waited, huffing and shivering under a streetlamp in his dark cashmere coat and low-brimmed hat.
As the Minion driver braked to a stop, Dragos’s man came over to the back passenger door and climbed inside the vehicle. He pulled off his hat and gloves, pivoting to face Dragos beside him in the backseat.
“The Order was tipped off about the building where the boy was being held, sire. They showed up tonight just as we’d anticipated, along with Lazaro Archer and his son and a unit from the Enforcement Agency. The Minions who’d been guarding the boy were killed within moments of the confrontation.”
“Hardly a surprise,” Dragos said with a mild shrug. “And Agent Freyne?”
“Dead, sire. He and his men were killed by one of the warriors as they were attempting to carry out their mission. Christophe Archer was eliminated, but his father still lives.”
Dragos grunted. If one of the Archers had to survive the assassination he’d arranged, he would have much preferred Lazaro dead over his society-bred son. Be that as it may, the multipronged assault he’d orchestrated tonight had still been a success. He had watched from a safe distance, secure in his limousine, as Lazaro Archer’s Darkhaven exploded into the winter night like a Roman candle.
It had been glorious.
A total annihilation.
And now he had the Order precisely where he wanted them—confused and scattered.
His Breed lieutenant went on, ticking off the rest of the evening’s outcome. “The fire at the Darkhaven claimed all lives within, and I have reports that Lazaro Archer has not been seen or heard from in the hours since. Although I’ve not had confirmation, I suspect that both the Gen One and the boy are in the Order’s custody as we speak.”
“Very well,” Dragos replied. “As Lazaro Archer is still breathing, I’d hardly call this a flawless execution of my orders. But then, if I expect perfection, I should have to do everything myself.”
His lieutenant had the gall to look affronted. “All due respect, sire, but had I known the Order now counts one of your Hunters among them, I might have taken extra precautions concerning Freyne’s role in the mission tonight.”
Dragos had lived long enough that surprises rarely had the power to take him aback. But this news flash—this disturbing bit of intelligence—actually made his pulse knock a bit against his sternum. Rage filled his skull, a cold fury that practically had him spitting the curse that leapt to his tongue.
“You didn’t know?” asked his lieutenant, crowding against the door in an effort to put as much distance as possible between them.
“A Hunter,” Dragos replied, amber sparks flashing in the darkened cabin of the limo. “Are you certain this is true?”
His man nodded soberly. “I had surveillance cameras trained on the construction site from more than one location nearby. The way he moved, the sheer size of him, and the precision of his kills … sire, there could be no mistaking the warrior for anything but one of your Hunters.”
And there was only one of his specially bred, ruthlessly trained killers who had managed to connive his way out of Dragos’s control and make his escape. That he had allied himself with the Order was a shock, plain and simple.
Dragos had assumed the Hunter had escaped the bonds of his obedience collar and fled into obscurity, a stray dog, lost without its master. On some level, he’d assumed the fugitive assassin had ended up dead or Rogue by now.
But not this.
And no, he reflected now, not this particular Hunter.
He had been different from the start. Chillingly efficient. Coldly intelligent. Relentlessly disciplined, yet far from submissive. That was a lesson he’d never been able to learn, no matter how mercilessly it had been drilled into him.
Dragos should have had the son of a bitch put down, but he’d also been the best assassin in his personal Gen One army to date.
And now he’d apparently sided with Lucan and the warriors in this mounting war.
Dragos growled with outrage at the mere idea.
“Get out of my sight,” he snarled to his lieutenant. “Await my orders to begin the next phase of the plan.”
The other Breed male scrambled out of the car without another word, slamming the door behind him and hurrying off in the opposite direction of the street.
“Drive,” Dragos barked to the Minion behind the wheel.
As the limo sped off into the hustle of Boston’s evening traffic, he straightened the lapels of his Italian silk tuxedo and smoothed his hand over his meticulously styled hair. In the dim glow of the highway lights, he withdrew an embossed invitation from out of his jacket pocket and read the address of the political fund-raiser he had just attended downtown.
A small droplet of human blood stained the lower corner of the ivory paper, still fresh enough to smear under the press of his thumb.
Dragos chuckled under his breath, recalling how pleased the group of city officials had been with the generosity of his donation.
How stunned they had been just a few minutes later, when they realized what each of them would be surrendering to him in exchange.
