CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“ O kay, so what do we have?” Brayden said, legs spread, huge arms crossed as he addressed the private group of elite vampires in the room—all of them head to toe in black, whether it be a T-shirt, sweatpants, jeans, or leathers.

While the standard royal army uniform had Moretti logos, these males dressed in civilian clothing when undercover or on a stealth operation.

“The females are on their way back to the United States, Captain.”

While Brayden was their prince and should be addressed as His Royal Highness, when in this capacity he always insisted on being called Captain. It was a damn mouthful otherwise, especially in a fast moving situation.

“And Stefano?”

“No sightings yet, but there are rumors.”

“How trustworthy?” Brayden asked and looked over at him for a long moment.

Craig knew what he was thinking. They were being played.

“Likely all bullshit, Captain. Their headquarters have been disbanded and we have yet to locate the new one.”

“Alright. I want more ears to the ground. Let’s set up three teams.” He turned to Craig. “Color code black, red, and green.”

Craig nodded once.

“The commander will allocate you into teams led by one of the SLCs. I want regular contact twice a day.”

Nods and yes, sirs were muttered.

“Lance, Marcus, and Kurt will be on the ground tomorrow. In the meantime, they’ll manage you remotely. Escalate anything to me if needed,” Craig instructed, taking the lead.

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright, deeper dive. Show us what you’ve got,” Brayden said, relaxing somewhat and setting his ass on the edge of a desk.

One man clicked a button and the screen on the wall turned on, displaying all the faces of the vampires involved and the intel.

“We’ve got word that they’re transporting products to locations around the world, and not just to anywhere. All the locations match sites of Moretti properties. Not a coincidence, I would think.”

“All of them?”

The male nodded. “Australia, United States, Japan, England, Sweden, South Africa, Spain, Canada, Russia, India, and Mexico.”

Brayden narrowed his eyes. “The fuck? I want information on what they’re sending. Find out weight, contents, anything, and get onto that immediately.”

Craig shook his head. Unless the vampire rebels had suddenly become major food exporters, this sounded dodgy as fuck.

And they hadn’t, so it was.

“Any clues?” Brayden asked the room.

“Won’t be drugs,” someone said.

They were right. Not only did human drugs have no effect on their kind, the risk of being caught and discovered as a race was too great to risk. They were here a damn long time, so the thought of being locked in a lab and tested on wasn’t worth it even for the lowest of their race. No one wanted to be a lab rat.

Not that there was no crime among the vampire race. There was. Just like with humans, there were the rich and the poor. They just chose their crimes more carefully, like money laundering or digital tampering. With their speed and ability to adjust memories, theft of jewelry and fine arts was also common.

The royal family frowned upon it, but like with any community of people, you couldn’t police it all. Their only rule, which they all were invested in following, was complete and utter compliance with keeping the race’s existence under wraps.

Which was why the Moretti family had soldiers on the ground in every country vampires resided in; to clean up any spills, as they called them. Vampires had to register their place of living and have their movements traced. They tapped into human technology via passports and cell phone tracking to do so, so one couldn’t move to Iceland and suddenly begin a new democracy.

This was one of the things the rebels fought back against. They believed in freedom.

Fucking idiots. Didn’t they understand the risks?

He shook off his frustration, and his mind suddenly wandered to Brianna. God, she had felt so warm and wet earlier. He still wasn’t sure how he’d found the strength to stop. The way she had reacted to his touch, the sizzling gaze that had met his, had his cock aching.

“Craig?”

He glanced at the prince. “Huh?”

The room stared at him.

“Yeah, I was just going through a potential possibility in my head.” He ran his hand through his hair.

“Wish to share?”

“Nope.”

Fucker.

The guy knew where his mind had gone. Craig gave his friend a dark look, which got him a smirk.

“Antonio, throw a glass of water over the commander’s head. He’s distracted by some damn pussy, and I need his head back in the game.”

The room sniggered.

“Fuck off, Moretti,” he said, giving him the bird, then turned to face the males. “Alright, let’s get into teams. Sam, Roberto, Frank, Curtis, Joshua, Andrew, Jackson, Willy, you’re in black. Lance will be your lead.”

He allocated the rest of the teams and set the next weeks rosters. Lance, Kurt, and Marcus would pick up the rest of the team planning when they arrived.

“Black team, you’ve got the lead on this, so I want you primed and ready for going into stealth mode when we get the intel. Red and green, I want you on the ground getting that information. Stat.”

Brayden stood.

“We need to be agile. Things can shift quickly. Russo is angry; we have his brothers and his prisoners,” he said. “Your eyes are our eyes.”

Craig glanced at his watch because, yeah, he wanted eyes on that gorgeous redhead.