CHAPTER ELEVEN

X ander Tomassi sat in the back of a large black SUV as it drove through Rome, staring out the bulletproof windows. His leg bounced up and down rapidly.

Fucking anxiety.

“Sir, we are five minutes from the destination,” his senior bodyguard advised.

Frankly, he was sick of the sight of Tony. He saw more of the private security protector than of his own wife. Which wasn’t difficult, given he had sent her to the United States for a long vacation when things had begun to heat up here. Mrs. Tomassi was currently tanning herself on a Florida beach somewhere, likely fucking a pool boy.

Xander didn’t care. He’d married Amelia for her father, a top executive at BioZen, the pharmaceutical beast where he now sat on the leadership team. And poor old Bob was now six feet under. He’d sampled too many of their products.

Xander grinned and leaned forward to see how close they were.

“One minute,” Tony said, aware of his every move. As he should be; he paid him enough.

The door opened, and he stepped out, walking the short distance to the front door, which was also being opened for him.

This was the life he’d always envisaged for himself. Wealthy and respected, with people moving mountains for him if he asked them to. The hilarious thing was, Xander hadn’t expected to have two different races to manipulate, nor had he thought he would be able to control the latter. But it looked like they were well on their way to being able to do so.

Hence the fact he was currently living in a goddamn fortress surrounded by dozens of the best private security on the planet.

Xander glanced behind him and took in the three vehicles sitting on the driveway. Two were filled with black suits from said security firm.

“Tomassi,” a deep, Italian voice said, interrupting his thoughts. He turned back to the doorway and stepped into the large mansion.

“Good morning,” he replied, greeting the president. “Are the others here yet?”

Diego Lombardo shook his head. “Come. Let’s get some coffee and chat before they arrive. I wanted to have a few minutes with you.”

Interesting.

The tall, lean leader walked through the foyer and along a hallway to his office, muttering two cappuccinos to his staff, who scuttled off. He followed. This wasn’t even close to being his first visit to the Italian president’s office, and it wouldn’t be his last. Even if the work they were doing together was off the record.

He sat down in the brown leather sofa and crossed his legs as the door was closed for privacy.

“I’ve read through your reports and have a few questions,” Diego started, getting straight to the point. “In light of our progress in Italy being, shall we say, temporarily interrupted, I think we should consider moving the new lab to another region.”

Xander had been expecting the investors to bring this up today, but not for Diego to be in support of it. To recommend it was a surprise. He was curious as to why.

“Do you have somewhere in mind?” he asked. The decision would be voted on, so it wasn’t for them to decide, but usually, the two of them influenced the wider group.

Diego sat back in the sofa and ran his thumb and forefinger over his beard, appearing to consider his next words. “There are a number of considerations here. The Moretti’s are now residing in Italy and appear to be staying. Unfortunately, since the lab exposure, I have been kicked out of Operation Daylight , so my intel is old.”

Operation Daylight consisted of a team of world leaders and the king of the vampire race, Vincent Moretti. Its purpose was to share and learn from the king and create a plan to integrate the new species into humanity’s consciousness, safely and calmly.

Or some delirious shit like that.

Why?

Because he had ousted them.

Well, Bob Johnstone , his alter ego, had.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t gone quite as planned. After an initial media whitewash, there had been some clever manipulation from the Moretti camp and human parties to debunk the entire claim. But the leak had planted the seed of doubt, and it was just a matter of time before it was out in the open.

When that happened, BioZen would be ready. And by fucking God, they were going to make billions from this. The great thing was, no matter what side of the stage people stood, they had a solution for them.

Want to be a powerful vampire? Here, take the red pill.

Want to protect yourself from vampires? Here, take the blue pill.

Matrix, anyone?

And they hadn’t been limited by annoying FDA laws and regulations when producing these miracle drugs because vampires didn’t exist, did they?

He was pretty sure Operation Daylight would be working on setting up those kinds of legal structures right at this very moment, so this was basically a race against time.

When the US government had busted open their operation, it had caused delays. They had been making great strides with their research on the vampires in the Italian laboratory. Thankfully, all the information had been stored in the cloud, and no one had been able to trace it back to BioZen or to him personally.

The president and Stefano Russo hadn’t been so lucky.

Not that he cared in the slightest for the latter. Russo was a cold-hearted prick of a vampire. From the moment they’d begun working together, Xander had hated him. He was the reason Xander had come up with this entire idea in the first place. Oust the race, profit from their existence, and eventually wipe their dirty fucking beings from the planet.

They shouldn’t be here.

They needed to go.

And he was going to be the human who made it happen. In the background, while becoming disgustingly rich.

If there was one thing he could rely on, it was humans going to war against an enemy they didn’t trust. Which was basically everything these days. It was easy to manufacture mistrust if it didn’t already exist. A few good social media posts and a check slipped into a handful of journalists’ hands, then boom!

So yeah, humans were good little soldiers.

“So you want to expand the US operation?” Xander asked.

“Yes, but in different coasts. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket,” Diego said. “And let’s make it somewhere sunny.”

They both laughed.

However, that wouldn’t protect them. The Moretti pockets went very deep; their reach even further. They had been on this earth for thousands of years and had strong relationships with powerful and influential people. Even if those people hadn’t known the royals were vampires.

“Alright, we’ll put it to a vote,” Xander replied, nodding. “I’ll need to head back to the US in a few weeks. We begin real-world testing soon.”

Diego shook his head in mock disbelief.

“Who would have guessed this. Incredible,” he said. “Will you take one? Eventually?”

Xander raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Heavens, no. I wouldn’t take any of our drugs if my life depended on it. Do you have any idea the crap we put in those things? It’ll kill you.” Xander let out a laugh.

The president shook his head again, laughing along with him. “So fucked up, Tomassi.”

He shrugged. “ Sì , but that’s the world we live in, and why I chose to be a creator of pharmaceuticals, not a consumer of them. But my security team will be mandated to have them. I want powerful people around me.”

So, okay, there wasn’t really a red or blue pill.

There would be a series of injections one took over a period of time to enhance their body. If their experiments worked, and it looked like they would, the treatments would make a human body, along with its senses, much stronger. Around fifty times stronger than the average human being. What they hadn’t been able to replicate was the telepathy.

It had taken them months to get that information out of their prime test subject. He had been strong and stubborn. Not so much now.

A knock at the door interrupted them.

“Come in,” Diego called out.

“Your other guests are in the boardroom, signore ,” the woman informed as she placed two cappuccinos in front of them.

Better late than never, Xander thought, giving the lady a small smile. She blushed in response, and he eyed her ass as she walked out of the room.

“She’s an excellent secretary. You can’t fuck that one,” Diego warned, lifting his cup to his lips.

Damn shame.

“Let’s do this.” Xander laughed, standing and collecting his coffee. “We need to finalize our next steps then discuss a strategy to roll this out.”

The president eyed him. “The next step being?”

“Human experiments,” he said. “We need to know the protocol works.”

Wasn’t that obvious?