CHAPTER FIVE

O liver walked down the hallway and slowed when he saw Ari step out of his quarters.

“Hey.”

“Oli,” Ari replied.

“How is she?” Oli asked, referring to the newest vampire on the block. Sage.

Ari nodded and a small smile formed on his lips. “Good. I’m forgiven.”

Oliver slapped him on the back. “I’m happy. For you and Sage. So, will y’all be joining us tonight?”

Ari began to walk off. “Later. Continue with the plan and I’ll drop by in a few hours.”

Oliver nodded and carried on down to the Operations Office where he knew the team were already working away. He pressed his thumb on the panel and the door opened to a bunch of noise.

“No, fuck, go back,” Jason said, punching his finger on the screen. He was one of the senior assassins.

Oliver shut the door and plunged his hands in his pockets, taking in the scene around him. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve got some footage of Callan,” Jason said.

“No, we fucking haven’t. It’s just some homeless guy.” Darren, the head tech, spoke. “We don’t even know what he looks like. Not really.”

Sage had helped them do a rough sketch the night before she’d gone in, but at that point, she’d only seen Callan once, so it was useless as fuck.

Jason was obsessed with finding the guy.

The Moretti’s had held back on putting anything out on VampNet because the last thing anyone wanted was an entire population of vampires freaking out about humans being able to overpower them.

While it appeared they could, Ari and his team didn’t yet know how.

It was a fine line between warning people and scaring them.

Scared people did stupid things.

“Visual aside, what drew your attention?” he asked Jason as the door opened behind him.

In walked three large vampires: Ben, now a senior lieutenant commander—or SLC—Craig, commander, and Brayden Moretti, captain of the royal army. Brayden was also the Moretti prince. His family was collaborating with The Institute in bringing down the pharmaceutical company who had kidnapped and experimented on vampires.

They all did the head-tilt-hello thing, then found sitting and leaning places.

“No, Ari?” Brayden asked.

“He’ll join us in a few hours. He’s with Sage.”

“No details, thanks,” Craig said. “I’m back on rations.”

“It’s been six hours,” Brayden said, rolling his eyes.

It was the first time in three weeks they were grouping again after the Moretti’s had returned to the royal castle in Maine. The three senior vampires had arrived back overnight.

“That’s three hundred and sixty minutes, my friend,” Craig replied, shrugging and putting his feet up on a spare chair.

Oliver grinned at Ben, who was shaking his head.

“Dude, you wait. I give you twenty-four hours before you’re having video sex with Anna.” Craig pointed at him.

“Who said I haven’t already?” Ben shrugged.

Darren snorted.

“What’s up, Jace?” Ben asked, picking up on the guy’s angst. He’d only recently resigned from the head assassin position, so it didn’t surprise Oliver his friend was still in tune with the team.

“We were just getting to that,” Oliver said.

“Sorry, you’re in charge.” Ben waved his hand.

“Okay, if you two are finished kissing and shit, can we get focused?” Craig asked, leaning back in his chair.

“Feeling left out?” Ben asked, and landed on his ass when Craig kicked the chair out from under him.

Brayden grinned and gave Oli a nod—a clear direction to carry on and ignore the two idiots.

“Play the footage again, Darren,” Oliver instructed. “Jason thinks this might be Callan, but I’ve not seen the video yet.”

Craig and Ben suddenly became all business and leaned forward. The video played, and they all watched as a large man climbed out of the water and up the embankment of Lake Washington near Chism Beach Park.

“I mean, it might be fifty degrees out there right now, but it’s hardly swimming weather. Even for a vampire.” Jason shrugged.

“Could be a homeless guy,” Craig said.

“Or it’s Callan,” Jason said.

“It’s been two weeks. He’s probably miles away by now,” Brayden said.

“Or he could be hiding nearby... look, fuck, I don’t know. I just want to find the poor bastard.” Jason shook his head.

Craig glanced at Oliver, and he realized the commander had picked up on Jason’s stress. He appreciated the senior vampire had directed his concern to Oli as head assassin.

What had happened to those vampires was weighing heavily on all of them. It was their job as enforcers to stop this. The situation with Callan was even harder. The guy had been held prisoner for over six months, from what they’d been able to ascertain.

He made his way around the room and slapped Jason on the back.

“We may or may not find him.” Oliver sat at the end of the table. “We have no idea what condition he was in after he left Sage. He was strong enough to get them both out and then, depending on what the fuckers did to him, he may have made it or not.”

The silence in the room was thick.

“Mother fuckers,” Craig muttered.

“Oliver is right,” Brayden finally said. He’d been wondering if the prince would speak up on the topic. “I’ll speak to the king again about whether we put anything on VampNet , but we still think the risk high, versus the chance of us gaining anything.”

The last thing they wanted to do was panic the entire race with this information. Less was more sometimes, and they had to weigh the pros against the cons.

“Bri said without a surname or a decent photo, it’s unlikely anyone will engage with a post,” Craig said, referring to his mate, Brianna, who was now leading communications and public relations for the Moretti royal family.

“She’s right. The noise online when the vampires started going missing a few months ago was enough to rattle people’s cages. We really have nothing to go on. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Darren said.

Oliver stared at the screen, which played the same reel on repeat. Darren was right. They were throwing darts in the dark right now.

Travis, the team manager, walked in munching on an apple. “What’s up?”

“When do Alex, Logan and Elijah return?” Oliver asked.

The other senior assassins were out on jobs. Ari had given the go-ahead to pick up other client work while they were regrouping after they had successfully—or unsuccessfully, depending on how you looked at it—freed Callan from BioZen.

“Tomorrow. Next day at the latest.” Travis plonked down on a seat.

Oliver glanced at the prince and quickly at Craig. It might be his show while Ari was otherwise detained, but Brayden was the most senior person present, and this was a joint effort. Plus, no matter how often they’d seen them recently, the damn prince was alpha as fuck and pretty intimidating for any vampire no matter how badass.

“How about we go through the intel we got while Sage was inside BioZen, then we can divide and conquer,” Oliver said.

“Do it,” Craig agreed, as Brayden nodded.

“Why don’t I head out to Chism Beach and take a look around? See what I find? Just so we can be sure,” Ben offered.

Oliver glanced at Jason, then nodded.

“Okay. The three of us will go after this.” Oliver nodded at Darren. “Start from the top.”

“Oh, joy,” the tech manager said.