Shocked gasps came from Webb, Tripp, and me.
Webb placed his blood on the table, the sound exploding in the room. His anger was unmistakable as his skin turned ten shades of red. “Fuck me sideways. In all my years of knowing Victor, no one could best him in a fight or play him. How did this happen? I know he was AWOL. We speculated that he probably took off to find his grandson Matthew.”
If I were to write Victor Costner’s epitaph, it would read: A warrior, an expert swordsman, a great father, and a loving grandfather.
I wasn’t a fan of Victor, but I respected the hell out of the vampire.
My father finished off his blood and tossed the empty container in the trash can by the door. Then he padded across the carpeted floor to the window, balling his hands into fists, seemingly ready to punch a hole through the glass. He’d known Victor for over a hundred years. While they’d butted heads many times, they admired each other.
The four of us were quiet as we eyed one another, giving my old man time to ease his anger and heartache as we took our seats.
“Victor usually wasn’t stupid,” my dad finally said. “I’m not sure I can break this news to Alia. She just lost her son and now her father.”
A pressure cooker of tension built to a point I was sure would blow us out of the room or through the window if my father couldn’t tame his fury. The empty chairs were shaking, and once again, the lights overhead flickered.
Now I knew why the electricity had blinked on and off earlier. My father must’ve been the source when he opened that box.
Dane placed his phone on the table and cracked his knuckles. “The note from Emery inside the box states that more heads will be sent if his brother and Carly aren’t released. I’m afraid that if Ross is Emery’s prisoner, he might be next.”
I sipped on my blood. “Adam doesn’t want Carly herself. He knows she’s not human anymore. She has something he wants.”
“Patrick’s files,” Webb announced. “After Rianne injected Carly, she’d had enough. She transferred all Patrick’s data and her own to a thumb drive, then wiped every piece of data from Intech’s servers. She went as far as having her tech assistant load a virus into the computer system.”
My eyebrows rose. “She and Rianne hated each other. But why would she ditch Adam? They were tight.”
My dad came over and gripped the back of the leather chair beside Webb. “Carly’s relationship with Adam declined severely when he brought Roman, Harriet, Noah, and Rianne on board. After she helped us rescue Layla from Intech’s West Virginia facility, Adam hit the roof. Carly knew her days were numbered.”
“I always knew I could coax her into joining our team,” I mumbled.
“She’s not on our team.” Webb’s tone was matter-of-fact. “And given her condition, I doubt she will ever be. But I believe she’s trying to make amends.”
“Do we know how Adam is making the serum if he doesn’t have either Carly’s recipe or Patrick’s?” Tripp asked.
My dad finally folded his big body into the chair. “In her haste to leave the West Virginia facility, she left a notebook behind. It only contained the latest experiment data that she was working on. Nothing more.”
Dane, who was across from my father, said, “None of this has anything to do with a plan to take out Adam Emery or brokering a deal with him so we don’t have more heads showing up. If he wants Carly or the data and his brother, then give it to him in exchange for Ross. Steven, we need to act now. If we don’t, your team and my shifters will be next.”
Calm, cool, and collected, my father stared at Dane as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. “You want me to give our enemy data that will help him build an army of supernatural creatures? I won’t do that.”
“Then give him his fucking brother!” Dane all but shouted, his canines gleaming from beneath his upper lip.
“If he has Ross, what’s to say he hasn’t already killed him?” Webb asked. “Then we trade Fred Emery for nothing.”
“But we won’t know that until we make the deal,” Dane said. “At least see if Adam will bite. I would like hard confirmation that Ross is his prisoner. Plus, if you open up talks, it might buy us time to find the fucker before he chops off more heads.”
“He has a point,” I said. “Set up a face-to-face meeting with him, Pops. We can draw him out.”
Tripp and Webb were nodding in agreement as well.
A muscle jumped in my father’s jaw. “It’s a hard no on an in-person meeting. It’s too risky. But it wouldn’t hurt to talk to Adam by phone. So far we’ve just exchanged emails.” He sighed. “Every move we make needs to be well-thought-out. We cannot have an all-out war, especially if Draven Murphy and his clan are involved with Adam. We can’t lose sight that we’re under the human microscope either.”
The only sound in the room was the rain lashing against the windows.
As I listened, something occurred to me. “Have any of you thought about why Adam is threatening us to secure Fred’s release all of a sudden? Think about it. He made a plea at his news conference for Fred, sure. But he only did that as an afterthought. Adam’s lead-in was all about him and bragging about his new prototype program. Also, he had Matthew Costner then. He could’ve made the deal to exchange Matthew for Fred, and he didn’t.”
“Interesting observation, son,” my father said. “Then what does Fred have that Adam wants?”
“What if Fred also has Patrick’s files?” Tripp asked. “That’s the only thing that makes sense since Adam hasn’t shown any love for his brother until now.”
