Lake City

Alpha Leo Volkov’s POV

“LEO GET IN HERE,” Adrienne sent to me. “Sharkbait used the under duress code.”

“Coming.” I was out in the garage getting the snowmobiles ready for the expected snowfall tonight. Running back into the house, I headed for the office while I listened in over the link.

Vicki was talking. “I need Monique Robinson’s address.” Monique Robinson? She was the Omega who Sharkbait’s first mate raped and impregnated. Adrienne had her in hiding, as her son was a Mantled Alpha with no Pack, just like Sharkbait had been when I found her. We were hiding her with a retired couple from our Pack, far enough away that anyone looking wouldn’t find them.

“Why?”

“You know I want to make sure my Pack has the opportunity to find their mates, but I realized Monique would never be able to attend a scratch ’n sniff while in hiding. I’d like to send her a formal invitation to come down here for a private visit, where I could bring my unmated males to meet her. I’m sure you’re moving her periodically for safety, so why not thousands of miles away? Nicholas and I will make sure she’s safe here.” That was suspicious as well; if enemies had her name in the TSA database, they’d know where she was going. Avoiding commercial flights and anywhere else required to show identification was one of the first rules of staying hidden.

I thought quickly before sending a mental suggestion to my mate. “The Temples are in Arizona for another week, but Monique and Tyler stayed behind. Set a trap at their house,” I sent to Adrienne as I sent out an alert on my phone to all Pack Warriors to gear up and assemble immediately at Volkov Construction in Red Wing.

“That could work,” Adrienne said. She rattled off an address. “She’s staying with Paul and Lois Temple down in Lake City.” Paul and Lois were retired teachers from the Miesville Pack who lived in a condo overlooking Lake Pepin.

“Thanks, I’ll get in touch with them as soon as possible. Bye, Alpha.”

“What the hell is going on,” I asked my mate as she sat back in her chair.

“She used the under duress code again at the end to make sure we picked up on it,” Adrienne said. “Someone has her or is blackmailing her to get Monique’s location.”

“Timothy,” I said as I unlocked the gun safe behind my desk. “He keeps doubling down on stupid.”

“I’ll work the phones, and you take down whoever they send to get him.” She was already dialing a number. “Who knows who he’s in with now? It could be werewolves, humans, or vampires.”

Taking out my Smith and Wesson M&P40, I threaded on a silencer since we’d be working in town. I pulled on a shoulder holster and slid the long pistol in place, then grabbed an extra two magazines of Silvertips and placed them in the holders on the right side. The bullets were for werewolf use; we started with normal hollowpoints and dripped a small amount of molten silver into each. They’d work fine on humans, too. Vampires were a whole other thing. I wrapped a sheath with a silver-coated dagger on my right calf and hooked a Taser on my right hip.

I wanted at least one alive.

“I’ll call you when we are in place.”

“Be safe,” Adrienne told me as she kissed me goodbye.

I called Tony and Lois Blackman in Frontenac as I was driving to work; they were a young warrior couple who joined the Pack three years ago. They lived closest to Lake City, so I sent them to watch the Temple’s townhouse. “Use the ice house, bring rifles, and stay out of sight,” I told them. Our Pack owned a twenty-five-foot Ice Castle trailer that sat a few hundred yards from their townhouse on Lake Pepin. It could sleep six beer-drinking adults in RV comfort, plus it was a fun place to take the kids during the day.

It took another twenty minutes after I got to Volkov Construction for everyone else to arrive. While I was waiting, I’d called Monique to fill her in on the threat. “I don’t know where the threat is coming from or how long until they arrive, but they want Tyler dead,” I told her. “I need the two of you in the panic box, and don’t come out until I give the all-clear.”

“Shouldn’t we leave?”

“No, we need your scent, and only your scents there, or we’ll spook them. They won’t get to you before we can follow them in and take them down. I can’t have a gunfight out in public, Monique. You’ll have to be the bait.”

“I understand. I’ll grab a few things and get Tyler inside.”

“Stay safe and quiet.” I hung up and thought about what I was doing. I was confident they would be safe during the attack as long as they stayed in the box. After moving the two into the Blackman’s basement bedrooms, I’d installed a ‘tornado shelter’ for them. The steel box was the foundation for her bed, bolted to the concrete floor, and the top raised on hydraulic assists to access the shelter. It locked in three places from inside, and the inch-thick plating was bulletproof and bomb-resistant. She kept sleeping bags, emergency supplies, and battery-powered lighting inside.

I used a satellite overview of the area to give out assignments. I had a dozen men, split into six teams. Three teams would cover the parking lot and street, while two teams covered each side’s shoreline. The Blackman’s were responsible for the frozen lake. “Teams one and two will be here, across 61 from Central Point Road at the trailer park where we can cover the entrance. Three and Four, you park at least six houses down on the dead-end road. Teams One and Three go to the house after the attackers are inside. Team Three stays upstairs while One goes downstairs. Team Two is responsible for any support vehicles or trail vehicles. Teams Four and Five, you approach from the lake, each entering through a patio door using the spare keys.” The twin-homes lined the shore where it jutted east into the lake just north of the city, so the street and garage were on the north side and the lake to the south. “Team Five will be here, in Hok-Si-La park on the south loop. You won’t be able to see the house, but be ready to go wolf and chase down any that try to flee north through the woods. Team Six is in the ice house.

The wind is out of the northwest, so we have to watch our placement,” I told the men. “Get into place. Keep one alive if you can, but protect each other as a first priority.”

It was just above zero as we passed lunchtime, so the cars had to stay running. By two, I started rotating people around so vehicles could get gas, food, and use the bathroom, plus we could change locations to avoid suspicion. We were about to get food when I got a text message from Adrienne. She was calling an emergency teleconference.

I used my phone to get on. I saw Alpha Steven and Luna Carolyn, Adrienne, Master Cyprian, and Chairman Wolfe. As soon as Nicholas joined, and ONLY Nicholas, my heart dropped. “Nicholas! Is Vicki safe?”

“She is now,” he said. He turned his phone to show her face; they were in a car, and she was asleep with her head on his lap. “Timothy and Traci showed up in Sydney along with Caroline from Los Angeles and her friends.”

Shit. Master Caroline was the Vampire Master of Los Angeles! She was powerful and dangerous and not necessarily an ally.

Cyprian’s face showed a brief bit of shock before he regained control. “How is Caroline now?”

“Caroline and her friends are no longer a concern of mine, nor are Timothy and Traci. I do need to find a long-term babysitter for Todd. Perhaps you know a good family?” He was saying things that would be innocent if overheard, but I was relieved. Vicki and Nicholas were safe, the bad guys were dead, and a baby needed to find a home with its relatives.

“I’ll see what I can come up with,” Adrienne said.

“Cyprian, fair warning. Things will get heated, and it will all be in public with our friends in Los Angeles. New leadership is needed quickly, so we need you to step in. Austin, Frank, and Paul will be sitting down with David, Elsa, and Andrew to discuss what happened. Uncle Samuel will be all over this.”

“I understand and will handle my end.”

“You have maybe three or four hours before it all blows up, so take advantage of the time,” he said evenly. “I have to go. I’ll call when we’re back to our room.”

“Thank you, Nicholas. Keep our girl safe.”

“You know I will, Unky Leo.” He exited the conference, quickly followed by Cyprian.

“Any change where you are, Leo?”

“Still quiet. I’ll call you later.” With that, I exited the conference and started thinking back to the names he’d used. Caroline and her Coven were dead, and they’d been working with Timothy and Traci to take down Alessandro and Vicki. They must have forced Vicki to give up Monique’s location before being rescued.

Cyprian was going to have a mess on his hands. The Los Angeles Coven was one of the richest and most influential, and now it was gone.

The other names made no sense until you got to the abbreviations. AFP stood for the Australian Federal Police, and DEA was the Drug Enforcement Agency. Uncle Sam? Nicholas meant they were making it look drug-related, so he warned Cyprian about potential investigations into Caroline’s activities. I was glad I didn’t have to clean THAT mess up.

More information came through as we maintained our vigil. Monique asked if she could relax a little since it had been hours already; I agreed, provided she kept the entrance open and didn’t leave the room.

I kept an eye on the Australian news websites, and it was late afternoon when the first headlines started. “CARTEL WAR COMES TO SYDNEY,” one headline blared. There was little concrete information for a few hours, just the initial reports of decapitated bodies found stacked like cordwood in Bradley’s Head Park, plus an unidentified baby found in a running SUV nearby. A little later, ‘confidential sources’ confirmed two of the bodies were Australian Federal Police agents, and some of the bodies were Americans. “In what appears to be a drug deal gone bad, the bodies of six men and three women were found in Bradley’s Head Park on Sydney’s north harbor this morning. Two of the men were members of the Australian Federal Police, while several other victims had United States passports. Police recovered a large amount of cash at the scene near one of the victims, and drug dogs found cocaine residue in the car. The child, a months-old boy, was taken to the hospital as a precaution. More updates as they become available.”

Yep, Cyprian had a mess on his hands.

It was five-eighteen in the afternoon and just after sunset when I called the alert. A car pulled into the drive, dropping off two males a few houses short of the townhouse, then parked across the street. “CODE RED Coming in from the front, four men, one vehicle,” I sent to the team. “Monique, get safe. Four and five, start walking towards the house.”

“In and locked,” Monique sent back a few seconds later.

I pulled out of my parking area and crossed the road. I could see the men kick the door down, and the four went inside with guns drawn. “Team Three, go,” I said. We both arrived in front of the house at the same time. The four of us leaped out and ran for the broken door, smelling the werewolves preceding us. “Four, Five, GO!”

Eight men entered the home from both sides, leaving the attackers had no chance. I put two into the chest of a man in the living room, while my partner took out one in the kitchen. I could hear the suppressed shots from downstairs, followed by the crashes of furniture breaking. My partner and I went down the stairs cautiously, while the other two checked the rest of the floor. “UPSTAIRS CLEAR, TWO DOWN,” Team Three said.

“DOWNSTAIRS CLEAR, ONE DOWN, ONE INJURED,” Team Four reported.

“Stabilize him and tie him down.” I entered the bedroom to find a young woman lying on the floor as one of my men applied a battle dressing to the gunshot wound on her thigh. The leg was lying crooked, so the bullet had broken her femur. “Back one of the cars into the garage and start loading bodies and cleaning up,” I told the men.

I started a video camera for the interrogation. The prisoner didn’t look at me or beg for mercy. Instead, she was crying over the man with a bullet through his temple. “Your mate?” She nodded her head. “If you cooperate, I’ll make your end clean and painless. You got shot with silver, so you know what that means.” Her eyes got wide; silver poisoning was a bad death. “What Pack are you with?”

“We aren’t,” she said. “We were Stillwater until the Alpha died, and Alpha Ivan made us rogue.” The previous Stillwater Alpha was into some bad stuff, and Ivan cleaned house.

“Who told you to kill him and why?”

“Timothy Lords,” she said through gritted teeth. “He promised us money and a spot in his Pack in Australia.”

“Timothy died a few hours ago,” I said. “Who should I contact about your bodies?”

She gave me the name of a relative, then looked away. I put a round into her head, ending her suffering. A few minutes later, the bodies were gone, and I told Monique to open the safe space. “Alpha!”

Tyler reached for me, and I picked him up and held him to my chest. “Don’t look around, Chum, we’re going to my house.”

“I can see the sharks?” He looked up at me with wide eyes; they had only been to my home twice while in hiding.

“Of course you can, Tyler. The sharks miss you.”