3. Chance
Chance
“The obvious snag we’re coming up against is our inability to leave our mates behind,” Ambrose said, scratching at his jawline. “We have enough Vampires to hit both properties at once.”
“We’ve found success in the past by flying the mates out with our operators,” Dalton Cavendish said. “It doesn’t work on long missions, obviously, but this will be quick work.”
Rosemary’s godfather had shown up sometime while I’d been in with my mate.
While I was glad that he was there, I still had to fight back the urge to force him back out of our house.
Logically, I knew I could trust him. Even if he hadn’t gone with us to take care of the Vampire generals that had been selling information to the humans, our family had saved his, and he owed us.
Still, having a non-family member Vampire in the house while my mate recuperated from a nearly fatal wound was making my instincts scream.
“Proximity,” Sven said with a nod.
“They don’t know we’re coming,” Dalton mused. “If we leave pilots on the planes as security, they could leave if everything went to hell.”
“Which pilots?” Danny asked.
“Not you,” his mate said firmly. “We’re not staying on a plane. Nice try.”
“It wouldn’t make sense to leave you two on a plane,” my father said gruffly. “Instead of leaving one operator and one non-combatant.”
“Then who?” I asked. While I understood the premise and could see the benefits of taking our mates with us to the landing strip but no further, the idea of leaving Rena with a Vampire I didn’t know set off all kinds of alarm bells in my head.
I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to do it.
“Four out of five Strike operators are fully qualified to fly,” Dalton said, glancing around the table. “So we decide who would be the least helpful in the field.”
“And leave our mates with them,” Beau said flatly. “No.”
“Then we choose which we’d be most comfortable with,” Dalton conceded. “Choose the best we have.”
“They’re all good,” Rosemary added. “I’ve worked with nearly everyone at this point.”
“I know that you’re comfortable with this situation,” Ambrose said diplomatically. “But understand that none of us is willing to leave our mates with a Vampire we barely know. We’ve gone down that road before.”
I clenched my fists below the table where no one could see them.
We’d all agreed to help out a teammate of our baby brother when he came to us with a sob story of how his mate had been kidnapped.
For me, if I’d known that Zeke were alive, he would’ve been furious if we didn’t help.
It was one of the few things that I could still do for the little shit.
We hadn’t known that his teammate was a red herring. He’d gotten us out of the house so that the organization could attack our home while it was unprotected.
Thankfully, we hadn’t left the women alone. Unfortunately, the Vampires guarding the house hadn’t been successful in keeping the women safe. Uncle Sven had nearly been beheaded. Ambrose’s mate, Lucy, had been severely injured, and so had my mother.
The thought of Rena being stuck in the house, or on a plane, while it was attacked by armed assailants? It was enough to make my heart pound.
I hadn’t been afraid of anything in so long that it was hard to remember when that feeling had disappeared…until that morning when I’d found my mate unconscious in her car.
Now, fear seemed to dog every breath I took.
Is this how my brothers felt all the time? Because if so, that sucked, and I was going to be nicer to them.
“You’ll all talk this to death with no real solutions,” my mother said in exasperation. “Look at it this way. Who would you be comfortable with staying with the planes?”
“Josiah and Matthias,” I said, the idea slapping me in the face.
“I’d feel better with them at our backs,” Danny mused. “But if I had to choose?—”
“You don’t get a vote,” I cut him off. “Rosemary isn’t staying with the plane. Ambrose? Beau?”
“That works,” Beau agreed.
“You think they’ll agree to that?” Ambrose asked, turning to Mordecai.
“They’ll go where they’re needed,” he confirmed.
“I’m going to start dinner,” my mom announced, getting up from her seat. “Anyone here is invited to stay.”
“Thank you,” Rosemary’s dad, Gary, replied. He’d been awfully quiet.
“Thoughts?” I asked, catching his eye.
“It’s a solid strategy,” he said slowly. “And you can be sure that with Strike’s infrastructure, you’ll be able to coordinate timing well between the two targets.”
“But?”
He smiled ruefully. “But I’m stuck in this fucking chair while my daughter and her mate are in the thick of it.”
“Pop a pain pill and get your ass up,” I countered.
Gary let out a huff and flipped me off. We both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Gary had struggled with mobility for years, but after the attack on the Cavendish residence and his race through the woods to provide backup to his daughter, the chance of him ever operating again was zero.
The man had a mind like a steel trap and was excellent at logistics and seeing things from angles that others didn’t think of, but he’d never go into the field again.
“When do you think we could have everything in place?” I asked.
No one ever thought about the logistics of moving so many bodies to one place in a coordinated mission. Everything down to refueling the planes needed to be seen to, double and triple-checked. The list of preparations would fill a novel.
First, we needed some on-the-ground reconnaissance.
“Rosemary and I will leave in the morning,” Danny said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Dalton, who are you sending?”
“Mitchell and my son, Ian, will take the residential property,” Dalton replied, leaning forward on his elbows. “The property is large, and it’ll take quite a bit of legwork to get close to the house. They’re the best I have at scouting. No one will know they’re there.”
“Hey,” Rosemary complained.
“They’re the best I have outside Rosemary,” Dalton corrected, like he was used to her complaint. “Who will be checking out the warehouse with her mate.”
“Better,” she said happily, leaning into Danny.
“Leaving tomorrow?” Ambrose asked.
“They left about an hour ago,” Dalton replied. “As soon as I knew one of my teams was going to the residence.”
“Jumping the gun a little,” I chided.
“It’ll be better to make their way inward while it’s dark,” he replied unapologetically. “They’ll be in place before the house wakes up in the morning.”
“Can we be ready to go tomorrow when we get the high sign?” Ambrose asked. “I don’t want to walk in unprepared, but I also don’t want to wait too long and get fucked.”
“We haven’t paused operations,” Dalton replied. “And our resources are yours. We could leave in an hour if we needed to.”
“One small problem,” I said, crossing my arms. “My mate is currently recuperating from a major car accident. I don’t think she’ll be out of bed, much less able to fly.”
There was no fucking way I’d leave her behind, but the thought of my brothers meeting the threat without me made cold sweat bead on the back of my neck. I had never felt so conflicted in my life.
“I can check on her in the morning,” Aunt Alice offered. “She’ll be sore, but I don’t think that any of her injuries preclude her from flying. Fighting, yes. Flying in a private jet, no.”
“Okay,” I agreed. It didn’t seem possible that she’d actually be able to go anywhere twenty-four hours after the accident, but I wasn’t a doctor. What the hell did I know?
“Let’s prepare to be in the air tomorrow night by eight,” Dalton said. He looked at Danny. “Can you get the intel we need and check in before that?”
“If we can’t, we’ll let you know.”
Dalton got to his feet and looked at my father. “I’ll call you to iron out all the details in the morning.”
Dad nodded and shook his hand.
I stayed in my seat as Rosemary walked Dalton and her father outside.
Once the front door had swung mostly shut, I sighed and scrubbed my hands through my hair.
I’d been working toward this since my baby brother was murdered.
I couldn’t even count the hours that I’d spent on my computers, tracing each transaction record Zeke had left for us on a zip drive, trying to find any clue as to how we’d locate the man they called Hermann.
Just that morning, I’d finally found the thread I’d needed to pull and followed it to the end.
Two properties owned by an entity that was funneling most of the money in and out.
It had to be him. We didn’t know if Hermann was a first name, a last name, or an alias.
We just knew that he’d been the contact for the Vampires who’d sold us out, and from what they’d said, the head of operations.
He wasn’t financing shit, but he was controlling all of it.
“Finally,” Beau said. “I can see a fucking end to this.”
“Timing could be better,” I added dryly, glancing toward the room where Reese and Rena were.
“If Alice says Rena can make the trip, she can make the trip.”
“Yeah, your mate is immortal,” I countered. “You don’t get an opinion.”
“Complete the bond,” Beau said easily.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. If I just put pressure on the wound while I rail her, it should work out okay,” I shot back sarcastically.
“Happ, that’s enough,” my father scolded me. He looked at Beau. “Drop it.”
“If I didn’t think it was safe, I’d tell you to stay here with Sven and me,” Alice said quietly, patting my back. For the first time in my life, the gesture didn’t comfort me. If anything, it made me uncomfortable.
“This needs to end,” I replied, getting to my feet. “After we get this shit finished tomorrow night, we’re taking care of Baudelaire.”
“I’ll find him,” Sven said, his booming voice subdued. “Got some time on my hands.”
“Don’t even start with me,” Alice bitched, pointing at her mate. “You had a partial decapitation and slept for weeks. You can sit this one out.”
“Woman, I didn’t say a word.”
“We all knew what you meant about time on your hands,” she argued.