Chapter 64

“Anything else of importance?” Jo asked Hattie, so thankful they had such a talented computer tech person at their disposal.
“I did find something else I think is critical and already forwarded it on to Emma. So, there’s a lot of information about the scandium compounds, how they’re made, how many bullets they’ve produced, and where they’re being stored.”
“How many bullets do you think they have left?” Jo asked, hoping the answer was beneficial to them.
“The last email I saw mentioning them was dated before the last two attacks, so it’s hard to say for sure, especially since we have no idea how many they are able to make at the one facility that is actually processing the scandium, though it doesn’t sound like it’s a quick process. At the time of the last email, they said they had about a thousand processed already. It does seem to be a pretty difficult process that is time consuming. I got the impression that they were not expecting us, that they were making the bullets for future attacks, not because they thought that we were coming here, and they’d need to defend themselves but because they had planned on using them from some sort of infiltration and mass attack on us.”
Jo absorbed that information. It made sense. If her dad hadn’t been in Russia and happened to see Holland, they would’ve never come to this continent, let alone this particular part of Russia where the bullets happened to be under production. “Thanks a lot, Hattie. It sounds like you’ve gotten a lot of great information. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. I still have several hundred files to look through, so it’s possible I’ll come up with more to tell you, but that’s the important info so far.”
“Do you need other team members to help you?” Jo offered.
“No, I don’t think so,” the tech guru said, obviously wanting to look by herself. “If Emma were here, or Christian, I’d appreciate their help, but I wouldn’t trust anyone else to know what they’re looking for. Even scanning emails isn’t that simple because of the encoded information each of them contains. It would be possible for them to miss something without even realizing it.”
All of that made sense to Jo. Knowing very little about technology herself, she wouldn’t feel comfortable doing anything other than reading through emails, and even then, since most of them were not in English, she would be afraid she’d miss something. “Sounds good. If you change your mind, let me know.”
“I will. Thanks, Jo.”
Jo disconnected the IAC and returned her attention to the men on the couch. “All right. There’s information from the laptop that we found that indicates that the location you spoke of in Bulgaria might be the right one. Is it near Belogradchik?”
“Yes,” Lucas said, his eyes widening as he realized the information from the laptop matched up with his own findings. “It’s within fifty kilometers, anyway.”
“That seems pretty close to me,” Jo said, not even knowing for certain how big of a country Bulgaria was. “So… what would you like to do?”
“Well, I believe we should take a very small team of your best people to Belogradchik. I will have a small force there as well. We need to scope out the location, and then, if we determine she is there, we can bring in larger forces and attack. It is my understanding that you hope to take her hostage, not destroy her, is that correct?”
Jo hesitated. That was her order, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do. Still, she had to remember that her father had given her specific directions to bring Holland in for interrogation to see if they could find out information about what had happened to her mother. However, up until recently, Jo hadn’t thought there was even the slightest possibility that her Mom was still alive, so there would be no point in bringing Holland in. She would’ve been more apt to finishing what her mother and Aunt Cassidy started over twenty-five years ago when they thought that they had killed the Vampire, but apparently, they had not. Rather than getting into all of that with the Souled Vampires sitting in front of her, one she barely knew, the other she had only met one other time and didn’t get good vibes from, she said, “Those are our orders.”
Lucas smirked at her. She could see why Eliza had fallen for him, despite the fact that he was created to be her sworn enemy. He was an attractive dude. “All right, that makes sense to me,” he said. “So… who do you think you want to bring with you?”
Those types of questions always threw her for a loop. “Uh… I don’t know. How many people do you think I should bring?”
“I would say four or five tops, including you. While you’re gone, there is still plenty for your team to do here, isn’t there?”
She nodded. With all of the mines still left to explore, she could keep the rest of her team busy for quite some time. “Will Eliza be with us?”
“No,” Lucas said, resoundingly. “She will be helping, but not with this part of the operation.”
That was probably for the best. “I definitely need my A team,” she said. “Would it be possible for me to give it some thought and get back to you? When did you want to go?”
Rather than answering her, Lucas turned to Adrian and the two of them had a quick discussion in Russian. Jo couldn’t keep up, even with her IAC doing its best to try and translate. When he returned his gaze to her, he said, “We think we should move quickly before she moves on. We would like to leave here within the hour.”
“An hour….” Jo shook her head. “All right. Give me a few moments.”
“Would you like for us to leave you alone?” Lucas asked.
“No,” she said quickly, not wanting to be rude. She’d been able to tune them out while she was thinking. She tipped her head out and considered each member of her team, not just in contemplation of what they could bring to the task she needed to accomplish but also in regards to how the team she’d be leaving behind would fare.
In the end, she thought she knew what she needed to do until she got an IAC message from Elliott. “We are about ten minutes out from your hotel, Lil Jo. You awake?”
His presence changed what she was about to tell Lucas because that meant there were other teammates that she’d have to help out Mikali and Mila, who she planned to leave in charge while she was gone. When she returned her attention to Lucas, she asked, “Can I have six?”
Again, he looked at Adrian and the other Souled reluctantly nodded. “All right. That will work.”
“Good,” she said. “It’ll be me, Zane, Cass, Brandon, Scott--and Elliott.”
At the last name, Lucas’s eyebrows arched, and then he chuckled. “We’re pretty lucky Eliza is not with us, aren’t we?”
Jo smiled at him, knowing there was bad blood between her uncle and Lucas’s wife. “Yep--that’s why I asked.”
“All right then. Glad you were able to decide so quickly. Do you know who you will leave in charge while you are away?”
“I do. Mikali and Mila can handle it.”
“Very good.” Lucas stood and shook her hand. Adrian bowed his head but did not offer his hand, so she didn’t extend hers either. “We will be downstairs in the bar when you are ready to go. Hopefully, before 12:30?”
Jo looked at the time. That gave them about forty-five minutes. She should be able to get the people she’d named ready to go by then. “Sounds good.”
Jo walked them to the door. As they were about to exit, Adrian said something else in Russian, something else Jo didn’t understand, except for the last word. Hearing it made her blood run cold.
“Oh, yeah!” Lucas said, nodding at him. He turned to Jo. “We were just wondering… what in the world are you doing with John Ryker?”
“Ryker?” she repeated. “How do you know him?”
Lucas shrugged. “It is a long story. When we ran into him in the other room, we were shocked. He would only tell us he is being held against his will, and unless we were here to release him, we could go fuck ourselves.”
“It’s also a long story how we came to be here, too. But… we found him with a load of humans and Vampires, being taken somewhere to be turned into reserve de sange.”
Lucas’s eyebrows raised. “Really? That is surprising, considering what happened to his family.”
It seemed like the surprises wouldn’t stop coming. “What happened to his family?” she asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
It wasn’t Lucas who replied to her. It was Adrian. In a deep voice and a thick Russian accent, he said, “They were killed--by Vampires.”