Love Lost (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 3) Read online

  “It is a suggestion to try and eat something that might agree with you more than blood now. Do try and change your asshole ways, Adrian. It is a very strong suggestion.”

  He smirked at her and dropped the Snickers back in the bag. He would have the Snickers as a dessert to the first human meal he would procure once he got back to Central America. He wouldn’t hunt in Mexico. The vampire that held that territory wasn’t very forgiving of those who took supper without permission. He had enough will power to make it to Guatemala City.

  He closed the door behind him. It was just after sunset. As he had thought, the airport wasn’t that far away. He walked towards the street that led to the airport. He was considering how to consolidate his power in Central America after Bethany Anne and Clarita had their discussion. He knew one would die and the other might be very weak. If it was Bethany Anne who was weak, then he might get America as a consolation prize.

  Although he would have to find a vampire willing to accept the cold. He hated his time in Washington D.C.

  It took him a week to end up in front of Clarita. His ear had already fallen off and half of his hair was gone. Originally, he had not intended to tell her anything. He had felt a little ill, which never happened to him, when he got to Mexico City. It was everything he could do to not grab the first meal right then. He took a room in a basement and got on another flight to Guatemala City the next morning.

  By then, he remembered Bethany Anne’s statement about making sure he would pass along the message. After his feeding which he believed would help him, he only got worse. In a panic, he called and found out where Clarita was staying. He lost his ear on the way there.

  They wouldn’t let him enter the house. She had a balcony and she came out on it, looking down at her child who was wasting away in front of her eyes.

  “What is happening to you, Adrian?” She was concerned. Adrian was sent to America and she had plans once he took over the country to make it her home and leave Central America for him to run. He looked like he was being eaten by bugs. All of her security stayed ten feet away from him.

  “You! You happened to me! This Bethany Anne has done this to me for killing her human friend. She told me she would make sure I would deliver a message and I am happy to do it!” Clarita was shocked to see the anger and hatred coming from her favorite child.

  “What could one human do to you, child?”

  “Not a human, mother.” He practically spat the name at her. “She is a vampire and commanded me to tell you that you have signed your death warrant. All that stay in Central America will die, their lives forfeit. If any touch foot in America again, she will kill them as well.”

  Clarita was getting angry, there is only so much insolence she would take, even from a child she had loved and who was obviously dying. “Watch your tongue, Adrian! Whatever is taking you can be made worse!” Her eyes were aflame in red.

  Adrian scoffed, “What? You think your anger worries me now? I have seen true death walking and you are not in her league. I’ve been stabbed, mutilated, my arm shot completely off. Your tortures mean nothing to me. I thought you cared and I have been ashamed to find out that there is no love among the Forsaken!” With that said, Adrian reached under his coat and pulled a pin on a grenade. Three of the security vampires jumped him and two died in the blast with Adrian. Clarita had just flinched at the explosion, watching her child die in anger and violence, hating her.

  Clarita turned around and walked back into her office, closing the balcony doors behind her. Whoever this Bethany Anne was, she had made an impression on Adrian and had killed him thousands of miles away right in front of her. Bethany Anne had turned her child against her and Clarita mourned Adrian’s loss, her heart aching with the pain of his words and the betrayal she felt in his eyes.

  Clarita had killed Bethany Anne’s friend through Adrian. If there were two things Clarita understood as a vampire, it was revenge and the art of making statements. Bethany Anne had killed her son for both of those reasons. She mourned love lost when Adrian had died. Further, she couldn’t stop the rumors this night would create. She had made a mistake trusting her maker and his fight against Michael. She was going to pay the price with her own life, most likely.

  She sighed. She had things to take care of and three other children to see to safety. Adrian had been the most adamant supporter of the Forsaken creed. Clarita followed because her maker pushed the creed. Her other three children were truly ambivalent. Maybe she could get them to see other options and decide on a course of action that would not destroy her line forever.

  She sat down at her desk and pulled open her laptop and started writing emails.

  Thousands of miles away, in a house in Key Biscayne, Florida an old man smiled as his GPS signal suddenly stopped sending its signal.

  ‘Gotcha!’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Key Biscayne, FL - USA

  Bethany Anne was sitting on her outside balcony, enjoying the evening. She was watching a boat travel down the water course between her house and the one across the way. There was a bridge it could go under, or around behind her other house and then through the larger waterway out to the keys.

  Nathan had finally capitulated on the price of his businesses. Bethany Anne had told Ecaterina to get everything she could, then back up one to two million. Men needed to feel some sense of success and if Ecaterina raked Nathan over the coals like Ivan had, she was concerned that it might affect his attitude long term. She knew that for the two of them the negotiations were business and wouldn’t affect their personal relationship.

  Not that she could act that way. If her partner was breaking her over the negotiations table, she would harbor a huge resentment in the future. That it didn’t work that way for them was fortuitous for her and she used it, but she didn’t understand how it worked.

  Now, she could get Nathan focused on the future. She would get her father and Nathan working together on the businesses Michael had given her. She didn’t doubt that there were some problems in the companies she now owned. So their first task was to get a handle on what was obvious and in need of attention, her dad, and what wasn’t obvious and in need of attention, Nathan.

  Pete was doing well. He had been doing extra work and seeking out suggestions from John from time to time. Bethany Anne had made a call to Jonathan and had asked if he wanted to see his son, that she felt he could handle a ‘parental visit’ without backsliding. They talked for a while and agreed that the changes were just short of amazing, but the risk was still too much.

  As much Jonathan’s problem as Pete’s. Jonathan had just about broken down in the car back at the airport when he left Pete in New York. He was afraid he would act like a too-caring father again when his son needed the structure and challenge of living on his own in a potentially hostile environment.

  The respect Pete would have for himself would be better than the easy life his father would provide him.

  John had agreed that everything was going well and frankly liked the kid. Pete had helped on the operations and John figured he had a shot at joining a team they would make up. Dan agreed during a meeting and said he would start having Pete shadow him as he continued to setup the organization structure Bethany Anne had considered.

  Bethany Anne had surprised Pete one evening. She tracked him down over at the team’s house and asked him how strong he was in Spanish. He just looked at her and said, “Tacos? Burrito? Muy loco laca en cabeza?”

  She told him he would signup for Spanish speaking classes. Since the team all had some knowledge, they hired a tutor to come over three times a week. The first hour was directly working with Pete and then the whole team would come in and jointly they would work for the next hour.

  Bethany Anne had some capability, but with her adjusted memory abilities, she only needed to really go through a lesson one time to pick most of it up. She still dropped in on the team a couple of times during the week to get the flow of the language and any nuances the teacher pro
vided. Their teacher, Adriana Garcia, was very good, very pretty and very single.

  Adriana obviously enjoyed the attention of six males who were competitive in everything, including trying to see who could flirt with her the most. However; she became rather meek when Bethany Anne would come join the teaching sessions. Almost like she recognized an alpha woman in beauty and shrunk in on herself.

  Adriana should have noticed that none of the guys gave Bethany Anne any second glances. If that didn’t tip her off that something was strange when a woman of this beauty came around and the guys didn’t flirt? Nothing else could.

  None of the guys were disrespectful of the teacher. Killian was the mildest with his compliments in either language and the guys could tell. He was a changed man and it showed in his speech.

  Dan had both homes completely wired for security and wired the neighbors houses as well. He talked with Bethany Anne about it and she told him to talk with Nathan.

  Nathan told Dan to form a Home Security company and offer to setup the neighbors for free. They used the Teams home as the example and they all agreed to a complimentary one year trial, which included hardwiring.

  Dan was very surprised at how easy it was to get his cameras and security equipment into the homes legally. His brain almost rebooted from trying to understand he wasn’t going to have to sneak onto the properties. Nathan just smiled and told him there was always a way to accomplish something if you considered how it might benefit the other person.

  Bobcat and William flew in with Shelly two days back.

  Bethany Anne, John and Pete had been waiting for them to touch down across the waterway. They had used one of the SUV’s and just driven around to the park entrance and used one of the roads to get to where Bobcat had originally landed before Bethany Anne bought the first home. Once the guys had checked out the landing location, she got out and stretched her legs. She still thought the whole process of letting them go first was silly, but Dan and her father had finally convinced her it was completely necessary.

  John was talking with Pete by the SUV and from their faces, it looked like a serious discussion. Pete was listening intently. When Pete looked John in his eyes and nodded his head once, John walked around the back of the SUV and hit the button to pull the back doors open. He reached in the back and pulled out a ceramic protection vest in Pete’s size which had the team emblem on it. He gave Pete a small bag which Bethany Anne knew to be the false teeth and red contact lenses her team carried on ops.

  If anything went bad and Bethany Anne was going to be seen or had been seen, the guys would pop the teeth in and wear the contacts. He handed Pete a shoulder holster and the 9mm Glock the team used as one of their core choices. Pete took each with a little reverence and suited up. Finally, John pulled a black team t-shirt that went over the vest and a linen suit jacket to help hide the pistol. Not that the suit jacket hid it super well, but it was better than nothing. All of them had carrying licenses.

  John looked over at Bethany Anne and nodded once. Bethany Anne winked with the eye that Pete couldn’t see and watched John get in the car and drive off. She knew he would probably drive around the corner and watch through the brush. What Pete understood was that Bethany Anne’s security was now his responsibility.

  It wouldn’t be much of a trip. She wanted to talk with her air and ground team and she wanted to fly in Shelly. The fact that it would be hard for anyone to hear them was a huge plus. She called and told Bobcat to grab William, Shelly and to plan on flying out over the water for up to a couple of hours. She had barely had the request out of her mouth before Bobcat was issuing orders and telling her that they would be there ‘very shortly if not faster’.

  He really loved flying that chopper.

  Sure enough, she could hear the black hawk coming in before she saw anything. Pete caught it a few seconds later. His Were hearing was pretty damn good. They waiting until the Black Hawk was down before William stepped out to give her a hand in and then he got back on board and Pete was the last on board.

  Pete, she reasoned, was coming along alright.

  Bobcat didn’t wait around, he took off and headed over the park before heading out over the water. No need to get Bethany Anne’s neighbors upset enough to fabricate more stories about her eccentricity.

  She wasn’t bothered with rumors. Whatever they made up couldn’t possibly be a better story than the truth.

  She loved flying. If she had been granted one super power, it would have been flight.

  The four of them wore the flight headphones which allowed talk and reduced the craft’s noise. Shelly was purring even better than the last time. She had taken the second seat up front and looked over her shoulder at William, “She sounds great! How did the engine fit go?”

  William smiled behind her, “Shelly’s good with these new engines. Just likes her engines like she likes her men…” William shut his mouth so quick Bethany Anne heard his teeth click. He got a little white in the face. He was used to being a crass mechanic, not the aeronautical engineer to a Vampire Business Mogul. If she decided to ‘fire him’, he would probably just be pushed out the helicopter and his body lost to the waves below.

  “I’m sorry William, did I miss the rest of that comment? Hard, beefy, lean and mean?” She smiled at William’s obvious discomfort. Not this again! She couldn’t get the best out of her team when they weren’t comfortable around her. She spoke up.

  “Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A vampire bat flies back into his cave after a big night...he has blood all over his face. Perches himself on the roof to try and get some rest. But before too long the other bats smell the blood, and start to gather around him. They ask feverishly where he got the blood from. Knowing that they will not let up till he tells them ‘OK, follow me!’. He flies out of the cave, across a valley, over a river into a dark forest. Deep in the forest he stops, all the other bats gather round in an excited frenzy. ‘OK’, says the bat, ‘see that big oak tree over there?’. ’Yeah, yeah’ reply the other bats, drooling in anticipation. ’Well I fucking didn’t!’”.

  Bobcat busted out laughing and she heard Pete snickering behind her. William smiled and his face was a little less red now. Bobcat could see Bethany Anne’s concerned face looking behind him and guessed what was going on so he started the next joke. By the time Pete finished the next one the whole chopper was laughing and smiling.

  “Ok, as much as I like jokes, we need to have a small meeting on the state of our equipment. How are the SUV’s doing William?”

  By now, he had forgotten his earlier slip and could almost deal with Bethany Anne as just another person so long as he didn’t look her in the face. Beauty did have a way of making his mouth want to stop working properly. He took out a notebook he kept with him to write down notes and decided to review them as he spoke. “We now have five purchased and all of them have been checked out. Two are out for upgrades to the glass, engines and suspension. These will become your rides.”

  “Wait a minute, what are you guys doing for the other three?”

  Bobcat spoke up, “I’ll take that one. At the moment, the other three are getting the engines but only partial on the glass. If the team needs to roll down the windows for firing while driving, we can’t full up armor them. Well, that’s not true. The guys over at Texas Armoring can do it, but they are so booked it’s at least three to six months in the queue right now.”

  Bethany Anne considered that. She had no problem throwing money after a problem to get it expedited, but she wasn’t aware of any reasons that they needed to have anything done beyond what Bobcat had planned right now. The whole point of the meeting was to start the process on how these decisions were going to get made. “Ok, I’m good with that. However; check with Texas Armoring. I really liked the ride we had up in New York. We might as well put three on order for the future. See if they can give us a couple of windows that allow the team to shoot out of. Well, don’t be so crass as that when you explain it. I don’t want to give them the id
ea we drive around in running gun battles all of the time.”

  “But your expecting it?”

  She nodded from the front seat, “Yeah, I’m expecting it. I’m not going to be able to not piss off some powerful people, so they are going to attack. We need to have protection when we run into an ambush and superior firepower is our response. Which is the reason for this flight.” She turned back around to William.

  “William, what’s it going to take to upgrade Shelly to be able to slap some sense into a target before the team gets there?”

  He thought about that for a second, “Well, there are some conversion kits Sikorsky puts out for these Black Hawks. They tend to call them Battlehawks. Colombia has a version they call the S70 - ‘Arpia III’ that have rockets and forward firing gun pods. That’s the level 1 kits, they don’t require as much modification to the bird. There is a level II and Level III kit. I’ve printed the level II specifications from a website online. Hold on.”