Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [794]
She wanted to believe Tegan, but when she looked at Andreas’s unresponsive, ashen face, she couldn’t help feeling that where Andreas was concerned, everything was still a long way from okay.
CHAPTER
Thirty-four
Dragos snapped his cell phone closed and jammed it into the pocket of his cashmere dress coat. He stared up at the starlit sky above an industrial park off I-90 in Albany, New York, and hissed a violent oath. Wilhelm Roth wasn’t answering his calls.
Which meant that Wilhelm Roth was dead.
The fact that Dragos’s cameras and communication systems at his Connecticut headquarters had all gone offline and ceased working meant that the bunker had been detonated as planned. He could only hope that Roth had managed to ensure that a number of the Order’s members had been blown to pieces along with the hastily abandoned lab.
As for Roth himself, Dragos hadn’t actually cared if his German lieutenant survived the lab’s destruction; it was the matter of a moment to find another right arm to carry out his mission.
And so he had.
Dragos moved away from his Minion-chauffeured sedan to inspect the work of Roth’s replacement. The second-generation Breed male who’d been recruited from the West Coast was overseeing the movement of Dragos’s assets—a diversification made necessary by the aggravating and persistent interference of the Order.
But Dragos hadn’t come this far without anticipating a few speed bumps in his operation. Alternatives had been explored and provided for years ago, and now it was merely a matter of rearranging the pieces that he already had in play. The Order had cost him only a few days—a couple of weeks at most—then he would be right back in business once again.
Stronger than before.
Unstoppable, no matter what disturbing things he had seen in the witchy eyes of the child seer all those weeks ago in Montreal.
“Are we ready to move out yet?” he asked his lieutenant.
The big vampire nodded curtly where he stood behind one of several semi-trailer trucks that had been loaded and were waiting to roll out of the industrial park to their appointed destinations. The double doors of the one nearest his lieutenant were partially open yet, revealing the anxious faces of the Breedmates who’d been removed from their cells in the lab for transportation elsewhere. They knew better than to scream or try to escape. The industrial park was owned by Dragos, manned by his Minions.
Besides, the chains and shackles that bound the women to one another would prevent any of them from getting very far, even if they were foolish enough to attempt it.
“Seal them up and get them out of here,” Dragos said, watching in satisfaction as his lieutenant swung the doors closed and set the heavy steel bolt and locks. A quick thump of the vampire’s fist on the back of the truck sent the thing rolling with one of Dragos’s Minions at the wheel.
Farther on in the yard, several more trucks awaited their departure orders. Dragos walked past the ones containing his many millions of dollars’ worth of state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, his gaze fixed on the large white trailer at the far end of the line.
It was a refrigerated container, specially equipped for preserving the fragile cargo that was locked and sedated inside. Two Gen One assassins had been stationed within the trailer to stand guard over the contents; another pair would ride up front with the Minion driver and Dragos’s West Coast associate to ensure the shipment encountered no problems en route to the rail yard, where the next leg of the container’s long journey would begin.
“Everything is ready, sire.”
“Excellent,” Dragos said. “Contact me as soon as you arrive in Seattle to make the last connection.”
“Yes, sire.”
Dragos watched as the fleet of trucks lurched into motion and exited the yard.
The Order may have disrupted his operation, but he was far from defeated.
With a confident smile tugging at the corner of his lips, Dragos walked back to his waiting car. He climbed into the backseat and waited in boredom as the driver closed