The Alpha (The Lycans 4)

I snorted and shook my head, looking back at the map. When I didn’t say anything in return, just kept staring at the terrain, Adryan pointed to the airport where Odhran and I had landed.

“We’re starting here, since we assume that’s where they found you.”

Along with the red pushpins, there was also a red string that connected each pin to the next. From point A to point B. He pointed at the airport pin again, dragging his finger along the red string all the way across the map to where we’d been attacked in the motel parking lot.

“We have to assume they’re working with somebody on the inside, whether a mole within your ranks or in mine.”

The growl in Adryan’s voice told me how much this bothered him, as it should. But I couldn’t think of someone who would betray me or our kind on the Lycan side. I didn’t bother saying that, even if I had a feeling Adryan knew that as well. The most likely answer was that it was somebody disloyal on his end, given the fact all of this was taking place in the States.

“I had James and Matteo do some deep digging on the Darknet.” He tipped his chin toward the two vampires, and they stepped forward. “What’s the new intel we got, James?”

“I sent a team out there to do cleanup and gather any information we could. Got the van the humans used, cleaned up the bodies before the authorities could show up, and dealt with any witnesses.”

I didn’t ask how he dealt with the witnesses, because I knew it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn't tell me, and I could assume the lengths they’d gone to keep things quiet.

“The van was taken to a shop we had close by, and although it was pretty clean and standard, we did get DNA, but there were no hits. It’s clear they wipe the identities of those associated with them, so they don’t even exist in the outside world. We did confiscate two cell phones on their persons.”

I’d been so frantic with panic to get Evie out of there that I hadn’t even thought about the cleanup. Not that I gave a shit, because my mate was the only important thing to me, that and making sure Odhran stayed alive. But I was thankful Adryan had been smart enough to at least take care of all that. The last thing we needed was our DNA getting into the hands of human scientists and the media and the stories they’d spin on that.

“The phones are encrypted, but we have a team that’s the best at cracking and hacking.” James grinned and looked over at Matteo before he turned his gaze to me.

I narrowed my eyes at the jab. It was clear he thought my kind were lowly, no doubt seeing us as illiterate and feral animals, probably thought when we weren’t in our wolf form, we were running around naked like wild fucking beasts. I crossed my arms over my chest and let my eyes flash blue as a grin spread over my face. I stared at James, at the wicked scar across his throat. He was a survivor; that was clear by the fact his head was still attached when someone wanted it gone. But animal or not, I could take that fucker out without breaking a sweat.

“We were able to get a number that was used by both phones,” the vampire called Matteo said. “Although that number was also encrypted, we still unscrambled it. Bad news is it led to a burner phone.”

“Fucking hell. You know how fucking annoying this shit is?” Adryan gritted out.

“Yeah, it sure the fuck is, but the good news is we dug deeper and traced the number and coordinates to a motel room an hour away, then pinged it off another set of encrypted numbers that led to a warehouse a short distance from there.”

“My trackers are fucking good,” Adryan said as he stared at the map. “But even still, if they could crack the numbers and pinpoint where they’re at, that means it’s not the endgame. The Assembly is smart enough to give us the runaround. They have been hidden for decades, if not far fucking longer, so they aren’t fucking dumb.”

“They’re underground.”

Adryan nodded slowly and lifted his head to look at me. “I don’t even know if they are in this state, let alone America, but my gut tells me they are.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Maybe a rural location.” He looked over at a few of the vampires by the computers. “Check large parcels of land, commercial and residential that may have been purchased in the last hundred years. If you don’t find anything, go back further.”

The vampires started checking, the click-click-click of their fingers flying over the computer keys loud.