Love Lost (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 3)

by Michael Anderle

  I’ve missed you every day since you disappeared. I swore I would make everything back up to you for the mistakes I’ve made if I ever got a chance. I have no idea exactly what it all means yet, but I trust you. If you have room on your team for one old crusty army general, well it was time I retired and let the next generation take over anyway.”

  Bethany Anne’s eyes had turned back and her teeth had receded while her father had touched her through the whole transformation. She reached up and gently felt that rough hand.

  Maybe not Michael, maybe you missed one good thing with your strictures and rules.

  “Dad, you have no idea how much I need a crusty army general. I have business assets all around the world that your experience with operations would help me immensely. I haven’t had time to vet anyone for the position and it would be dangerous to have anyone in it I can’t trust completely. As for the old part, I think you will be feeling better within a few months.” She didn’t want to gross her dad out right then with drinking the blood of his daughter.

  “Ah, the nanocytes and your blood?” He laughed at her shock of surprise.

  He waved a hand at her as he leaned back in his chair. “John told me about you healing him with the knife wound and what has gone on since then. It doesn’t take too much intelligence to figure it out.” She sure hoped he was wrong about that.

  “I’d be happy to help. I’ve got about 18,000 people and forty-two different areas of responsibility at the base to deal with. Obviously, I have subordinates but I can see why you feel it will transfer and I appreciate it isn’t a token job. What do you have to deal with?”

  She smiled at him. “Try over 1,000 companies spread across 85% of the nations in the world. Assets in so many banks I can’t find them all, although there are only about twelve accounts they roll back up into. Cash assets in the hundreds of billions and hard assets in the multiple trillions.”

  It was time for her father’s eyes to blanch and his mouth to truly stay open. He closed his mouth. “Guess I better get started thinking; the challenge is a bit bigger than expected.”

  She nodded, “You think maybe I didn’t come just to say hi, but also to recruit someone?” She winked at him.

  He laughed out loud, catching half the planes attention; the stress began to lessen in many of the shoulders and necks of Bethany Anne’s friends and team members. Her Dad was on board, and he was part of the team.

  Frank smiled to himself as he looked out the window. That scene was going to be a tear jerker when his book was released. In however many decades in the future she would allow it.

  While Bobcat had scared the crap out of Frank on the takeoffs, he landed them so smoothly you didn’t realize you were even on the ground.

  Washington D.C. - USA

  The next day, Bethany Anne and Frank took care of setting up Franks office computer with her blood according to how TOM directed. Frank commented it looked like a voodoo ritual and she had to smile. It really did. She didn’t just slit her wrists but had stopped at a pharmacy and purchased the instruments to take her blood like a normal person. Ecaterina ended up being the best person for that job. Most of the men just lost their color and turned away. She laughed and pointed at Darryl, Scott and Eric.

  “You are pussy 1, you are pussy 2 and you are pussy 3. This is your team code names for next op.” They laughed until they noticed that John wasn’t laughing with them, but rather smiling at them. He spoke up.

  “I think we will just shorten that to P1, P2 and P3.” His grin told them that was their new moniker and they all decided this wasn’t funny anymore.

  Scott and Darryl had responsibility for keeping the General under surveillance. Her dad was ready and willing to be the bait. He hadn’t known Martin too well, but he had liked the guy when they talked on the phone and appreciated how he had taken care of his daughter. If he could help find the killers, he was game to try.

  It was actually Nathan and Pete that found the pair who were casing her father. Nathan was running Pete with him to teach him how to use his sense of smell and other skills when they found two guys who had a slightly vampiric stench about them drinking coffee across the street from the meeting location.

  Nathan had gone in for coffee while Pete was outside. He came out, acted like he hated his coffee and directed Pete to go back in while he handed him some cash. Pete’s annoyance at having to get his associates coffee was so acute you would believe he really felt that way when watching the performance.

  For once, you could chalk it up to excellent acting. Even Pete knew not to fuck with Nathan Lowell on anything. When Nathan told Pete to jump, he was already stuck to the ceiling and hoping like hell Nathan hadn’t wanted him to go higher than that. John had Pete’s respect. He just plain feared Nathan Lowell.

  Pete nodded his head as he exited the coffee shop. He had the dead person scent in his nose, now. He would be able to find these guys again. Pete didn’t realize how slowly the sense of self-worth was creeping up on him. He was becoming an asset to the team based on his own abilities, not the wealth and power of his dad. The old Pete was slowly peeling off and John was becoming a proud mentor. Not that he would tell Pete this, of course.

  Eric, Scott and Darryl had to go by the team names P1, P2 and P3 for the whole day. Everyone who had any reason to get on the team net loved to use them.

  Dan was having a blast. He hadn’t been involved too much with the plane flight back, but he was a very satisfied man. They now had two more team members to help run the group and he was feeling less pressure on how he would have to deal with helping out. Frank was a natural fit. Dan had worked with him so long the difference now was that he actually got to see him. The general was going to take a little getting used to, but even he seemed a little more relaxed than the stories he had heard.

  Dan was surprised when Bethany Anne had told him on the plane trip to Colorado she had hoped her father would be open to joining the team. That she wanted him to work on the business side was obvious in retrospect, but when you see a military man, you think military holes he would plug into.

  They had taken six suites at the Mandarin Oriental in D.C. Nathan used his cutout shell company credit cards to hide the team from any searches for financial transactions which might be underway. He had a shared bank account with Bethany Anne which she kept a couple of million in for him to use. She told him the trust was complete, however; the exit interview for misappropriation of funds was fatal. Like any good leader, she worked with candor and an iron fist.

  She cornered him in the suite he shared with Ecaterina. Those two were working and very professional despite the obvious attraction. They were fighting the overwhelming desire of endorphins that practically screamed at them to just hole up and stay in their room together. She could appreciate the restraint the two must have. However; the smell of the pheromones those two were trailing behind them wanted to make her gag. She had asked TOM if he could do something about it.

  She knocked on their door. Ecaterina answered the door for Bethany Anne and then stepped back in the room for just a second, grabbed her wallet, winked at Bethany Anne and stepped out when Bethany Anne stepped in. Nathan was working on a laptop making sure his companies were doing well. So far, so good.

  He clicked off the VPN window he was using to tunnel into the server where he kept the software. Should he ever lose a laptop, there was nothing on it but basic Ubuntu Linux distro, a couple of TOR programs and software to encrypt the hard drive. The encryption was there to give him time to make changes when he realized that the laptop was taken, if it happened.

  He looked up at Bethany Anne who had sat down and finally realized his girlfriend wasn’t there protecting him from the vampire. He had been focused on the work and had lost a sense of his surroundings.

  He still flinched when around Bethany Anne. He worked to overcome the natural defense mechanism to be respectful and cautious around her at all times. That his human girlfriend was more comfortable hit him right in his male ego.


  “I take it this isn’t a social call?” He tried to smile and lighten the seemingly somber mood.

  “No, I just want to know what kind of intentions you have about my assistant.”

  Nathan’s face seemed to get an air of panic around it. Shit, shit shit! Was Bethany Anne acting like Ecaterina’s dad? Had he jumped the gun somehow and now he was being watched by Bethany Anne like maybe Ivan would be doing?

  Suddenly, Bethany Anne’s started laughing and she was rocking back and forth in her chair. “Ecaterina said you were too easy!” Her mirth flowed from her eyes.

  Nathan stopped the mad panic that was in his brain as he realized he was the butt of a joke between the two women. It helped that he knew Ecaterina was aware of whatever was about to happen between the two of them. He took a second to close down the operating system and then the laptop lid as he got his thoughts together.

  He smiled, at least he was probably the first werewolf to make a vampire almost fall off of her chair in laughter. “Ok, you got me. Other than being the target for you two I’m guessing there is a reason you asked her to step out?”

  Bethany Anne got her smile under control. “Yes, I want to see if it is possible for you to come and work for me?”

  Nathan had been aware of Bethany Anne’s ‘human capital acquisition’ binge. However, he never thought that she would approach him. He was kinda part of her group since he was with Ecaterina and he was the American Pack Council’s second in charge of Vampire Relationships. His business side was taking over as he considered why she would want him particularly.

  Why was he different than Frank? Frank was crazy good with computer information acquisition and certainly as strong as he was, except on the dark web? He had a strong computer defense company and the business setup for company cut-outs that he used to help hide his efforts left over from his foray into clandestine operations he did before he went legit…

  “You want your own intelligence agency, and you want me to lead it?” What he had over Frank was experience with the craft out on the streets and relationships others lacked.

  She smiled, “I told Ecaterina that you would get it in one!”

  “Did you really tell her that?” He had a small smile of satisfaction.

  “No.” His smile faded, but her smile was back.

  “I wouldn’t tell her anything because it has to be your decision. I don’t want any of her influence or your concern for her influence to be on you. I need someone who knows the score and is willing to come over to the dark side; we have steak, lamb and vegetables!”

  He smiled. They had shared a dinner on a train back in Europe where he had eaten just those dishes and had told her not to give him grief over a wolf eating vegetables.

  He would have done it just to be with Ecaterina more, but she was being very pointed in making him consider that factor and to try to not allow it to interfere with his decision.

  She needn’t have bothered. While she probably thought this relationship could break apart based on her experiences, Wechselbalg usually connected with one soul and stayed with that soul until they passed. Ecaterina was that soul for him. The bigger question was - did he believe in what she was going to do? He would have to break from the Pack permanently. She was being very open that only one allegiance was allowed.

  Gerry would have a small snit, that was for sure. However; the bigger issue was that Bethany Anne didn’t have any Wechselbalg on her staff and yet she was gearing up to bring the most difficult into her group. Wechselbalg understood power and respect. She could bitch slap them into next week and get fear, but respect had to come from a place other than martial prowess for a vampire. He had to admire her machinations. He would be the lead for the Wechselbalg and his respect for Bethany Anne and open relationship based on friendship and shared hard times would start the process for the new recruits to see her as something other than just a vampire.

  He owed this woman everything right now. He would have been dead on that mountain with Ecaterina. She allowed Ecaterina to come here to the states and she could have just killed those idiots back in New York instead of trying hard to give them one more chance. She wasn’t even the one who killed the leader, Paul Gleason. That nut-bag had been disrespectful to Bethany Anne one too many times and her team announced their irritation by blowing his head off.

  She had killed a guy shooting into the tunnel, however; since he was on the other side of the tunnel and those shots had come close to his momma’s favorite boy he was ok with that choice.

  She was a good person. Period. Fucking. Dot. That she was a vampire was now the bonus instead of the problem.

  He looked her in the eyes, “My companies?”

  “We roll them into a corporation with shares we pass out to everyone employed. You are given a large ‘thank you for your time’ separation package where everyone understands you got bought off to stay away. Now, they get a bonus for the purchase and golden handcuffs to stick around and make it work. If they do, great! If they don’t, well my dad will take care of it.”

  He released a little of his concerns. He cared for the guys that helped make everything work. For most of the rest he had finally understood on the Romanian trip that they could operate just fine without him. A small hit to his ego, but he had other things on his plate at the time and since his thoughts were just as focused on a woman who was in Miami, he hadn’t plugged himself back into the company so tightly again.

  It really was a well thought out plan. He would get bought off to ’stay away’ and since everyone in the companies would get a boost if it happened, she would get a large group of his employees to support the coming acquisition and be happy for him as well.

  He trusted her father to run it as well as anything could be run and it wasn’t like Lance couldn’t ask him if he had a question or two. It was a really good plan. But she needed him badly to make her plans work with the intelligence group.

  His value alone was worth a lot and with his companies he should make a large payday himself. She could afford it. Maybe this once he would finally get one up on the vampire.

  He smiled, “What is it worth to you?” She smiled back. There was a knock on his door. Bethany Anne got up before he could register the knock completely and was walking to open the door.

  “I’m glad you asked. I’m going to let my negotiation team deal with that question. Let me open the door and let them in.” Bethany Anne opened the door and Ecaterina walked in wearing the nicest business suit, cut in all of the best ways to flaunt her figure. She had apparently gone and gotten dressed when she left the room. She had makeup on and had done her hair. She put down an expensive purse and pulled out a couple of folders that had his company names listed on them.

  He tried to catch her eyes, but she was completely in business mode and she truly worked for Bethany Anne. His face lost a lot of its color. He looked over at Bethany Anne who was standing with the door still open. She waved at him with her fingers, a smile on her face, “Toodles!” She closed the door behind her.

  He was so screwed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Washington D.C. - USA

  It was time to catch the motherfucker. Bethany Anne was back in her ‘working outfit’ for operations. She had traded the bowie knife for the smaller Japanese sword, the Wakizashi. She told the group that she just didn’t think the Bowie went with her smaller frame. They guys all seemed to puff out their chests and slam their silver laced Bowies into their knife holders at this pronouncement. She rolled her eyes, men!

  Her father was at a bar this evening with an old friend, letting him know that he was going to retire and setting up the back door negotiations to let it happen more quickly. Frank was cutting orders from the ‘Frank Lair’ as John had started calling it. It was cold, damp and dark so the name fit. Frank looked pole-axed for a moment when he thought about it. Then smiled and shrugged.

  Frank had his second dose of Bethany Anne’s blood and was writing down the changes in a coded diary he kept with
him. He was seriously getting into this memoirs book, she felt.

  Lance was going to leave the get together and choose a very unwise short cut to his hotel at a late time of night. Bad time to make that choice if you’re being hunted by a vampire. Usually leads to short life expectancy.

  Scott was watching from two blocks away in a dark SUV with thermal binoculars. “Hey, P2, those two lackeys are talking on a phone. Looks to me like this op is a go.”

  Eric grimaced on the other side of line. They had a secure network in this whole area. They had seeded multiple boxes to spread the network out to six blocks in each direction from the expected route. If they needed to go beyond that far, things had really gone in the shitter. Eric hated these call signs, but John was adamant that they take their medicine.

  It wasn’t like he and the guys fainted at the sight of blood, they just didn’t like watching Bethany Anne get stuck by Ecaterina. It just bugged them. At least that was the story he was trying to sell. Unfortunately, John wasn’t buying so here they were.