Chapter 1
The palatial villa two hours outside Rome glittered like a jewel beneath the starlit night sky. Lights glowed from within the sprawling mansion and along the circular drive out front, where half a dozen sleek sports cars were parked on the cobbled stones.
From his vantage point on a tree-studded hill five hundred yards away, Ettore Selvaggio watched as a beautiful red Ferrari rolled up to the villa and took its place between a silver Bugatti Veyron and a blue Pagani Huayra. Add in the pair of Lamborghinis, the Maserati, and another Ferrari, and there was well over ten million dollars’ of automotive luxury parked outside Vito Massioni’s mansion. Plus a collection of vehicles worth twice that amount stowed inside the massive bays of the reputed drug-dealing Breed male’s private garage.
If nothing else, Massioni and his criminal associates had impeccable taste in cars.
“Apparently, selling your soul to Opus Nostrum pays well,” he muttered into the wireless mic that linked him to the Order’s command center back in Rome. “You getting my visual on this place?”
“Visual acknowledged, Savage.”
The deep gravel voice of his comrade, Trygg, was never easy to read, and tonight was no exception. Not that Savage actually expected the menacing warrior to appreciate the fleet of fine Italian machinery belonging to Massioni and his cohorts.
And not that it mattered, anyway.
In a few minutes, the cars, the mansion, and everyone in it would be nothing but ash and smoking rubble.
Damned shame about the cars.
“Status,” Trygg prompted over the earpiece as Savage hunkered down to watch the coming fireworks.
“Packages have been delivered and the last party guest just arrived. We’re good to go.”
“You collected the receipt?”
“Right here in my pocket,” he said, tapping the flash drive Trygg referenced.
Twenty minutes before Savage arrived at his observation position on the hill, he’d been inside Massioni’s villa on a covert solo mission to download key computer data, then take out the target. According to intel newly obtained by the Order’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., Vito Massioni was the European distributor of a dangerous narcotic that turned otherwise law-abiding Breed vampires into blood-obsessed, murderous Rogues.
This new drug with the street name Red Dragon was said to be even more powerful than its predecessor, Crimson, which had cost countless Breed and human lives when it hit the streets twenty years ago. Now, thanks to Massioni and his collusion with the terror group, Opus Nostrum, Rogue outbreaks were on the rise again in the States and across Europe, creating panic among an already anxious human public. As leader of the Order, Lucan Thorne had made it clear that he wanted the problem cut off at the source, and cut off swiftly.
Savage was more than happy to be tapped for the covert assignment. It had been a serendipitous bonus to learn that Massioni had called a private meeting with his lieutenants tonight. So, instead of a data grab and stealth assassination—one of many lethal specialties that had earned Savage his nickname in the Order—the scope of the job had expanded to mass elimination.
To that end, four explosive devices with enough firepower to level an entire city block were now planted around Massioni’s villa. All Savage had to do was set them off by remote detonator and Opus would lose yet another key ally. The Order wasn’t about to rest until the entire organization was dismantled, the cabal of members at its helm unmasked and destroyed.
Savage lifted his field glasses to his eyes and peered at the mansion. Although his vision as one of the Breed was superhuman, the lenses allowed him to zoom in on the illuminated window of the grand salon where Massioni and his men were gathered.
The seven Breed males evidently had plenty of cause for celebration. They greeted one another with a lot of laughter and back patting, a lot of ingratiating smiles and kowtowing for the dark-haired, hawk-nosed Vito Massioni from his underlings. No doubt the Red Dragon dealer and his cronies had been handsomely rewarded for their part in the spike of Rogue attacks the past few nights. Savage couldn’t wait to send them all to their final reward tonight.
“Light it up at your ready,” Trygg advised.
Savage smiled behind his binoculars. “With pleasure.”
Glancing away from the meeting taking place inside the mansion, he reached to retrieve the remote detonator. Normally he didn’t get invested in witnessing a target’s demise, but it was hard not to take some satisfaction in crashing Massioni’s little party tonight.
He brought the field glasses back up to his face—just in time to see that a woman had entered the room. The petite blonde wore a flashy red dress that clung to her slender body like liquid silk. The neckline plunged low in front, the slit in the skirt slicing high up her leg, baring a lot of creamy thigh with each gliding step she took toward Massioni.
What the fuck?
Savage hadn’t realized there was a female in the mansion. Not that he felt much sympathy for anyone who associated with a thug like Massioni. And not that it should stop him from pushing the button on the detonator. But still…
His thumb froze, hovering over the trigger.
“Unidentified female on the premises,” he murmured into his mic. “Stand by, base.”
“Standing by,” Trygg said. Then he made a low, appreciative noise that might as well have been a wolf-whistle, coming from the eternally inscrutable warrior.
Yeah, the female was hot. Savage barely contained his own primal growl at the sight of all those slender curves poured into a column of scarlet silk. He’d long avoided blondes—for personal reasons of his own—but everything male in him responded to the sight of this one like flame to gasoline.
He stared through the lenses, watching as every head in the room turned to look at her as she approached Massioni. As soon as she was close enough, the vampire’s beefy arm snaked out to hook her around the waist, pulling her roughly against him as his buddies grinned and chuckled.
More than one of the Breed males gathered in the room wore an expression of unabashed lust as their boss crudely cupped the young woman’s breast in front of them all.
A jab of disgust spiked through Savage’s blood at Massioni’s manhandling of the woman.
“There was no mention of a female in the intel,” Trygg said.
“No, there wasn’t.” Savage’s reply was clipped, irritation combined with this unwanted element of surprise. “The report out of D.C. specifically stated that Massioni is unmated, so who the fuck is she?”