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Her words didn’t disturb me. Her need to embrace the violence and her thirst for retribution was sexy. I felt a surge of pride. She was becoming more than my fiancée. She was becoming my queen.

“Fine.” I conceded, reaching for her hand. “You follow every instruction without question or hesitation. Understood?”

Her fingers intertwined with mine. “Understood.”

I turned back to my team, issuing rapid-fire orders. “Natasha and Josh, you’re with me. Harlen and Morgan follow us in the Jeep. Donté has spotted Lonzo at Soldier Field.”

My phone buzzed again. Another text from Donté.

SON

Got my eye on him. Blood on his clothes.

I gestured toward my SUV, and Natasha immediately moved to the passenger seat while I guided Chanel to the backseat. Josh jumped into his role as driver. As both vehicles rumbled to life, I added Josh and Harlen to the text chain with Donté, ensuring everyone receives the same real-time updates.

“Go.” I instructed. “Soldier Field North Garage. Hurry.”

The SUV lurched into motion. The run-flat tires sprayed gravel as we accelerated away from the harbor. In the rearview mirror, I watched Harlen and Morgan follow us as we merged onto Lake Shore Drive.

Chanel sat beside me in the back seat. Her posture was rigid with tension. She was twisting her engagement ring on her finger. I reached over to touch her hand briefly.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get him this time.” I assured her.

“I’m not worried. I just want that muthafucka dead.” She turned from looking out the passenger side window to look at me.

Another text from Donté illuminated my phone: He’s pacing near the northeast elevators.

Natasha immediately pulled up a schematic of the garage on her cell phone and showed it to me in the backseat. “Three entry points to that level.” She murmured. “We need to cover them all.”

“Josh can guard the Eastern entrance right outside the garage on Special Olympics Drive.” I decided. “You and I will approach from the North on E McFetridge Drive. Harlen and Morgan can go inside the main entrance where Josh is parkedand move in from there. With Donté’s location, we will just move in toward him until we spot him or Lonzo.”

“And me?” Chanel asked.

“You stay with me.” I told her. I wanted her to stay with Josh, but I also didn’t want to argue with her. Chanel wasn’t like us, a vampire. We could move so much faster and cover so much more ground. Natasha and I were going to have to adjust having a human with us.

“Text the plans to Harlen.” I ordered Natasha to do. “And tell them to wear face masks. There are cameras everywhere.”

The city flashed by outside our windows. Early morning Chicago was mostly asleep. Chicagoans were unaware of the vampire hunt unfolding in their midst. The winding road that was Lake Shore Drive made it hard to speed. The highest speed was 45mph and Josh could only drive ten or fifteen over the limit to get us there in five to eight minutes without the vehicle ending up overturned or worse, somewhere in the lake.

The massive structure of Soldier Field loomed ahead. Its stone façade was pale in the darkness of night. My phone buzzed continuously with brief updates from Donté, each one confirming that our prey remained within the concrete maze of the North Garage.

Our latest intel stated that Lonzo had moved from the elevators to level 1A, which was actually below ground. I thought that maybe Lonzo had gotten ahold of Donté’s cell phone. I quickly dismissed this theory, noticing the jargon sounded exactly like my son. These messages were written in his voice.

When we arrived, I instructed Josh to drop us off at the Field Museum. Josh and Harlen drove to the main entrance of the garage and parked two hundred yards from the entrance. Josh would be close enough to observe, but far enough to not be immediately detected.

All my security knew to shield our license plate numbers when we were doing anything humans considered illegal. Breaking into a city parking structure was on that list. Having a button in all my vehicles that automatically concealed our state issued license plates was a plus. Natasha even had a device that could scramble and sometimes wipe out the CCTV live surveillance cameras. We came prepared. We lived to shield our true selves from the world.

Already masked in ski masks, Natasha, Chanel, and I walked up the sidewalk that connected the Field Museum to the Soldier Field.

“I’ll scout ahead.” Natasha said with her hand already resting on her Cripo Glock. It was a good idea. She knew Chanel would slow us down.

I nodded. “Go. We’ll follow.”

Natasha disappeared with vampire speed. She turned left into the vestibule that housed the stairwell and elevators of the garage. With my enhanced hearing, I could tell Natasha took the stairs. A good choice for a sneak approach.

Chanel and I were going to take the elevator now that Lonzo was currently on level 1. We were standing at the elevator on the ground level, which was level 4, when the doors opened. The North garage was an enormous underground structure. Our advantage was there shouldn’t be any cars inside the garage. The North garage didn’t have overnight parking.

While inside the elevator, we stood side by side. I could see Chanel’s alert brown eyes through her mask. She didn’t have noticeable fear in them, and that was a good thing.