back and rested her index finger lightly on the trigger. "Let him go. We don't want any trouble from you."
"Too late for that, don't you think? All you're looking at is trouble now."
Renata didn't flinch. She didn't dare so much as blink for fear that this man would sense it as weakness and decide to act. Lex was shaking now, sweat pouring down his face. "Renata," he gasped, but whether he wanted to tell her to stand down or make her best move, she wasn't sure. "Renata...for fuck's sake..."
She kept a steady aim on Alexei's captor, her elbows locked, both hands gripped on her gun. A light summer breeze kicked up, and the soft gust of air raked over her hypersensitive skin like jagged shards of glass. In the distance she could hear the pop of fireworks from the finale of the weekend's festival, the muted explosions vibrating like thunder in her aching bones. Traffic buzzed and braked on the street outside the alley, vehicle engines throwing off a sickening melange of exhaust fumes, heated rubber, and burning oil.
"How long do you want to drag this out, sweetheart? Because I gotta tell you, patience isn't one of my virtues." His tone was casual, but the threat couldn't have been more dire. He brought the pistol's hammer back, prepared to bring the night to its bloody end. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't fill this asshole's brain with lead."
"Because he is my son." The low male voice came from halfway up the darkened alley. The words were devoid of emotion but ominous in their cadence and thickly accented with the cold rasp of Sergei Yakut's Siberian homeland.
Chapter Three
Nikolai swung his head around and watched Sergei Yakut approach in the narrow alleyway. The Gen One vampire strode ahead of two anxious-looking bodyguards, his stark, unblinking gaze moving casually from Niko to the Breed male still being held at gunpoint. With a nod of acknowledgment, Niko clicked the pistol's safety back into place and slowly lowered the weapon. As soon as he loosened his grasp, Yakut's son threw him off with a growled curse and moved himself well out of reach.
"Insolent bastard," he snarled, all venom and fury now that he was standing some safe distance away. "I told Renata this cur was a threat, but she wouldn't listen. Let me kill him for you, Father. Let me give him pain."
Yakut ignored both his son's plea and his presence, instead striding in silence up to where Nikolai stood waiting.
"Sergei Yakut," Niko said, turning the disarmed gun around and offering it to him in a gesture of peace. "Hell of a welcome wagon you've got here. My apologies for taking one of your men. He left me no choice."
Yakut merely grunted as he took the pistol and handed it off to the guard standing nearest to him. Dressed in a cotton gauze tunic and worn leather pants that looked more like weathered hide, his light brown hair and beard wild and overgrown, Sergei Yakut had the look of a shrewd feudal warlord, centuries out of his time.
Then again, despite his unlined face and tall, muscular build, which aged him in the vicinity of his early forties at most, only the Breed male's thick pattern of swirling, inter-locking dermaglyphs tracking down his bared forearms gave any indication that Yakut was an elder member of the Breed. As a Gen One, he could be a thousand years old or more.
"Warrior," Yakut said darkly, his stare unwavering, twin lasers locked on target. "I told you not to come. You and the rest of the Order are wasting your time."
In his peripheral vision, Niko caught the exchanged looks of surprise that traveled between Yakut's son and the rest of his guards. The female especially - Renata, she was called - seemed completely taken aback to hear that he was a warrior, one of the Order. Yet as quickly as the surprise registered in her gaze, it vanished, gone as though she had forced all emotion from her features. She was placid calm now, cold even, as she stood a few feet behind Sergei Yakut and watched, her weapon still in hand, her stance tentative and ready for his any command.
"We need your help," Nikolai said to Yakut. "And based on what's been going down near us in Boston and elsewhere within the Breed population, you're going to need our help too. The danger is very real. It's lethal. Your life is at risk, even now." "What