Vladimir Pov

The remnants of the pier battle were being sanitized. The smoke had cleared, but the metallic tang of blood and brine still hung heavy in the air. Damon Salvatore was sedated, awaiting transfer to an ultra-secure black site. Marco, the Italian lieutenant, was conscious, strapped to a chair in a makeshift interrogation room, a necessary evil.

I stood apart, alone in the silence that followed the slaughter. Marco had already given up the location of the bunker: a decommissioned ...