Urquia

Chapter 31: The meeting part 3

*Author POV*

Andrea cleared her throat to refocus.

-"Anyways... we found a connection between these two and this Italian guy."

She points to a man with a scar on his face.

-"Pietro Rossi. Italian Mafia." Cris then puts him in the net they've been creating on the screen.

-"Cris caught them trying to decide who to follow first, you," she points at Nate with her chin, -"or me."

The gammas and deltas gasped. Leo went stiff.

-"So, Cris took them down, and I got them to spill the beans, and now we know who's after us."

-"These men," she points to the unnamed men, -"and this guy, Pietro."

She looks at Cris, who shows a bunch of surveillance photos of them talking to Jose.

-"Now these scumbags are into human trafficking. Jose actually told me he would sell my kids and Cris if I didn't... cooperate."

She said, holding Nate's gaze, pure rage radiating from her. She studied him and his friends too; the women were a bit shaken but held their composure.

Dami and Dee already knew this, so it wasn't a surprise, but she knew it hurt her mom and dad even if they held their reactions.

Cris was studying them as well, but they weren't paying much attention to her; their eyes were mostly on the screen. Only Leo, who shot glances at her, noticed her slightly narrowed eyes when she was watching them.

Nathan's mind was swirling with thoughts, but his wolf was distracted, looking at her in awe. The girls, too, were thinking how amazing their G.I. Jane Luna was.

-"How do you know for sure what they are saying is true?" Leo asked Cris.

-"I interrogated them for hours, I'm sure," she said, looking at her family. With a nod, she confirmed all their suspicions. Even Dami understood what that meant. Nathan and Leo looked at each other, and they, too, knew.

-'She made that rogue sing in, like, what? Seven minutes? She took her time with those two,' Leo said through the mind link.

-'And Brianna,' Nathan said.

Nate looked at Damian. He was shocked at how brave this little man was. At his age, he was really mature. He was focused on his mom, but his eyes were sad; he must have suffered a lot.

-"And Cris made sure of it," Andy said, shrugging. She sat and took a deep breath.

-"I would have left you guys out of all of this, but they told us they were targeting you the moment you approached me in the alley that first time. They have already reported it to Pietro."

-"Human trafficking is a serious issue, guys. They are dangerous men and can really hurt you. It doesn't matter whether you are supernatural or not; they can catch you," She said before taking a sip of her water. She got up again.

-"Papi, I'm shutting it all down—ALL their businesses: drugs, money, people. As soon as that happens, you know they're coming here for me. We all know that. And now they'd be going after Alpha and his pack just because he walked me to my car that Friday."

After a few seconds of silence, Andy turned to Nate and the guys.

-"Look, guys, I'm really sorry you got involved in this mess. I know you are a peaceful, secret community, and from the intel we got on you, you obviously want your kind safe from the human world, and that's okay." They all looked at each other.

-"Don't worry, we didn't dig too deep into your lives," Cris says reassuringly.

-"We don't want to discover you or anything; we're going to do everything possible to protect you guys."

She saw the changes in their micro-expressions. They were amused? She narrowed her eyes at that.

-"We don't need protection, princess; we are... well, umm, we are werewolves." He said, looking at Dami's eyes. Damian didn't even blink, showing no reaction at all. -'So he knows as well?' Nathan wondered.

She looked at Cris's eyes, and it was like they had a conversation, like linking. Andy was at a crossroads. Cris was using her genius mind. She was putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, connecting the dots.

-"These guys... are they werewolves too?" Cris asked, pointing at the unnamed men and women who were on the screen.

-"No, they are vampires," Nathan said simply.

-"You know about us?" Leo asked Cris abruptly.

-"We know you are wolf shifters, yes," Emmanuel answered.

-"Are you hunters?" Ramirez asked, looking at Andy.

-"No," they all answered at the same time.

-"We have dealt with your kind on our journeys," Urimare said.

Nate looked at everyone; his gut told him they were telling the truth, but something was still bothering him.

-"What do you want us to do?" Emmanuel asked seriously, changing the subject.

Andy looks at everyone; her kids nod, Mom and Dad nod, Cris nods too.

-"Remember Somalia in 2001?" She asks her dad.

-"That would be tricky, mija," he says while the wheels in his head start to move. Nate is looking at her dad and sees his warrior face.

Mom also has a calculating look; damn, even the kids knew something.

Andy, noticing their curiosity, began to speak.

-"When I was around eight years old, my entire school was kidnapped by an extremist group in Somalia. It was a girls' school, and they didn't want women getting educated. They wanted to sell us or take us as wives. They'd r***d and even killed lots of girls. We were 300 more or less. Dad, Mom, and their teams rescued us on the third day. While they did a double-front attack as a decoy, Mom and her girls came unnoticed from the sewage system, and they finished them one by one from the inside. By the time they'd noticed, there were half a dozen left, so they gave up."

The wolves were listening with curiosity. Liza was eating the pastries like popcorn.

Dami took one of the last ones, brought it to his sister with a glass of juice, and went back to his chair.

-"Wait, wait a second... Can you please give me the names of the vampires?"

Cris insisted. Andy knew why. It was one of their theories. But in her heart, she hoped not.

-"Yuri, Dimitri, and Alexei Brezhnev."

Finally, Andy's eyes reacted, realizing something. She looked at Cris, who had started typing like crazy. She shook her head and stood up slowly, shaking with rage. A sudden chill ran down her spine, a cold, razor-sharp focus settling in her mind.

-"This... this changes everything!" her voice guttural. Her face darkened, her body stiff, her hands fists. She looked ready to fight. And her eyes were looking only at Cris.

-"Hey, momma, they don’t know that we know they know we know." Cris said, standing up, going to her. Confusing the hell out of every wolf. She poured another two shots, and they drank. She did it again.

Nathan was so concerned by the rage that was pouring out of her, he wanted to make her relax, but her mother held a hand over the table and shook her head slightly, stopping him.

-"We'll dance it out later, okay?" Cristina whispered. They held their gazes without saying anything more. Her parents looked at each other. There was silence, but at the same time, there were three conversations going on.

-'Why is she reacting like that?'

-'Does she know these vampires?'

-'She looks like she's going to shift, right?'

-'Is her sister quoting movies and series so she can relax?'

They all asked through the open mind link.

Andy took a few deep, steadying breaths. With her eyes locked on Cris. She then nodded, and Cris went back to her seat. She started typing again. After a few minutes, she said:

-"I never understood why a man like Jose came into my life, how and why I fell for him. How I let him do whatever he wanted. I know you've got to be thinking about it too." Looking at her parents.

-"I went to Pacha club in Barcelona with Callie and Steve, and that's the first time I saw him. I don't really remember much after that. Everything is a blur, like a dream you know you had, but you can't quite describe it. I have moments of clarity, usually when Cris came to visit or with the kids. Cris was getting a few doctorates at the time, so she couldn't tell really, neither did you," She said, looking at her parents, pursing her lips.

-"Cris finally came home to stay after five years, and only then she noticed. She found out he used an ancient Spanish gypsy spell to tame me down. He then branded me on my left arm, on the inside, with another spell and the Hindi word dāas which means slave." Andy opened her zip-up hoodie and showed all of them a nasty, burn-scarred mark that was part of the face of an owl tattoo.

-"You need to know this is. NOT. your. fault." looking intensely at her parents. They looked at her with so many emotions. Monique sniffed a bit.

-"But it all makes sense now." Cris said, and Andy regained her composure and zipped her hoodie back. It was the first time showing her arms. She didn't even look at Nate.

-"Mom, Dad, they are the first 'Vory,' and they are from the thirteen." She said, looking at them with an unreadable face. Her mom gasped and put her hand in her mouth. Her dad paled.

-"What thirteen?" Leo asked. He didn't want to interrupt, but with so many people and names, everything was confusing; if he didn't ask, he'd be more lost.

-"Are you sure?" her dad said sternly, his jaw clenching.

Cris clicked a few times, and the screen changed into another net of men and numbers.

-"What is this?" Nathan asked.

Urimare spoke now. Her whole demeanor changed. Suddenly, they all felt her power.

-"We are on a mission. We are after the thirteen men of Vlad the Third, the ruler of Wallachia in 1448, most commonly known as Vlad the Impaler. You may know him as Dracula, the "first" vampire. We are terminating them." She said solemnly.

The wolves gasped; shock and lots of questions went through their minds.

-"We have exterminated eight of them so far, but we hadn't been able to put a face on these three until now." Urimare looked at Alpha Nathan.

-"That's why Jose always tried to make you go to Spain. They were trying to lure you out, to force you to go with them," Cris said.

The family was all lost in their thoughts.

-"Why use him and not kidnap you in the first place?" Liza asked.

-"We would know it was them. Think about it. A man with no motive is a man no one suspects," Andy explained with a quote she knew she'd understand.

-"Oh, that reminds me," Cris said, typing on her laptop.

-"Have you guys had any rogues attack besides the ones that went for Andy?"

-"Not us precisely, our surrounding allies. Why?" Nathan asked.

-"They are being sent by Jose. Him and four other men I'm yet to identify will be here shortly. Three days top. From my intel, they are trying to gather them here. I can bet the vampires are in it too. If by any chance you get them alive, we'll need to talk," Cris said.

-"Yes, but don't worry, we'll be striking first."