Libor disconnected without further words.

Adam stared at the phone. For two cents, he’d drop everything and go find Mercy. Now.

Mercy could take care of herself. She’d survived just fine before he’d married her. Afterward, both he and she had done all that they could to ensure that continued to be true. He could trust her to take care of herself. But when he started to make another call, he knew the wolf was in his eyes again. He didn’t bother trying to calm down.

“David,” he said as soon as the other side of the phone call was picked up. “I need to land a private jet in or very near Prague. Do you know somewhere I can do that?”

David Christiansen, the werewolf on the other side of the conversation, was a mercenary with contacts all over the world. He was also one of Adam’s oldest friends.

“How are you, Adam?” David said with mock cheer. “It’s good to talk to you. Even ‘hi, hello, how’s it going’ would have been okay.”

“Mercy’s loose in Prague. I’m in Milan, and I need to get to Prague tomorrow morning. Very early. Money is no problem, but if the price is too high, we might need to wire some.”

David wasn’t stupid. He heard “Milan” and that Mercy and Adam were separated. He added those two together and came up with Bonarata because he said, “Messing in vampire business isn’t for wusses. Try to look unimportant, Sarge; maybe they’ll be low on ammo.”

“Too late,” Adam said with an involuntary grin. He hadn’t heard that phrase since ’Nam, when officers were favorite targets of the enemy. “But there aren’t any bullets flying right now.” In the background, he could hear the scratch scratch as David wrote something on a piece of paper.

“What kind of plane?”

Adam gave him the specs, and David wrote those down, too.

“Give me a minute, my people are on it,” David said. “If you kill that old bastard in Milan, I’ll treat you to the biggest steak in Chicago. Or Seattle, if you don’t want to come my way.”

“Doesn’t look like murdering vampires is in my near future,” admitted Adam. “Much as I’d enjoy it.”

David murmured something to someone else, then was back on the phone. “Got it. Do you have something to write with or do you want me to text you?”

“Text me,” said Adam. “Thanks.”

“I still owe you, I figure,” David responded. “Do you need some backup? I can be in Prague with a crew or two in about seventeen hours.”

Adam considered it. But if the people he had with him weren’t enough, he reckoned he’d need a nuclear strike and not more people to die trying to rescue him and Mercy.

“I think it’s handled,” he said. Though he’d have been happier if Libor had been the same kind of polite liar that Bonarata was—odd that he trusted the vampire further than his own kind. But he’d met Bonarata, and he figured he had his measure. No telling whether Libor was just being a pain for the sake of annoyance—or if he was a problem.