"When?"
"The communications reference 'the gathering.' We believe that means the quarterly meeting of the donor coordinators. Every hub supervisor in one location."
I look at Elena. Her face is pale, her hands gripping the edge of the table hard enough to whiten her knuckles.
"That's tomorrow night," she says quietly. "We have representatives coming from six states. If Konstantin hits that meeting..."
"He cripples the network across the Southeast," I finish. "One strike."
Silence settles over the room. The implications are staggering. Months of work, years of relationship-building, an entire infrastructure of trust and logistics, all of it vulnerable to a single coordinated assault.
"We cancel the meeting," Nadia says. "Postpone until we've dealt with the threat."
"And tell them what?" Julian counters. "That we can't protect our own people? That will do more damage than Konstantin could. Coordinators will panic. Donors will flee. The network collapses anyway."
"Better a collapsed network than dead coordinators."
"Is it? If the network collapses, vampires start feeding uncontrolled. Humans die anyway, just more of them, over a longer period." Julian's voice is tight. "There are no good options here."
"Then we fortify," Nadia says. "Bring everyone here, defend in force."
"We don't have the resources to protect both the meeting and the compound," Marcellus says. "If we concentrate our forces at the distribution hub, we leave the compound vulnerable. If he's smart, and he is, he hits both locations simultaneously."
"Split our forces," Ethan suggests from the door. "Half at each location."
"Then we're weak at both." Marcellus shakes his head. "Half-strength defense is barely better than no defense."
"What about Dmitri's forces?" Nadia asks. "He provided the intelligence. Surely he'd provide support as well."
"Sharing intelligence is one thing. Committing forces to another lord's war is something else entirely." I shake my head. "The political cost of asking, and the debt we'd owe if he said yes, could be worse than fighting alone."
The conversation circles, each option examined and found wanting. I listen, let them work through the possibilities, and file away the insights that emerge from the debate. This is how good strategy happens, not from a single brilliant mind but from multiple perspectives colliding until something useful emerges.
"He's trying to make us choose," Celeste says quietly.
Everyone turns to look at her.
She's been silent since we sat down, absorbing the information, processing. Now she leans forward, her expression focused.
"That's what he's doing," she continues. "He knows we can't protect everything. So he's forcing us to pick: the meeting or the compound. The network or our home. Either way, he wins something."
"She's right," I say. "This is classic siege warfare. Stretch the enemy thin, make them defend everywhere, then strike where they're weakest."
"So what do we do?" Elena asks. "We can't just let him slaughter our people."
"No," I agree. "We can't."
I lean back in my chair, mind racing through possibilities. Every option has costs. Every strategy has holes. Konstantin has been planning this for months, maybe years. He's had time to consider our responses, to prepare counters for our counters.
But he doesn't know everything.
"We don't play his game," I say finally. "He wants us to react. To scatter our forces trying to protect everything. Instead, we go on the offensive."
"Attack him?" Julian frowns. "We don't even know where his base of operations is."
"But we know where he'll be tomorrow night." I tap the tablet. "These communications go both ways. If he's coordinating an assault on the distribution hub, he'll need to be close enough todirect it. He won't trust lieutenants with something this important."
"You want to draw him out," Marcellus says slowly. "Use the meeting as bait."
