A vase of roses sat in the center of the throne room; the note attached read: I'll be seeing you soon, I expect. It was left unsigned, but it was no mystery to Aro who had sent them. The Count.

Aro felt uneasy about the threat. The intention behind it was so clear that he began preparing a task force to be sent to Chicago immediately. The Count was watching them. He was in the walls, he was in the air, he was in the blood that stained their lips as they fed from yet another group of unsuspecting tourists. He was taking note of their collective debt of sins, watching and waiting for them to slip so he could collapse their world around them.

Aro was always reluctant to send the twins out on missions because they were the Volturi's main form of offensive power, but they were best suited to neutralize threats efficiently and immediately. They were his crown jewels; their mere presence was enough to silence most outcries they had received in the past. This felt different, Aro admitted to himself.

From the very beginning, he had a feeling about The Count that he couldn't quite place his finger on. The Count wasn't technically breaking any of the Volturi's laws. Usually, when newborn armies were created, their leaders were indiscrete, often choosing high-risk victims and drawing attention to themselves. If they managed to keep themselves hidden, the leaders almost always failed to properly care for and train their newborns, giving the Volturi more than enough reason to intervene. The Count wasn't. They wouldn't have even been aware of the threat had Bastian, their latest recruit and Jane's mate, whom they'd added to their collection while in Romania, not informed them of his chance encounter with The Count in the early days of his creation. Even then, he'd only spoken to Bastian about the corruption of the Volturi. Nothing that the Volturi could use against him. He was frighteningly brilliant, and he was skilled at navigating around their laws. It was a combination that did not bode well with Aro or Caius.

He would send the twins in, with the hope of intimidating The Count enough to deter him from an attack. Aro decided that he would send Felix and Demetri as well; the guard's muscle and its best tracker. They were his all-star team, and it was the best he could do to set his mind at ease. If anyone could find a reason to eliminate The Count, it was those four.

The Count knew that the Volturi were watching him. He was expecting this. How could he not? He must have turned nearly fifteen humans this month, and perhaps forty in all. The humans he bit were mostly homeless people he found on the street or prostitutes that had propositioned him. One of the humans had even been a cop who heard the screams of one of his victims and started asking questions. The Count did not care. Discretion was not his mission. Let the Volturi see their reckoning take shape right before their eyes. Let them wonder what we have in store for them. The Count's advantage, he knew, was that the Volturi's approval among those which they governed was at an all-time low; they were simply too weak to try and impose their will upon him without casting further doubt on their brand of justice. No one trusted them anymore, but a select few had trusted him.

The Count had been created centuries ago, raised by his creators for the sole purpose of killing the Volturi. From the day of his rebirth, he had been trained that his only purpose was to bring the reign of the Volturi to a screeching, bloody, deadly halt.

The air was biting as The Count stalked towards the factory in Chicago which housed the makings of what he hoped would become the finest army any vampire had seen for centuries. To unseat the Volturi, they would have to be.

In his three hundred years on earth, he had gathered knowledge on the Volturi from every dark corner of the Earth. He knew every dirty little secret they had. If they had a weak link, The Count knew about it.

It was no secret that the Volturi's real power came from the guard; more specifically, it came from the witch twins, Alec and Jane. Jane, with her ability to give the illusion of the most excruciating pain imaginable, and her twin brother Alec. He was her opposite in every way possible, save for their shared sadistic tendencies, including his gift of sensory deprivation, which left one utterly alone in the darkness of their mind, trapped within their own body to the point that a person under his influence wouldn't even feel the flames when the guard decided to burn them. Without them, Aro, Caius, and Marcus were nothing. No member of the guard could stand against his army if Jane and Alec were to turn against the Volturi. Nor was it a secret that Jane was the one so entirely devoted to Aro, positively desperate for his approval and acceptance, while her brother was that fiercely loyal only to his sister. Which left Jane. Jane, whom everyone feared. Jane, the poster child of the guard. Jane, Aro's spoiled little princess. She was the one who would bring about the downfall of them all. The solution was so glaringly simple. It was so moronic, it hurt. It was the only thing more powerful than Jane herself.

Credit where credit is due, an honorable mention went to Chelsea, who was so profoundly influential with her ability to manipulate relationships that she was allowed to keep her mate, Afton, around for so many years despite his essential uselessness to the guard. Technically speaking, the Volturi didn't allow members of the guard to have mates. The bond between mates could be the only thing stronger than fear of the wrath of the Volturi, and for the more valuable members of his coven, it was a chance Aro wasn't willing to take. He'd killed his own sister when he believed Marcus would leave him, and he'd do the same to anyone he thought would get in the way of the Volturi's power. The loss of Chelsea would do nothing to hinder the Volturi guard, unlike the loss of Alec or Jane. But it would certainly ruin Aro's day, The Count knew, and she would certainly make one hell of an ally if he was given the opportunity.