Page 23 of Vicious and Volatile (Vengeance and Venom #2)

B ack in our penthouse, I wait for what feels like an eternity for Sysco to call or message. I heat up one of the meals our cook pre-made, but I get down three bites of it before my nerves refuse more. I go to run some laundry as a distraction, but of course, the housecleaner has already taken care of it. I end up changing into some workout clothes and get on the elliptical for a good forty-five minutes. When I still don’t hear from Sysco, I roll out a yoga mat and try to find some damn zen.

Finally, an hour after I texted Sysco, my phone vibrates.

Meeting ended twenty minutes ago. Ares isn’t easy to tail. But he headed straight for Greenwich. He’s been looking around in this big ass house for five minutes.

Is it brick? Black details, stone lions, balconies?

Yep.

That was Augustus’s house. Does it look like anyone is there?

It takes two minutes before Sysco responds.

No, doesn’t look like there’s anyone here.

I chew my lower lip, thinking it over. Obviously, he isn’t looking for Augustus. I know he doesn’t want any of his father’s possessions. I don’t know that he’s looking for any particular documents anymore.

What else could he be searching for at Augustus’s house?

Vampires. The ones who worked for Augustus.

He’s leaving. I’ll follow him and update you soon.

Thank you.

I tap my phone against my hand, pacing the workout room.

My brain is reeling through the possibilities, but it can’t settle on what my gut is telling me. None of this makes any sense. I can’t find a logical reason behind anything.

Ares is blacking out.

He’s losing track of time.

He’s lying about his whereabouts, but I also get the impression that he doesn’t realize he’s lying.

No shirt when I found him.

Blood beneath his fingernails .

I lie down on my back on the yoga mat, scraping my fingers through my hair. I squeeze my eyes closed.

Ares should be coming home right now. He doesn’t have any sunglasses on him, and the sun will be coming up in less than thirty minutes. If he doesn’t get home, he’s going to have to find somewhere to get out of the sun, or he’ll be basically blind.

I pull up the tracking on his phone. It loads and loads forever before it shows his location at Augustus’s house twenty-two minutes ago. His phone must have died.

Just then, a notification pops up.

Fuck, I lost him. Had him headed toward the financial district, but when I went around the corner, he was gone.

My stomach drops out.

Another notification.

I’ll keep looking for him till the sun comes up. But we need to talk.

Thank you, Sysco. And we do. Can you come here after the sun rises?

He gives me a thumbs up.

Shit. I can’t think of any reason why Ares would be headed into the financial district. I can’t think of any reason why he would be going anywhere except home right now, considering he has no wallet on him, no shirt, and no sunglasses.

I pull up Florence’s contact and type up a message to her.

Hey, can I come over to your house sometime today? Something is up with Ares.

It’s six in the morning, so I hesitate to send it this time of day. But fuck it. This is important. I hit send and get up off the floor.

Thirty minutes go by, and I don’t hear from Sysco. I look out the windows in the living room, the ones that look out over Central Park. The horizon is lightening rapidly. There are already plenty of people walking around out there, some of them getting in their early morning workout, some of them just headed to their jobs.

My heart about leaps from my chest when there’s a buzz and then a voice echoing through the penthouse.

“I’ve got a Sysco Sullivan here for you, Miss Kincade,” the night doorman says. “Want me to let him up?”

I shuffle to press the button for the intercom. “Yes, let him up. Thanks.”

My fingers lace and then unlace. I tug at the hem of my shirt. I don’t know what I’m going to say to Sysco. I don’t really even know what’s going on. But I know I can’t and shouldn’t handle this on my own.

Finally, there’s a knock on the door. I yank it open a second later and let Sysco inside.

“What the hell is going on, Lana?” he asks, his brows furrowed. He stalks inside, his eyes casually looking around since he’s never been here before.

“I take it you didn’t track him down before the sun came up?” I ask. I click the remote, and the curtains close over the windows, dimming the space significantly .

Sysco shakes his head. “It’s like he’s being intentionally sneaky. I’m not too bad at tracking people, but tonight…” he shakes his head again. “Ares did not want to be followed.”

“Shit,” I breathe. My heart is beating faster. I want to deny it, but the pieces are falling into place too easily. “How did the meeting go?”

Sysco watches me pacing in the kitchen. “Weird,” he answers honestly. “Like I said, I thought Ares was going to rip Cliff’s throat out the moment he walked in the room, and Cliff didn’t say a damn word. Even Gio seemed to be getting on Ares’ nerves, and he didn’t do anything either.”

I curse again.

“But Felix was found dead yesterday,” Sysco says, the one bit of information I already knew about the Baron’s meeting. “Same savage circumstances as Cliff’s cousin. And while we were in that meeting, someone called Giovanni. His oldest son was just found. Ripped apart.”

My body goes cold. “Where did his son live?”

Sysco narrows his eyes at me. “Queens. Why?”

My legs just about give out. I brace my arms on the counter before I can go down. Tears sting my eyes. I want to throw up. I want to curl into a ball and make the world disappear.

“Lana, what the hell is going on?” Sysco says as he walks around the kitchen island. He grabs me with strong hands and helps me to my feet and into the living room. I sink into the beautiful chair in the corner.

I shake my head, my lips unable to form words.

Why?

Why?

Why is this happening ?

“Lana,” Sysco says my name again, the word more forceful this time.

My eyes flick up to meet his.

“Ares has been acting weird for the last week,” I start. My voice sounds hoarse. My hands shake violently, so I clutch them together in my lap. “He’s been gone for long periods of time. He’s not coming home when he said he would.”

“Fuck. I really didn’t want to believe Ares is cheating on you, Lana,” Sysco says darkly, and the look in his eyes says he will get violent retribution for me.

I shake my head. “For a second, I thought maybe. He was lying to James about where he was, what he was doing. But Ares has been missing chunks of time.”

Sysco slides his hands into his pockets. “What do you mean?”

My stomach hurts. I feel anxiety climbing my entire body. “Meaning, he thinks he’s going one place, but he comes to in a completely different place. He doesn’t remember where he is or how he got there. It’s sometimes hours at a time.”

Sysco’s expression slackens a bit.

“Ares knew Mike,” I start voicing the pieces I’ve been putting together. “Ares knew Beth. Ares knew Felix. Did Ares know Giovanni’s son?”

Sysco thinks about it for a minute. And I see something turn worried in his eyes when he finds his answer. “Luciano Resurrected around the same time Ares did. Gio and Augustus were heavy on the procreating kick soon after. Luciano took what was basically an arranged marriage. He tried to talk Ares into doing the same thing. It’s been a while since they’ve seen one another if I had to guess, but they definitely knew each other.”

Another curse slips out of my lips as my head drops into my hands. I shake my head, feeling like the world is spiraling apart right now.

“Lana, you’ve got to finish what you started,” Sysco says, his voice deadly serious. “Say what you’ve got to say because I have a feeling we don’t have much time to waste.”

I lift my head and know my eyes are bloodshot as I look Sysco dead in the eyes. “Before your meeting, maybe an hour or so before, Ares called me. He said he didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there. I tracked him with his phone. And I picked him up in Queens.”

This time, it’s Sysco’s turn to curse.

“Ares wasn’t wearing a shirt,” I say, my voice shaking. “Like he’d had to dispose of it. And there was blood under his fingernails.”

Sysco curses again, rubbing his hands through his short, buzzed hair. “Ares is killing other vampires. Not just killing them, brutally shredding them apart.”

“But I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it,” I say, my voice rising. “He’s missing periods of time, he doesn’t remember what happened during that time. I think… I think that’s when it’s happening. I don’t know what’s causing it, but Sysco, I don’t think Ares has any idea what he’s doing.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, Lana,” Sysco says, slight panic rising in his tone. “People don’t just lose their minds and start killing.”

“Except it’s happened before,” I say, fixing him with a stare. “In this very fucking city.”

Sysco stops suddenly, his eyes turning back to me. “The Steele family.”

I nod. “Their uncle went crazy,” I say, my voice low, quiet. “ It was out of character for him, something he never would have normally done. But something happened, and he did it.”

“You think someone did this to Ares,” Sysco says. He folds his arms over his chest, his gaze growing more intense by the moment as he processes everything.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess. Do you know if anything… else is out there? I mean, vampires exist. Is there anyone else out there with some kind of supernatural ability to control people?”

Sysco’s eyes slide over to me, but he doesn’t say anything. And it feels very weighted.

“Sysco,” I say in warning.

He doesn’t say anything for several long beats. I see the internal debate in his head. “I once knew this woman, she was from Chicago, that could, no shit, call lightening. She got angry, and the sky would fucking boom with thunder after the wildest lightning strikes.”

I still at that. That is a whole different level from what I was thinking.

“If someone like that exists, I don’t know why there couldn’t be someone who could control people,” Sysco says, his voice tight.

I lean back in the chair and feel my vision lose focus. Aleah said ‘this world is a whole lot bigger than we can see, Lana. Just because we don’t have a reasonable explanation for people’s actions doesn’t mean there isn’t one.’ If vampires exist, why couldn’t there be others out there? A vampire can turn any human into a Bitten, and voila, they have supernatural abilities. Why couldn’t there be more out there?

“If Giovanni finds out it was Ares who killed his son…” Sysco shakes his head. “Lana, Gio is not a forgiving person. Even if Ares didn’t have any control, Gio isn’t going to take this well.”

My gaze rises to Sysco’s again. Dread drops in my stomach.

“And Cliff might be a sniveling bitch sometimes, but he’s tight with his family. He’s been in this city for a long time, and no one should underestimate his connections.” Sysco’s shoulders are tense, his whole body wound like a spring.

Holy shit. I don’t know how we get out of this. I don’t know how we fix it.

“We need to find Ares and bring him in,” Sysco says, and I’m so grateful that I talked to him. I’m so grateful that he’s got Ares’ back. “We’ll lock him up if we have to until we can find a way to break through this. Till we find whoever did this to him.”

“Thank you, Sysco,” I say, my words raw as my throat feels. “You have no idea what your help means to me.”

He crosses to my chair and pulls me to my feet before he wraps his arms around me. “You’re the shit, Lana. We’re family now. I know you’d have my back, I’ve got yours.”

Those three words make my eyes burn. My vision swims.

We’re family now.

All of my family is dead. My mother and sister murdered. My father dead from a stroke. Then there was Ophelia, who I considered family, and she turned her back on me so damn easy.

Sysco, the slightly manic wild card who looks like someone I should avoid, has my back. He’s claimed me as family.

And he considers me, a human woman, as someone who would have his back.

“Thank you,” is all I manage to say.

He releases me, backing away three steps with a smile that’s so damn genuine I can’t question him. “You keep calling him. You search any places you know he might go. If you find him, you call me, immediately. I’ll be out looking for him. Text me a list of any other vampires he might know, okay?”

I nod and follow him as he heads for the door. He pulls some sunglasses from his pocket, but he doesn’t put them on yet.

“We’ll find him, Lana,” Sysco promises. “And we’ll fix him.”

“Okay,” I say with a smile as he walks out the door. I close it behind him and pull out my phone as I head for the study. I sink into the chair as I start typing up a list of every vampire I can think of that Ares knows.

It’s not that many.

I don’t have to list all the Barons. That’s obvious.

Augustus is dead.

James St. Claire.

Billings—Ares driver.

Tom Dee.

Shit. My fingers hesitate as I type out the name of the accountant who works for Ares. My mind falls back to a conversation I overheard. Pat, the receptionist, said that Tom hadn’t shown up for work, which was abnormal. Ares said he wasn’t going to worry about it unless he didn’t show up the next day.

I don’t know if he showed up the next day.

I fire off a text to James.

Has Tom been in to work in the last few days?

It takes him two minutes to answer.

No, he’s been out since last Monday. Why?

“Shit,” I breathe, and I know. I just know what’s happened to Tom.

I don’t reply to James, though. I need to talk to Sysco first.

I keep thinking of any other vampires Ares knows, and then send the list off to Sysco. I know it isn’t a comprehensive list, but it would be impossible for me to know every single vampire Ares knows.

And for a moment, I have to consider it for the first time. If we cured Ares, turned him back into a human, he couldn’t keep killing vampires like this.

My stomach turns at the very thought of it.

I jump in the shower when I’m done, scrub myself down, then blow-dry my hair and pull on some clothes. I check the camera at our front door, making sure it will alert me whenever there’s motion. I want to make sure I know the moment Ares comes home. When I’m positive it’s working, I call Billings with nervous anticipation.

“Lana.”

My entire body practically sags with relief when Billings answers after just one ring.

“Hey,” I try to recover. “Have you taken Ares anywhere in the last two hours or so?”

“I haven’t driven Mr. Hunt anywhere in two days,” he says. “Why?”

“Nothing,” I say, trying to divert. “Can you pick me up right now?”

“Of course,” he confirms. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Thanks,” I hang up and gather the rest of my things. I take the elevator down to the lobby and cross to Lazlo’s desk, where he’s working on sorting through the mail.

“Hey, Laz,” I say as I fold my hands on the desk. “Would you do me a favor?”

“What do you need, Miss Kincade?” he asks. He’s a smart one, he doesn’t make any promises before he knows what he’s getting himself into.

“Would you call me the second you see Ares walk in here?” I ask, trying to sound earnest but innocent. “Some things have happened, and he needs to know, but his phone must be dead. I’d like to know as soon as he gets home.”

“Of course,” he says, his brows furrowing. “Everything okay?”

“Not really,” I answer honestly, but I keep my tone lighter. “But I hope it will be soon.”

Just then, I see the black SUV park outside the front doors. I wave goodbye to Lazlo and walk out. The air conditioning is already blasting when I climb inside, which is fantastic. It’s damn hot today.

“Where to, Miss Kincade?” Billings asks as I slip into the middle seats.

“This is going to sound strange,” I start. “But I need you to take me anywhere you take Ares regularly. Ares is missing, and I don’t know if he’s okay.”

Billings holds my gaze in the rearview mirror for a long moment. It’s a heavy thing I just asked him. Technically, Ares is his boss, not me.

But he’s worked for Ares for some time, and I know he cares about Ares.

So, he rolls forward, merging with traffic.