Page 24 of Vicious and Volatile (Vengeance and Venom #2)

A res really doesn’t go that many places. Billings takes me to a bank. No Ares. We go to three places Ares likes to eat. He isn’t at any of them. We go to the office. No one has seen Ares. I’m relieved, though, when James is there and is unharmed. I should probably warn him to stay away from Ares, but I don’t know how to word it without causing a panic. I’ll text him soon.

I check the camera at the penthouse as we cross town, but there’s been no activity since I left.

Billings and I drive to two of the properties Ares has visited most over the last few weeks. He isn’t at either of them.

I don’t know where the hell he would be. Ares was shirtless. He has no wallet. So, it isn’t like he can just walk in and buy a shirt. He can’t go buy some sunglasses. He has to be hunkering down indoors somewhere to escape the sun, but where?

Finally, at four in the afternoon, Florence texts me back.

Fuck, I never saw your text until right now. Can you come over to the house right now?

“Billings, we’re going to Florence’s now,” I say as I text be right there to Ares’ sister.

It takes us a good fifteen minutes to get there, but finally, Billings stops at the curb. “I might be a while,” I say as I climb out. “I’ll call you when I’m finished here. But if Ares calls you and asks you to drive him anywhere, you need to tell him the car is having problems, and you can’t. This is important, Billings.”

Worry and confusion creep onto his face, but Billings simply nods, and he drives off when I close the door.

I walk up to the front door, my eyes rising to the stone plaque above it, the one that reads HUNT HOUSE Est. 1907. Just as I’m about to knock, it opens, and a very concerned Florence stands there.

“You don’t need to knock, Lana, you’re family,” she says, her tone absolutely serious, as if this is just a simple fact I should already know.

Again, my chest tugs.

Yesterday, I only had Ares. Today, I have Sysco and Florence too.

She ushers me inside, and there in the entryway stands Clementine as well. Florence waves us into her office.

“What’s going on?” Florence asks, getting right to it. It’s what I love so much about her. She doesn’t beat around the bush, she’s direct without being cold.

And so, I start explaining it all. How Ares has been acting strange, especially toward vampires. How he’s been lying about where he’s going. How he can’t seem to remember where he’s been. And then our bizarre encounter in Queens. I tell her about the vampires who have been ripped apart, and as I do, I recall how Ares took care of Lawrence.

Fuck. Ares ripped Lawrence to pieces. Just like how Mike and Beth and Felix and Luciano were found.

I tell Florence everything. All the same details I told Sysco, with the addition of my realization. I spill every last bit of it.

“Do you know anyone who is capable of making him do something like this?” I ask at the end of it all, my tone sounding desperate.

Florence’s gaze is unfocused as she racks her brain. My gaze flicks to Clementine. “I don’t,” she confesses. “I’m not sure I even think that’s possible.”

“Ares would never do this on his own,” I snap, the first harsh words I’ve ever said toward the sweet woman.

“That’s not what I was trying to say, Lana,” Clementine says calmly.

“The statistical probability that vampires are the only supernatural beings out there is very low,” Florence says. I can practically see the gears turning in her head. Her gaze focuses again. “If vampires exist at all, that nearly guarantees there are other anomalies out there as well. And if you think about how well the vampires have kept themselves hidden, for thousands of years, apparently, why couldn’t these other types keep themselves unknown as well?”

“But how do we sus them out?” I ask, feeling a little bit desperate. “How do we find this person who has hidden themselves? And why the hell would they target Ares?”

I feel more frantic by the moment.

“Maybe I could break it if I could get Ares back to the lab,” Florence says. She’s breathing a little harder. Of course, my mind immediately goes to Elle’s lab and the possibilities she offers. But Florence pushes on. “I mean, it’s a long shot, but if it was put in him, why couldn’t it be taken out?”

“Perfect,” I say as I once more pull my phone out of my pocket. “If we could find him.” I pull up the tracking app, and it still reads his last location as early this morning. I check the doorbell again, but there still hasn’t been any motion.

My phone starts buzzing, Sysco’s name filling the screen that he’s calling.

But before I can answer it, someone pounds on the door.

All three of our heads whip toward it.

And the next moment, the entire front door blasts open, wood splintering through the air, the hinges groaning against the violence.

Giovanni barrels through the front door, standing in the entryway, his chest heaving with rage.

“Lana, you’re here as well,” Gio says. There’s something savage, feral, vengeful in his eyes. He takes a step forward. “Even better. A love for a love.”

He stalks across the entry to the opening of Florence’s office. I stagger to my feet at the same time Florence does. Clementine’s eyes flash yellow, the first time I’ve ever seen that color instead of red.

“ Why did he do it?” Gio snarls. “My son did nothing to him. Hasn’t spoken to Ares in years. Why?” His volume increases with each word spoken.

“Gio, I don’t know what’s wrong with Ares, but he?—”

“My son!” Giovanni cuts me off. “My eldest son. He is dead. Shredded like an animal. By Ares.”

Gio is practically shaking with rage .

Clementine takes a step forward. But it’s almost laughable. I’m sure as a Bitten she’s stronger than I am. But Gio is not a small man. And he is a Born.

“Gio, I’m so sorry,” I say, holding my hands up. The violence is radiating off of him.

“Whatever my brother has done, surely we can work this out,” Florence says. She’s using her business voice, the one that radiates confidence and calm.

His eyes snap to her, and they flash red.

“I know you want revenge, Gio,” I say, my words coming out in a rush as I try to talk the man down. “But we need to figure this out. There is more?—”

“No,” Gio cuts me off again. “There is no reconciliation. There is only an eye for an eye.”

Pain slices through my body. I take in one gasping, ragged breath as my eyes flare wide.

Gio stands right before me, his face only three inches away. “A love for a love.”

A scream rips through the room. And in the next instant, Gio disappears in a blink. Clementine moves so fast I can hardly see her, chasing after Giovanni.

“Lana,” Florence says as my knees start to collapse. She wraps her arms around me, trying to catch me, trying to help lower me to the floor. “Holy shit, Lana.”

Pain radiates through me in never ending waves. I try to suck in some air, but it comes out as a gasp.

My eyes slide down. There is a knife sticking out of my belly. There is a cut line rising up from it, over my belly button, up between my breasts, up the center of my throat.

Blood.

There is so much blood .

And it’s mine.

Not my sister’s splattered all over the kitchen. Not my mother’s staining the rug. It’s my blood this time that is pouring onto the floor.

“Flor…” the words won’t fully work. Something shifts in my stomach, and I feel wet mass trying to bulge out of me.

My vision goes blurry as the pain overwhelms me. My whole body feels slack.

“Lana,” Florence says desperately, but her voice is sounding further away. “Lana, stay with me. Fuck, Lana, you cannot die on me!”

But I feel something escape my body. I feel like a river is cascading from my gut.

Everything is blinking in and out. Black. The ceiling. Black. The ceiling.

I hear curses and desperate calls. And then Clementine’s inhumanly strong arms wrap around me, and the pain is so agonizing I black out for a while.

“She will die,” I hear words at some point. “A hospital cannot fix this. I cannot just let her die on us, on Ares, no matter what he’s doing right now.”

More darkness.

More agony.

I’m jostled, and the pain is searing, white hot. Lights flash overhead. Something dings. I feel someone running. Me? No, whoever is carrying me.

Clementine?

“You’ve done no human testing, Flo, what if…” Whoever speaks the words sounds terrified.

“It’s ready,” someone else says. They sound confident. Almost ridiculously so. “It’s been ready for weeks. It. Will. Work.”

“Flo, are you sure about this?” someone whispers.

“I will not let my sister die!” another voice calls out.

A gasp rips from my lips when I’m laid down on a hard, flat surface. Something sloshes. Squishes? That sound shouldn’t exist. My body shouldn’t be making it.

And the pain that accompanies it is the tidal wave that washes over me. The entire world muffles to the hum of the universe. Everything is black.

The darkness feels warmer. More comforting. I feel it enveloping me more by the second. I want to rush to it, to speed it up so the pain will end.

But it is coming for me quick enough. I just have to wait for it to consume me.

And just as it stands before me, just before it swallows me entirely, there is a sharp prick in my chest.

It’s cold—painful—but the sensation is barely a whisper against the gaping, ruined mess of my stomach. I barely register that anything happened before the real pain starts.

It hits my bloodstream like an invasion, a foreign force slamming into me, rewriting me from the inside out. My veins turn to fire, my body rejecting the substance, trying to expel it, fight it off. But it’s too late. The moment the dark liquid disperses, I feel it burrowing deep, merging with my cells, seizing control.

A violent, gut-wrenching spasm overtakes me, my back arching off the table so sharply I hear something in my spine pop. Every muscle in my body locks, tightens, twists, and then—I’m splitting apart.

I don’t know if I’m screaming .

I don’t know if I’m breathing.

All I know is fire.

Not a distant burn. Not something I can endure. This is hell incarnate, setting every fiber of my being ablaze. My blood isn’t blood anymore—it’s molten lava, coursing, pulsing, churning. My nerves ignite, sending signals so intense my body doesn’t know whether to seize or thrash. I can feel my skin boiling from the inside out, the tissue beneath swelling, bubbling, warping.

I try to move—to roll, to claw at my skin, to make it stop—but my muscles are locked, stiff as stone. My bones feel like they’re cracking apart, splintering as something new forces its way through them.

And then—the tearing.

My body splits.

My stomach, already wrecked by Giovanni’s blade, rips open again from the inside. My ribs widen, snap, and then—they regrow. My organs, my ruined intestines—they liquefy, dissolve into something unrecognizable—only to reform.

Everything inside me is reshaping itself.

I can’t tell where I begin and end.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. Years.

I am the acid. The acid is me. It breaks me down until there is no difference between us.

I exist in this pain. I am the pain.

Every cell of my body is in flux, breaking apart, remaking itself. My spine lengthens, twisting until I feel my vertebrae separate, stretch, fuse. My fingers curl into claws, my nails splitting, falling off, regrowing sharper, thicker.

There is no pause. No mercy. No moment to breathe.

My jaw unhinges with a sickening crack, my teeth falling loose, rattling against my tongue—before new ones shove through my gums, cutting, tearing their way into place.

I feel every. Single. One.

My lungs collapse and then reform, gasping for air.

My heart stutters, then stops.

Finally, after what has to be an eternity, the pain vanishes.

Stillness.

I hover in a space of perfect nothingness.

No pain. No movement. No weight, no sound—just balance.

There is a thump in my chest.

I take a breath.

It’s slow. It’s deep.

Another thump in my chest.

This feeling. This feeling.

Everything inside me aligns, my body settling into something unshakable, untouchable. My skin hums with a quiet, absolute strength. The deep ache in my stomach is gone. My limbs feel light, effortless, liquid and steel all at once.

This is what it means to be whole.

I could stay here forever.

I want to stay here forever.

“Lana?” a tentative voice asks.

No. Leave me be. I don’t want to leave this space where everything feels so perfect, so crystalline, so complete.

But then?—

A spark.

My body roars back to life.

I gasp—sharp, deep, dragging in air that floods me with sensation. It tastes different. Sound rushes into my ears, crystal clear. Two people shift nervously across the space. Heartbeats, again, two of them. No, dozens of them coming from scattering, tiny creatures. I hear dozens of conversations happening above. I hear the rush of an elevator. And outside, I hear the bustle of traffic.

“Lana?” Florence asks nervously.

My eyes flash open, and in painful, clear detail, I stare at the ceiling of Florence’s vampiric research lab.

The world flares red.

And I am starving.

THE END OF BOOK TWO

The story continues in VIOLENCE & VICE .