Page 27 of Violence and Vice

Holy shit. The message went through. My hands fly across the screen as I immediately open our location sharing. It loads for half a second—then his location pings.

Harlem. He’s moving.

Ice crashes through my veins. Sysco owns a massive portion of Harlem. Ares is hunting vampires.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Ares is going after Sysco.

My fingers tremble as I click on Ares’s contact and hit call.

It rings once. Twice.

Then, unbelievably, Ares picks up. “Vengeance.” His voice is low, rough.

“Ares,” I breathe, my voice barely above a whisper, my grip tightening around the phone.

I nearly collapse in relief at the sound of him, but something is wrong. He doesn’t sound like himself. There’s a strange emptiness in his voice, like he’s locked onto something, fixated. Hunting.

I swallow hard and force myself to sound steady. “Ares, where are you?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. I hear the faint sounds of the city in the background, but his breathing is steady, measured, too calm. That’s what terrifies me the most.

He doesn’t answer me, like he’s hardly paying attention. “Ares!”

He makes a littlehmmsound, acknowledging me, but not actually answering.

And an idea strikes me. I have to change my approach. I have to reach a deeper part of Ares.

I let desperation bleed into my voice, every ounce of it genuine. “Ares, I need your help.” My voice shakes, I let emotion saturate my words. “There’s this man following me. Where are you?”

The other line goes quiet, the whisp of air halting, as if he’s stopped in his tracks.

“Where?” His voice is sharper now.

There he is. The Ares I know.

“Third and ninety-ninth,” I say, breathing hard, like I’m walking. I pick the address knowing it’s roughly the halfway point between us. “Ares, hurry!”

“I’m on my way, Vengeance,” his promise comes through. “Stay somewhere public, don’t stop?—”

The line goes dead.

I look at my phone, confirming the call has dropped. “Fuck.”

I don’t know what to think about that, but I get moving. I have nine blocks to go, and Ares is faster than I am.

I pull my phone out again and press it to my ear.

Sysco answers on the second ring.

“Ares is hunting you. Get somewhere safe, now.”

A curse, then rustling as if he’s already moving. “I’ll handle it.”

“No.” My voice is firm. I dart around a crowd of people on the sidewalk, stepping out onto the road even though there isn’t a crossing sign. A car honks at me. “I think I have him distracted. Let me handle it. Just stay the hell out of his way.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” Sysco says, his tone frustrated and angry at the same time.