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I step inside slowly. I don’t know why. I’m not worried he’s going to hurt me. But it feels a little like approaching a feral animal you aren’t sure will accept your help. "You're safe. You're at Harry’s vault. Do you remember how you got here?"

He squints, and his brow furrows. "No."

I kneel in front of him, close but not touching. He studies me like he's trying to determine if I'm real.

"Fuck, Vengeance, the way you’re looking at me,” he says, his expression tortured. “Did I..."

"You didn't hurt me,” I assure him as I reach out and take his hand in mine. “Not once."

Some of the tension drains from his shoulders. He lifts a trembling hand and brushes it against my cheek. His fingers are healing, but the blood still clings beneath his nails. "You look different."

I smile, faintly. "A lot has happened."

He nods slowly. "I feel like my brain's been torn in half."

"That might be the toxin. I had to drug you. And, everything else, you…" Shit, I don’t even know where to start. How do I tell the man I love what happened?

Ares must sense my hesitance because he doesn’t immediately ask for me to explain. “You don’t have to hide, Sysco and Harry.”

At the invitation, they both step inside the vault. They look ready, in case Ares is still under Ophelia’s influence, but not scared. Thankfully, Ares doesn’t move from his place on the floor as they enter.

"Hey, Ares," Harry says evenly. "You're alright. You're safe."

"That's what she said," Ares murmurs, glancing at me.

A long pause stretches. Ares shifts his weight and grimaces. His healing is slower than usual, but steady.

"What the hell happened to me?"

I glance at Harry, then Sysco. Fuck, I really don’t want to have to be the one to explain it. But I am his fiancée; they’re just his friends.

It has to be me.

“You’ve been acting off for a while now,” I begin, returning to meet his gaze. “Do you remember any of that?”

I see him wracking his brain, searching his memory for the evidence of what I’m saying. Finally, he gives a small nod. “You thought I was cheating on you.”

There’s emotion in his voice. A crack. A fracture. My thinking that hurt him just as much as it hurt me.

“Only because you kept disappearing. You always had some place to be, but it wasn’t always work. James confirmed that to me. And then we realized you were missing chunks of time,” I continue.

I see the shift in his eyes as he starts piecing little bits of it together. But he’s more lost than ever.

“You came home in different clothes. There was blood under your fingernails,” I say, diving into the darkness of it. “And when I picked you up in Queens, and then Gio told us…”

This is so hard. How do you tell the love of your life that they’ve killed five people, maybe more?

“What did I do, Lana?” Ares’ words are little more than a breath of dread.

“Gio told us his son Luciano had been killed,” I say, putting the first nail in the coffin. “In Queens. And we started piecing it together. Any time any of these vampires had been killed, no one could account for your whereabouts.”

His eyes narrow, and he looks… hurt. "No. That’s not possible. I wouldn’t hurt Luciano. I haven’t even seen him in years."

Sysco steps forward. "You weren’t you, Ares. You were gone, man. For a while, you were sometimes you, but it got worse and worse. Finally, you were just completely gone. We had to knock you out. Twice. You didn’t even recognize us."

"That’s not—" Ares presses his palms to his temples, breathing hard. "I don’t remember that. I remember...” His words trail off as his gaze fixes on the floor.

He blinks rapidly, like he’s trying to clear the fog out of his brain.

“I don’t know. I guess there are some flashes.

Fuck, I definitely can’t remember much of anything since… Since I went and talked to Ophelia.”

Harry and I glance at each other, and I know I couldn’t ask for a more perfect segway.

“That’s because it was her,” I say, my throat feeling thick.

My stomach twists. I want to throw up or scream.

The betrayal of it all still sears my soul.

When the confusion in his eyes deepens, I press on.

“The signs were there, but at the time, I didn’t know it was possible.

But Ophelia has a supernatural gift. She can influence people. ”

“What do you mean?” Ares asks, his voice rough, hints of anger leaking into it.

I glance at Sysco, and we both take a deep breath.

We’ve had time to process this fact. But this is the first time Ares is hearing about other supernaturals beyond vampires.

“Turns out there are people who can do things. Things like telling you to do something, and you do it, even if you never would normally. Ophelia was angry when you went to talk to her, wasn’t she? ”

“She was fucking livid,” Ares confirms. His eyes darken. “I tried to reason with her, to help. But she wouldn’t hear a damn word of it.”

“Turns out she wasn’t happy with just trying to put you in your place,” Sysco helps deliver the news I really don’t want to share. “She used this supernatural influence, and she told you to kill every vampire you know in New York.”

I squeeze my eyes closed and pray Sysco doesn’t disclose the second part of what she told Ares to do.

Thank fuck he keeps it to himself.

“No,” Ares says, shaking his head. “That’s not possible. And I wouldn’t ever do that. Augustus—he deserved what he got. But every vampire I know in New York? Hell no.”

“Beth, Mike,” Harry begins. I squeeze my eyes closed. This hurts. It’s so damn painful. And it just makes it worse that it was my former best friend who could do this. “Felix. Tom. Luciano.”

“We don’t even really know the full body count yet,” Sysco says quietly. “Cliff has been missing. We haven’t found a body yet, but we’re guessing you got to him, too.”

Ares stares at us like we’re speaking a language he doesn’t understand. Then, his face crumples slightly. The denial fractures.

I pull his hand into mine, pressing a kiss to his palm. He didn’t fucking deserve this. He had no control. What Ophelia did…

A tear dampens my eyelashes. I wipe it away before anyone can see it.

“You were hunting me when Lana finally tricked you into coming to her,” Sysco says, the words tight.

“Even you?” Ares asks in distress as he looks up, disbelief, grief, and shock painting his face ashen.

“Ares, look at me,” I say as I place a hand on his cheek. “Right now, in this moment, does any part of you want to hurt Sysco?”

His eyes are nearly frantic as he searches mine. “No,” he says with conviction.

I nod. “This, right here, right now, is you. Anything that happened before a few minutes ago was not you. From the time you stepped into Ophelia’s apartment until just a few minutes ago, that was not you. You hear me?”

He stares at me, and he looks so desperate to believe me. But he literally has blood on his hands right now.

“Lana’s right, brother,” Sysco says. He crosses the vault and squats down beside Ares.

He levels his gaze with him. “You were not you. We saw little glimpses here and there, but I know you. We know you. The man we’ve seen the last eight days wasn’t Ares Hunt.

That was Ophelia’s Frankenstein puppet. Don’t pick this weight up with you. You aren’t responsible for it.”

Shit. I love Sysco. That was about the perfect thing to say.

“Where is Ophelia?” Ares asks. And it says something about this incredible man. He doesn’t ask it with malice or with vengeance. His words are hard, but they don’t promise justice.

“In the hospital,” I say as something else twists in my gut. “James showed up, and when he realized what happened, he made her pay for what she did. I… I don’t know what her condition is yet.”

Ares holds my eyes, and there’s too much compassion he’s showing toward me. He knows what Ophelia meant to me. He can hear the conflict in my voice.

But she is the one who did this to him.

“What about Gio?” Ares asks, moving on. His voice sounds hoarse. “Why isn’t he here if the rest of you are?”

I look at Sysco, then Harry, and they look at me in response.

“Gio’s gone, but that wasn’t on you,” Harry says. He extends a hand to Ares, who takes it, and he pulls Ares to his feet. “We’re here for you, whatever you need. But you seem like you’re yourself again. You and Lana have a lot of shit to talk about. Only she can tell it.”

Ares looks over at me, and I see him really looking. He’s woken up to a lot of shit being different, but he’s noticing the actual physical differences in me.

“Come on, we need to get you home,” I say, taking his hand, even as I reach into my back pocket for my phone.

I call Billings, who answers after just one ring.

I ask him to pick us up, and he reports he’ll be here in two minutes.

Apparently, he’s been waiting close by, anxious to figure out what’s going on with his boss.

“We have a lot of weird shit to deal with,” Sysco says. “But I think you deserve the rest of the day. Reset with your girl. And then all of us can meet back with Juliet and Roman. And then figure out what the hell that was with James.”

“What does James have to do with any of this?” Ares questions, his brows furrowing. “And who are Juliet and Roman?”

“I’ll explain it all,” I say, tugging Ares to the door. “But I’d really like to get out of here. I don’t know if I can stand it another second in this place.”

We step out into the daylight, Ares squeezing his eyes closed against the brilliant sunlight.

Right on cue, Billings pulls up to the curb.

Ares is essentially blind as he casts a wary glance at Harry and Sysco, both of whom have slipped on sunshades.

They simply give a reassuring nod, and Ares climbs in behind me into the black SUV and closes the door behind him.

I immediately grab the sunshades from their storage spot in the vehicle and hand them to Ares, who puts them on.