Page 22

T he elevator hums as it carries us to the twenty-ninth floor. None of us speak. The silence hangs heavy, thick with anticipation and the strange, twitching energy that always seems to settle when you know you're about to find something you won't be able to unsee.

Roman stands closest to the door, arms folded over his chest. His jaw is locked, sunglasses still in place despite the dim interior lighting.

Juliet leans into the corner, chewing her lower lip in thought.

Ares is stone beside me, fingers flexing and curling like his body wants to fight, but his mind is still catching up.

The elevator dings softly, and we step out into a hallway that looks like every other high-rise apartment building in Manhattan. Soft gray carpet. Neutral walls. Modern sconces casting buttery light down the corridor.

Ares leads us to the door.

Roman kneels quickly, pressing his ear to the frame. He stays there for a moment, then shakes his head once. "No one inside."

He rises and pulls a lockpick kit from his back pocket like it’s second nature. Within seconds, the door clicks open.

We step into James St. Claire's apartment—and stop dead.

It’s cold.

Not temperature-wise. There’s heat, electricity, all the signs of a functioning home.

But there is no life in it.

The living room is pristine. Too pristine. A modern black leather couch sits in front of a low-profile coffee table. But there’s literally nothing else in this main space. There are no photos, no books, no shoes by the door. There aren’t even any dishes in the sink.

Back in the bedroom, the bed is made. There is a phone charger on the nightstand and literally nothing else. In the closet, there are a dozen items hanging, but at the bottom, a suitcase is lying open on the floor.

This isn’t just someone who is obsessively clean. This goes beyond minimalism.

“This isn’t an apartment,” Juliet mutters. “It’s a damn waystation.”

Roman drifts toward the window, looking out onto the street. “He never planned to stay here. Not for long.”

I trail my fingers along the wall as I move into the space. It feels wrong. Like a place that looks like it should hold someone’s life, but all it has is the ghost of intention.

Juliet opens a drawer in the nightstand. She pulls out a passport, flipping it open.

“France. India. Romania. Germany. Austria. Hungary.” Her gaze flicks to Roman. “Markus has family in both India and Germany. He told me so himself.”

Roman nods slowly. “James met him over there. And he came here to lay the groundwork.”

Ares turns, something dark growing behind his eyes. “He used my name. My company. My trust. For what?” He digs through the other nightstand. It’s so strange, rummaging through someone’s personal space when they’re totally unaware.

But James’s behavior was alarming. His association with Markus, the necromancer, made him a target we had no choice but to investigate.

“Got something,” Ares says as he pulls something from the drawer.

A book.

The leather cover is cracked, aged. The smell of dust and parchment makes my skin prickle, the metallic tang of something old and secret.

Ares hands the book to me, and I flip the cover open.

Journal of Thaddeus St. Claire.

“St. Claire,” I say as I look up at Ares. “A relative of James’s then? Same last name.”

“Maybe,” Ares says. “It was important to James. There’s hardly anything here, so we have to assume anything we do find is significant.”

I flip through the pages, scanning lines as I go. The language is old. No one from this century uses this kind of language. There are references to blood and revenge. It talks about hiding things and waiting.

I don’t like it.

“We take it back with us,” Ares says as he casts his gaze around the room again.

“These don’t look like they belong here,” Roman calls out, his head buried in the closet. He pulls two tubes out, both of them very recognizable as blueprint storage containers.

We gather around the bed as he pulls one set of prints out and lays it on the bed, and then the other.

“This one’s for a property I’ve owned for five years,” Ares says, tapping the edge of the parchment. “And this one belonged to Augustus before he left it to me.”

I step closer. Two different buildings. Two different parts of Manhattan. There are no notes with the prints, no marks.

“He’s definitely looking for someone,” Roman says, those vivid blue eyes rising to Ares and then me. “Guess this narrows things down for us. Five of your buildings down to two.”

“But why the hell would he be looking for a body in these huge buildings in Manhattan?” Juliet questions, folding her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“No coincidences,” I murmur, shaking my head.

“We need to check both of them,” Ares says, his tone heavy and dark. “But maybe this old journal will tell us what we’re looking for.”

“Let’s wrap this up,” Roman says as he turns and digs into the closet once more.

We do one last sweep of the apartment. There’s nothing else. No letters, no photos. There isn’t even a single bit of food in the fridge. It’s chilling how temporary this place feels, knowing James has worked for Ares for two and a half months.

Satisfied there’s nothing else to unearth, we head for the door. Roman locks it behind us. Ares carries the blueprints, and I hang on tightly to the journal.

The hallway feels darker on the way out.

And James St. Claire doesn’t feel like an assistant anymore.

He feels like a dark threat, one we don’t yet understand.

We step out of James’ apartment building just as the city begins to dip into evening.

The sky is a deep steel blue, caught somewhere between fading light and the encroaching night.

Neon signage flickers to life. The street hums around us, people rushing by, taxis honking as if time itself is trying to beat the city into submission.

Juliet lets out a breath, slow and almost wistful. “I kinda missed this place.”

Ares and I glance at her, surprised. She’s not looking at us, just watching a couple bicker as they cross the street arm in arm.

“You’ve lived here?” I ask.

She nods. “Moved here just after I turned eighteen. Did all my medical school here. Didn’t leave until I Resurrected.”

“And you chose Chicago over New York?” Ares asks, more curious than skeptical.

Juliet smiles, not defensive, just honest. “New York made me tough. Sharp. But Chicago made me whole. That’s where I found my people. Where I fell in love. Where I stopped running.”

Roman, walking beside her, laces his fingers with hers. Those intense eyes of his turn down to his wife, and there are about a hundred emotions in them. Admiration. Love. Respect. Reverence.

Juliet adds, “Hard things happened there, too. But Chicago is home. Because of who’s in it.”

Sometimes, home isn’t a place, it’s a person.

I realize it with every fiber in my being as I glance at Ares.

He is my home. Not New York City. Not the penthouse.

It’s him.

But as I look at Ares, I realize that he’s unusually quiet. His mouth is set in a neutral line, but there’s something behind his eyes—contemplation, not just reflection. What Juliet just said about home has him thinking. I file that away for later.

By the time we reach the building, the wind is picking up off the park. Fall barely teases the scent in the air, even though it’s only the very end of August. It feels like this summer has gone by in a blink. So damn much has happened, I never even got two seconds to acknowledge it.

The penthouse elevator ride is quiet. For a moment, I’m expecting comments about the penthouse, the wild location Ares and I live in. But it doesn’t come. Neither Juliet nor Roman says a word as we walk inside.

Which tells me they probably live like this as well. Is everyone in the vampire world absolutely loaded? Everyone I knew growing up was as poor as I was. But when it comes to every vampire I know, they are all used to private jets and multi-million-dollar penthouses.

“Can I get you anything?” I ask Roman and Juliet as we close the door behind us. “Might be a long night.”

“I am actually starving,” Juliet says. Without invitation, she steps to the fridge and pulls it open. She pulls out three blood bags and bites into the first one.

Roman just smirks at his wife and shakes his head. I meet his eyes and smile.

I love that she just helped herself.

“I’m good, but thanks for asking,” Roman says simply as he watches Juliet discard the first blood bag in the trash.

Ares heads straight for the dining table and rolls out the blueprints. I place the journal beside them.

Juliet steps forward, her snack finished. Her eyes scan the pages at Ares’ fingertips. “Time to crack open the past.”

The spine of the journal creaks as Ares opens it slowly, and the scent of dust and parchment drifts out like a ghost of the past. The handwriting is elegant, practiced, written in dark ink that has faded to sepia in places.

I lean closer beside Ares while Juliet and Roman hover on the other side of the table, watching intently.

"First entry," Ares says, shifting his grip on the old book. "It’s dated March 2, 1926."

He begins to read aloud:

“They simply buried him.

There is but one stone marking the grave. There is no name carved into the stone, simply a crescent moon and an X. I’ve watched it for years, studied, observed. And not a soul comes to visit his grave.

Not his bastard father. Not his missing mother.

Everything he accomplished. All he did. None of us would exist were it not for him. And this is the thanks he is given.

Forgotten.

Sevan and Cyrus erased his name from history. There is not a single record of what he was called. Dorian will never speak it. Malachi will not say it.

Their small-mindedness disgusts me.

But I have heard rumors. And Roter Himmel doesn’t know what may come for it. I must do more research. Before I can make a move, I must confirm. It isn’t easy. My presence in Roter Himmel is noted.

But for this, for him, any risk is worth it.