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W e don’t find Ares in the grand total of thirty minutes we have to look for him.

Neither Sysco nor I are surprised.

When it’s two minutes until the time we’re supposed to meet Harry, Sysco and I ride the elevator to the thirtieth floor in one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen in the city.

Considering how much of Augustus’s wealth Ares inherited, he is the richest of the Barons now.

But if I had to guess, I’d say Harry is probably the second richest. But he’s also the least likely to flaunt it.

We step out of the elevator and are treated to a spectacular view over Manhattan.

A wide stretch of windows span out in front of us.

Before it is a smattering of comfortable chairs and end tables, the decor elegant and subtle.

To the left and right, there are doors to individual offices.

As we walk into the space, the door to the corner office opens, and Harry waves us to come in.

Here we go , I think to myself when Harry’s eyes narrow as I approach, then they drop down the length of me, studying, questioning.

“This floor is empty except you?” I ask, even though I hear no sounds of life. It just might take me a few hours to settle into trusting these new, enhanced senses.

“It is,” Harry confirms as the three of us step into the office. Harry closes the door. “Have a seat.”

I’ve never seen a more masculine and moody office in my life.

Everything is dark colors and deep wood.

All of the furniture is black with burgundy accents.

A professional decorator was obviously paid handsomely to coordinate the space to such perfection.

It’s almost obsessively clean. I don’t detect a speck of dust in the whole place.

It fits Harry Kim perfectly.

There is a large desk to the right, the city as a backdrop beyond it.

To the left, there is a larger conference table that can seat ten.

Before that is a cozy seating area with two black leather couches facing each other.

I head to one of the couches, and Sysco sits beside me.

Harry hardly takes his eyes off me as he sits across from us.

“I know we haven’t known each other that long, Harry,” I say, diving right into it. “But I’ve come to consider you a friend. I feel like you can be trusted. Am I right in that?”

Harry is ever the picture of cool and collected, and that doesn’t change.

He just blinks at me, composed. “I guess you, Ares, and Sysco are about as close as I have to friends. If you’re asking for trust…

” he hesitates, mulling over what he’s about to say.

“I can’t promise blanket statements for every single action.

But based on what I know of you, our past history, yes. You can trust me.”

I nod just once. I swallow, gather my courage, and begin. “This started with Ares,” I start, carefully wading into the deep end. “Something is wrong with him. And it led to… what you’re seeing.”

So, together, Sysco and I explain what has been happening with Ares.

His odd behavior. His disappearances. Harry listens, affirming that he has noticed the oddity of Ares’ action as well.

I share the details; what I’ve seen, considering Ares and I live together.

I tell Harry about the phone call I received when Ares needed me to pick him up in Queens and that he had no idea how he’d gotten there.

I see things clicking into place as we explain.

Sysco explains what happened after Ares left their meeting last night. How he tailed Ares, how Ares intentionally tried to lose him, like he was being sneaky.

And we finally reveal how Ares killed Luciano.

How Gio figured it out.

How he arrived at Hunt house. How he gutted me, intending for me to die.

And I confess Florence’s decision. What she’s been studying. How she used me as a guinea pig. And everything I’ve experienced in the last few hours since waking.

I explain that I’m the first Made vampire.

“And that brings us to tonight,” I say in a big exhale, feeling mentally exhausted, doing this twice in just a few hours since it happened.

“Tonight?” Harry asks, the first true show of any kind of shock. “Lana, how long ago did this… transformation happen?”

My eyes flick up to the clock hanging on the wall. “Well, Gio first gutted me about six hours ago, but from when I woke up after the injection to now? It’s been about… three hours.”

“Holy shit,” Harry says, and I’ve rarely heard the man curse. “You really are something different. You’re so… calm. I think I killed three people the first twenty-four hours after I Resurrected.”

“That’s what I said,” Sysco says, with that slightly manic smile of his. “Fucking crazy, isn’t it?”

I turn my thoughts internally once more, evaluating if I feel the desire to tear into any necks.

Nope.

“I feel fantastic. No thirst. Just… great,” I say, getting a little tired of explaining this part.

“But Harry, I think you understand why we’re putting a lot of trust in you with all this information?

This is potentially dangerous. For extremely obvious reasons.

And not just dangerous for me or for Florence. ”

“For the whole damn world,” Harry finishes for me.

I nod. “This doesn’t have to be some paradigm shifting event.

It’s just me. Florence was desperate. But she’s not looking to do anything else with it, not any time in the near future.

It’s just me ,” I emphasize every word. “So, I hope we can just move past this part. Harry, we need your help with Ares.”

“I haven’t seen him or heard from him since our meeting,” Harry says. And I’m so damn relieved when he leans back on the couch and crosses one ankle over the opposite knee. It’s as if I can see his acceptance of all this crazy.

I nod. No contact is exactly what I expected.

“We’ll be searching for him,” Sysco explains. “When we find him, we’re going to knock him out, and then we’re going to need to contain him.”

“You want to use my vault,” Harry concludes immediately.

Sysco nods. “No safer place in the city to keep him until we can figure out how to fix him.”

“Of course we can use it,” Harry says, and I breathe a little breath of relief.

Not that I expected him to say no, but this all just could have gone so fucking sideways.

“But it doesn’t do us a whole lot of long term good if we can’t figure out what, or who, broke Ares. Have you run a timeline on it all yet?”

“Honestly, not really,” I reply. “It’s all been such a whirlwind, and we only realized there was actually something wrong less than twenty-four hours ago. I’ve been a little preoccupied in the meantime.”

Harry stands and crosses to what looks like a giant TV to me, but he presses a button, and it gets this weird, gray glow. He retrieves a marker from a drawer and writes TIMELINE across the top. It’s some kind of fancy, glowing whiteboard.

“Last night Ares was in Queens and took out Luciano,” Sysco begins. On the board, Harry writes the date, Queens, Luciano.

“The day before, I found a bloody shirt stuffed in the garbage, and Ares told me he couldn’t remember what he’d done that day,” I say, my stomach twisting with all of this damn uncertainty.

Harry notes it on the board. Victim?

“Wednesday was the day Ares ditched us at breakfast,” Sysco brings up. “Remember, he got some kind of notification, got all weird, and took off?”

“What happened the rest of that day?” Harry asks me as he makes notes.

“Nothing that I know for sure,” I say, running my brain through the rest of the day. “He was gone all day, but I didn’t hear of anything suspicious.”

“Cliff called us in for that meeting,” Sysco continues. “When he told us that Mike and Beth had been killed. That was Monday.”

Harry adds their names to the list, dating the event.

“I went to Ares’ office that day as well,” I add. “The secretary said something about their accountant not showing up and that it was weird. When I checked with James yesterday, he said Tom hadn’t been into work since that day.”

Sysco swears under his breath and shakes his head.

Harry adds Tom’s name to the list, as well as the day.

“Who else am I missing?” I say aloud, wracking my brain for more. Surely there must be more. Shit, I hope there isn’t more.

“Felix,” Harry says as he writes his former employee’s name down, adding yesterday’s date.

Damnit. I forgot about Felix.

“I can’t think of anyone else,” I say as I rub my eyes.

How can I be so tired and not at the same time?

“Was there anything else that happened prior to this?” I ask as I blink my eyes back open and scan the board.

“Anything that seemed suspicious? Any other deaths you heard about, or other people missing?”

“I couldn’t get ahold of Cliff this morning,” Harry says as he looks back at me and Sysco.

My stomach drops out. A curse slips over my lips.

“Fuck,” Sysco joins my sailor language expression hour. “Ares has been annoyed as hell at Cliff for a week. You think Ares got to him? A Baron?”

“Sounds like it doesn’t matter what someone’s title is,” Harry points out. “If he’s not in control, he’s not in control. He could just as easily come after me or you next, Sysco. Not sure about you, Lana, considering you’re a… Made.”

“Shit, I didn’t even think about that,” I say. “He isn’t just picking people he doesn’t like. You two are in as much danger as Cliff.”

“Hold on,” Sysco says as he pulls out his phone. Since he’s seated next to me, I see him pull up Cliff’s name. He hits call and holds it to his ear.

It doesn’t even ring. It immediately goes to his voicemail.

“Shit, Ares might have killed Cliff,” Sysco says with wide eyes. “We probably better go check his house and his office.”

As in check for a body.

Fuck.

As much as no one seems to like Cliff, do any of us really think he needs to die? More than anything, I don’t want to see more blood on Ares’ hands.