Harry immediately hangs up. “He’s alive.”
“He won’t be the second Ares hears what he did to Lana,” Sysco points out.
I might not get the chance to decide what Gio’s fate should be. Ares will indeed go after Gio the moment he knows what Gio did to me.
“Do you know what you want to have happen with Gio?” Harry asks. His tone drops lower, more serious. He fixes me with those dark eyes, and I see an openness there. He, like Sysco, is leaving it up to me.
I shake my head. “I don’t know yet. I really haven’t had two seconds to actually think about it. It’s kind of complicated. But, Sysco, you’re right. When Ares finds out what he did…”
“So, the options are, do we give Giovanni the chance to leave town before Ares gets wind of it?” Harry says. He’s always so logical, so damn smart. “Or do we let nature run its course?”
I nod, agreeing with his presented options. “I need some time to think about it.”
Harry nods. “As little credit I give to the Barons, there is a little bit of a purpose. Big decisions come to a vote. Things that affect our city. If Cliff is dead and Giovanni’s fate uncertain, Aresis off the rails, that leaves just Sysco and myself. When it comes to things like this, there can’t be just two.”
“I vote Lana as a Baron,” Sysco immediately catches onto the direction Harry is headed. “Baroness? No, Baron.”
“I second the vote,” Harry says, a small smile pulling at his lips. “Congratulations, Lana. You’re equally one of us, now.”
Holy shit. My head spins. What the hell just happened?
Did… did Harry and Sysco really just make me a New York City Baron? Just like that?
“Are you serious?” I blink. “You want me to be a Baron? I… I don’t own a fucking thing in this city.”
“Not all about ownership, Lana,” Sysco says with a smile. “It’s about doing what’s best for New York. You’re fucking smart.”
“We don’t just want you to be a Baron,” Harry says evenly. “Youareone now.”
Ares has always believed in me.Don’t let that crown ever slip. You’re Lana fucking Kincade. Don’t ever let the world forget it.It’s something he’s said to me over and over.There isn’t a chair at any table in this city you don’t belong at.Ares has believed in me and my power from the get-go.
But these other powerful men, these billionaires, these immortals, they believe in me, too.
“Thank you.” The words come out a little breathless and a little shocked and confused. “You two are crazy. But thank you for trusting me.”
“Been too much of a sausage fest for too long anyway,” Sysco smirks. “Welcome to the team.”
I bow my head slightly as I feel my face flush, filled with an overwhelming amount of appreciation. “Thanks. Back to the timeline?”
“I can’t think of anyone else who is dead or missing,” Sysco says, immediately locking back into the task at hand.
Whiplash. I have fucking whiplash. When we started this discussion, I was just Lana, a newly Made vampire. Now, on the other side of it, I’m Lana, New York City Baron.
“I can’t either,” Harry says. “And I feel like Ares was perfectly normal at the meeting we had when he told us about Augustus. Which was…” he taps the marker against his palm while he thinks. “Three weeks prior. I didn’t see him in between that time. So, it comes down to you, Lana. When did you notice him starting to act weird?”
I cross one leg over the other, leaning back into the couch, digging into my brain. Which is so different now. I feel like I have so much more space in my brain now. Everything feels sharper. What Florence has done to me is wild.
“Honestly, that day we found out about Mike and Beth, and even Tom, he seemed fine,” I conclude. “But we know that he’d killed them that day. So… I don’t know. I would almost say that whatever happened to him had to have gone down that day, or maybe the day before.”
“What else did Ares do that day, or who did he talk to or interact with?” Harry asks as he folds his arms over his chest.
I blush as I think back on what happened right before. “He was with me the night before. Earlier than that, he’d been at work. So, he would have seen any of his regular team he saw every day. But I know he was with me for at least part of the night.”
“You can spare us the details,” Harry says flatly.
I blush harder.
“He was gone in the morning, though. He’d left sometime before I even woke up. Ares went to talk to my former best friend,” I say, shaking my head. I’d forgotten about that until this moment. And I realize then that Harry and Sysco know nothing about Ophelia. So, I give them the rundown of how she was taken by Augustus, how I’d been looking for her. How Aresfound the record, and after he rescued me, Ares and I went looking for her.
