Ares throws himself at the wall again. There’s that sound, the one I’ve been anticipating. The sound of his collarbone cracking. I can’t breathe.
"He’s going to destroy himself before we can fix him," Harry mutters.
The look on James’s face is ice cold. He turns to where he saw me looking. His gaze fixes on where she stands. I swear there’s a sudden drop in air pressure.
"You did this?” he asks, his tone low. “You made a judgment? You messed with his head? You made a vampire hunt other vampires?"
Ophelia stiffens, hands clenched. For a second, I don’t think she can speak, she’s so paralyzed with fear. But finally, her lips part just slightly. "I didn’t want to be afraid of living in New York anymore. Because as long as there are vampires, I’m not safe. Lana wasn’t safe.”
"He would never hurt her!" James snarls.
“Just knowing him got her fucking kidnapped!” Ophelia snaps, and oh, she is so stupid.
James steps forward, a deadly look in his eyes. But Sysco steps between him and Ophelia, looking down at him with serious, fixed eyes. “Take a breath, bro.”
James looks around the room like it’s suddenly filled with strangers. The calm, composed assistant is gone. What remains is something lean and volatile. His breath is too fast. His hands tremble. When he speaks again, it's lower, guttural.
"You broke him."
"I… I honestly didn’t know it would go this far," Ophelia says, voice cracking.
Ares screams again. He’s clawing at the vault door now, skin tearing open in long, red streaks. He’s frantic. Rabid.
James seethes.
Everyone else exchanges wary glances. Neither Harry nor Sysco knows James well. He’s always just been Ares’ assistant that they’d see or hear from in passing. Roman is watching James with wary eyes, evaluating his every move.
I look at James differently now. There's something off about him. Something I’ve never seen in him until now. Not just anger. Not just grief. Something deeper. Twisted. And I don't know what it means.
The tension in the vault is a noose, tightening with every breath. Ares bellows again from behind the enforced door, pacing like an apex predator locked in too small a cage. Blood drips down his hands, his knuckles raw from pounding the walls in a frenzy.
Juliet looks up at Ophelia again, her blue eyes narrowing. "It didn’t work," she says evenly, as if trying to smooth out the tension of the past few minutes. "The hold is still there."
James snaps. "Then we kill her. That’ll end it."
I turn, stunned. "What?"
"If it cuts the threads, it’s what we have to do. She deserves nothing less," James growls. His calm, collected demeanor is gone—shredded. What remains is something wild, feral. "You kill the source."
Juliet rises, sharp. "I know from experience that killing a person doesn’t guarantee their ties end with them. Trust me. Do you really want to run that risk?"
Ophelia is trembling now, her shoulders rigid with fear, but her lip curls in defiance. "You think I wantedthis? You think I wanted him likethat?"
It takes everything I have in me not to strike her. She wanted him dead. She told him to kill himself. And now, she finally sees the reality of what she did, and it frightens her.
"Tell us the truth, Ophelia," I say, my words shaking with my restraint. "You said you did this—but not alone. Who helped you?"
Ophelia’s eyes flick between us, cornered. Her voice breaks. "I don’t know."
"Bullshit," James growls.
Ophelia clutches her side, breathing fast. "It was a woman. A therapist. She had a very specific specialty. Helping people who had been hurt by vampires.”
“Holy shit,” Sysco mutters. “That’s a thing?”
Dammit. I had never really thought about it. That there were enough people out there who had been victimized by vampires that there would be a fucking therapist who specialized in helping the survivors.
No wonder Ophelia hates vampires so much. She’s seen proof that there are others out there that are hurting as much as she is.
