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.
“I’m relieved to see you looking more like yourself, Mr. Hunt,” Billings says as he signals and pulls onto the road.
“Thanks,” Ares says, still sounding confused and a little baffled.
It’s a quiet drive as we cross the Brooklyn Bridge and head back to the Upper East Side. Because the fewer people who know about everything that has just happened, the better. For Ares. I will do anything I can to protect him, and even though Billings is a vampire and has been Ares’ driver for years, he doesn’t need to know all of these terrible, dark details.
I need to call Florence. I need to tell her that her brother is back.
But, for some reason, I can’t right now. It all feels too fragile, too fresh. I vow I will call her soon, but it won’t be right this second.
So, I simply take Ares’ hand and rub reassuring circles into the back of it with my thumb. Ares stares out the window. I can feel the turmoil, the confusion raging around inside him like a hurricane. It’s all coming. It’s going to be heavy. It’s going to be hard.
But I’m right here.
Finally, we work our way through the traffic, and Billings stops on the side of our building. Ares and I climb out, and we enter the lobby of our building. Our favorite doorman, Laz, gives me a relieved nod when he sees Ares and I walk in together. I had him on alert for if Ares came home, though I didn’t give him any of the details.
We take the elevator up to our floor, and I unlock our door.
I feel this weird sense of stressed relief when we step inside the penthouse. We’re home. This space feels like home in every sense of the word now. But we have so much ahead of us to work through, I can’t exactly feel relaxed.
I click the button on the remote, which closes the window coverings, leaving the penthouse washed in darkness.
