“You know my family has had a pharmaceutical company for ages,” Florence says. Her voice shakes a little, but she pushes authority into her tone. She is ever the confident boss. “We conduct all kinds of research. When I was holding Lana in my arms, watching the life fade from her eyes, while I was trying to hold her intestines inside her body, I knew I could not let her die.”
The moment hangs suspended for a bit. Florence is extremely good with words and fantastic at painting a picture. I felt something bulging out of me. I knew I was losing a lot of blood. But the thought of my literal intestines falling out of me, of Florence trying to hold them in… it’s… visceral.
“What did you do, Florence?” Sysco says, his tone turning accusatory.
“Do you really want all the answers?” I ask him, taking a step in his direction. “Sysco, I’m not going to let you touch Florence or Clementine. What’s done is done, and I’m alive because of it. If you hear the answer, you’re accountable for the information. You’ll be sworn to secrecy. Do you really want all that, Sysco?”
My whole body is humming with the importance of my words. Sysco holds my gaze the entire time, never once looking away.
“I trust you, Lana,” Sysco says, emphasizing that it’smehe trusts. His eyes flick up to Florence for a moment, evaluating everything I just said. “If you’re cool with all of this, I promise I will be, too. But don’t leave me in the fucking dark. I want to know.”
I hold his gaze again for a solid minute, evaluating the man. I’m not one who trusts easily or quickly. People are generally unreliable. People lie. People are selfish. People let you down.
I’ve only known Sysco for two months. But in that amount of time, he’s always had my back. He’s always had Ares’ back.
So, I’m going to trust him.
I give Sysco the simplified version of the truth. I tell him Florence took me to her lab. Florence explains what she’s been studying; how she’s been working to create a biological vampire. She explains the ultimate regeneration process. And I see it as Sysco starts piecing it all together. The fact that I’m now a vampire.
But an entirelynewkind.
When we’re finished, Sysco just stares me down. He chews the inside of his lip. He blinks three times. And then he looks over at Florence.
“You just went and made a whole new kind of vampire?” he asks, his tone a little deadpan.
“I did,” Florence answers. Her tone tells me she’s not backing down, and she won’t be intimidated.
Sysco’s eyes slide over to me. He looks me up and down, but there’s nothing sexual about it. He’s taking in all those little differences he noticed immediately. He’s evaluating the reality that’s right before his eyes.
“Always knew you were meant to be one of us,” Sysco finally says. “Just never thought it was fucking possible.”
A relieved laugh chuckles out of me. A smile cracks on Sysco’s lips, and he steps forward, pulling me into a massive hug. “Ares is going to lose his damn mind when he finds out. For good and bad.”
“Yeah,” I say with a pained chuckle of my own. I hug Sysco tighter, so damn grateful for this wildcard man who has become one of my very best friends. In fact, all my best friends are in this room with me. “But we have to find him first.”
Sysco releases me and backs away two steps. “With how stealth Ares is being, we’re going to need some more help. We’re going to need to give a heads-up to any other vampires we know to be on alert. We’re going to have to tell Harry too, Lana. We need his help.”
I nod and swallow nervously. “If you could tell immediately that something was different about me, he will be able to as well. But not Cliff. I don’t trust that little shit.”
“Me either,” Sysco admits, which makes me smile. “But Lana, before we meet with Harry, you need to think about what you want to happen with Gio.”
My brows furrow.
“He tried to gut you, Lana,” Sysco points out, arching a brow at me. “His intent was to kill you. If it wasn’t for this mad scientist here, we’d be planning your funeral. So, you need to think about what you want justice to look like.”
My eyes flick to Florence and Clementine, who have been mostly silent observers the last few minutes. “It’s fair,” Florence says, nodding. “But if you ask me, the answer is pretty obvious.The man was out of his fucking mind. He kicked in my front door. He did the deed and ran.”
I swallow and feel my brain spinning with the possibilities. Giovanni Bosco is a family man. He’s been with his wife, Francesca, forever. She now looks old enough to be his mother, and Gio isn’t young looking. They have eight kids together. When Francesca couldn’t have more herself, they had a surrogate help them out.
Gio killed me because he was avenging his son, Luciano. Ares killed Luciano.
What’s fair in this situation? Everything was done out of love, followed by vengeance. I’m familiar with both emotions.
I don’t have an answer in this moment, so I just nod my head.
“I’m calling Harry,” Sysco says as he pulls out his phone. “You feel good enough to go to a meeting? No primal urges to drain half the population?”
I shake my head, once more doing an internal survey of how my body feels. “I feel just fine. Amazing, if I’m being honest.”
