Page 10 of Barinov

“All of them?” I ask, a pulse of panic tugging at my ribs.

Tex nods. “All seven of them.”

“Seven?” Lex asks with a tilt of his head. “I thought there were only five.” He ticks them off one by one on his fingertips. “Sabine, the cowboy, Khoza, that crazy bastard, O’Malley.” He stops and groans when he gets to the last one. “And Mortal fucking Kombat.”

“There’s two more,” Tex confirms. “Two you haven’t met yet.”

“Technically there are eight if you count Roman’s book,” Knox adds. “Though we never confronted him about it. Nine if you uh… add in the Barinov book your girlfriend hacked last year.” He chuckles from his seat.

Lex smacks him in the back of his head. “Not helping,” he huffs.

Knox shrugs. “Just saying.”

If seven leaders of some of the world’s most dangerous crime families need to be involved, then this just escalated into something massive. And I’m not sure I’m ready for it.

“What about my sister and Haley?” I ask quietly. “Knox, were you with them when you got the call?”

“No,” he sighs. “And thank fuck because I don’t even know what to tell them at this point.”

That hits harder than I expect.

Ellie.

Haley.

How the hell are we supposed to break something like this to them?

“We can’t lie to them,” Nate says with his normal kind of firmness that doesn’t allow any argument. “Your sister is like a human lie detector. She’ll know the second any of our voices shake.”

He’s not wrong. Ellie hears emotion the same way other people hear music.

“So what do we say?” I ask. “What do we tell them?”

“The truth,” Lex grunts. “We tell the girls the truth. Luca and Zeke took—”

“Lex,” Tex warns.

“What?” he spits, the word cutting through the air. “It’s the fucking truth. They deserve to know. They also deserve to know I’m going to gut both of those bastards the second we—”

“Watch it,” Tex growls, pushing up from his seat.

“No you watch it.”

“Here we go again,” I whisper, shaking my head.

Lex side eyes me. “I’m done acting like Zeke is some stand up brother. Face the fucking facts. You can’t expect me to just sit here and tip-toe around reality.”

“Reality?” Tex bites back. “Zeke ever being an enemy to his sister is not reality. It’s you losing it.”

“Damn right I am losing it!” Lex shouts. His voice cracks, raw and too loud for this apartment. “I’m losing my mind without her and you want me to what? Sit here and play make believe about him being a perfect brother? Fuck you man.”

Tex strides forward, closing the gap between them until he’s toe to toe with Lex.

“Try it,” Lex snarls.

“ENOUGH!” Nate roars again. “Both of you sit the fuck down. We are not doing this.”

Tex’s fists are clenched tight. Lex just stands there seething. Tex looks away first, his nostrils flaring with each deep inhale.