Page 135 of Barinov

Please try to be patient and try not to shout.

And I might let you join my little Blackout.

Cade leans forward, staring at the screen over my shoulder. Desperately hoping that the words might rearrange into something different.

They don’t.

“A month?” he whispers, stumbling back a step. “Lex, he’s going to keep her for another—”

“FUCK!” I yell, cutting Cade off so fast he flinches.

Roman yanks the phone from my hand and reads it over carefully. Eyes squinting and jaw locking tight when he gets to the last line.

“The Blackout,” Roman scoffs. “Fucker’s really trying to rewrite history isn’t he?”

“Looks like it,” I grit as I brace both hands on the mantle. “What the hell are we supposed to do for a goddamn month?”

“The first thing we’re going to do,” Roman says as he walks over to me to hand me back my phone. “Is get the hell back home.”

Cade and I nod.

“And then what?” Cade asks.

“Then we make a plan,” Roman mutters, rubbing a hand on his shoulder as he tries to roll it. “I’m not waiting another month before I get to see my daughter. It’s time to draw the bastard out.” His steel eyes meet mine. “It’s time to end this. Once and for all.”

“Finally,” I rasp, shoving my phone in my pocket. “A plan I can get behind.”

Chapter 33

CADE

The Black and Burgundy

48 days since Bella’s kidnapping.

“That’s their big plan?” Ellie gripes in my ear, her voice drowning out the roar of the coffee grinder over in the corner. “That is the stupidest fucking plan I’ve ever heard in my life, Cade. And this is Lex we’re talking about, the guy’s had a lot.”

“That’ll be $14.95,” a barista with beautiful red waves rivaling Haley’s says across the counter as she sets down our drinks. The smell of freshly roasted espresso and vanilla syrup quickly filling the space between us. It’s warm and almost comforting, like the world hasn’t gone to complete shit.

“Hold on El,” I say, setting the phone on the icy, black marble countertop so I can fish out my wallet from my back pocket.

“Thank you.” I glance down at her name tag. “June.” I reach for our cups, heat seeping into my palms.

“Have a good day,” June says, a wide and cheerful smile curving her pale face.

Nodding back, I flash a quick grin at her and shove my phone to my ear in time to catch the end of Ellie’s rant.

“…because there is no way in H-E-double hockey sticks that Luca will—”

“I said hold on, El,” I cut her off with a quiet laugh as I start down the stairs outside of The Black and Burgundy. The cool, spring breeze hitting my cheeks as I get closer to my car. “I had to pay the girl, so I have no clue what you just said.”

“Ugh!” she shrieks.

Ellie and Briggs are stranded in Paris, victims of the violent electrical storms currently clawing its way across Europe. I tried to tell her that the delay was a mercy. That no one wants to be trapped in a pressurized tin can while Sky Daddy throws a temper tantrum over turbulence at thirty thousand feet.

But my humor fell flat against the weight of her frustration over the last few days.

When Briggs FaceTimed us, we were huddled back at the lakehouse, waiting in silence for Luca to pop back up. It’s a strange thing, watching history be made in pixels. My little sister is the first dancer in Wexley’s history to win a World Championship, but her triumph reached us in glitchy, low-resolution bursts.