Page 269 of Barinov

I weave through the crowd and close the distance.

“Hey, baby,” I murmur, leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek.

“Hey,” she says, smiling at me while resting a hand on my arm. She glances over my shoulder toward Cade’s room. “How’s he doing?”

“Good.” I nod, taking a sip of my champagne. “He looks happy.”

“Hey, Lex,” a low voice sounds behind me.

I turn around. Laing is standing a few feet away with Callie draped on his arm. That damn dragon peeking out of the top of his unbuttoned shirt.

Typical.

I grin, my cocky side slipping right back out. “Callie. I’m telling you, if he is holding you against your will… blink twice.”

Callie laughs when I pull her in for a quick hug. “Because that never gets old.”

Laing rolls his eyes, but there’s zero heat behind it. He turns to Bella. “Iz, can I borrow him for a second?”

Bella waves me off with a smile. “I’ll be right here.”

I follow Tattooed-Dragon-Dick away from the main floor as we navigate toward a quieter corner of the gallery near a high-end pottery display. His polite smile disappears the second we’re out of earshot from the rest of the party.

“I know things haven’t been the smoothest between the two of us,” he starts.

I cross my arms. “Okay…”

“I need your help.

Now he has my full attention. “What is it?”

“I think I found Meilin.”

“Are you serious?”

He nods. “In Moscow.”

“Moscow?” I choke out. “The fuck would Chang be doing there?”

“Expanding operations from the chatter the RST picked up.”

“So what do you need?”

“You.” He looks me dead in the eyes, all pretense stripped away. “And maybe Rez and Zeke.” He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “Look we just need to act soon and I don’t have the time to get a full RST team up and ready and—”

“You’ve got it,” I cut him off, not even needing to hear the rest of the guy’s reasoning.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I say. “You’ve helped us how many times now with Bella and shit.” My phone vibrates in my pocket. I fish it out, sliding my thumb across the screen. “The least we can do is—what the fuck?!”

“What is it?”

@LucaWasHere

Hey there, Lexie… did you miss me?

“No fucking way,” I grit out, turning the screen toward him.