Page 42 of Barinov

My stomach turns.

“…could you tell where she was?” Briggs’s low voice pierces through the room.

Roman answers, something low and clipped.

Another message pings on the laptop. From him. The others read it, their words blurring into a low static behind the pounding in my ears.

I don’t look at it. I can’t.

I can’t pull my eyes from my sketch.

Her face.

His lips.

Their bodies.

I let it slip from my grasp. The paper flutters down like ash and lands beside my foot.

I stumble through the door, hands gripping the rails as I lunge down the stairs. My legs give out and my knees smash into the wet grass with a dull thump. My stomach lurches. It empties itself onto the ground in a bitter and violent rush. The sour burn claws at my throat as my chest seizes, ribs aching from the strain.

It won’t stop.

I can still see it. The paper. Her skin. The way the pencil dug into the page, the pressure of graphite vibrating between my fingers.

I gag again, but nothing comes out. There’s nothing left inside me but air and pain.

A hand slams down on my back. “Cade,” Lex breathes.

I can’t look at him, not yet. Not when I’m the one who put that image out into the world.

He collapses to his knees behind me, his arms banding around my chest. “I’m here,” he rasps against my neck, his deep voice breaking on the final word. “I’ve got you.”

I can’t stop my body from shaking. Can’t slow my ragged breathing no matter how hard I try.

“I’ve got you, babe,” he says again, gripping me tighter. “Fuck, I’ve got you.”

Chapter 11

LEX

Sky Daddy’s plane.

Thinking of all the ways I can murder Zeke.

13 days since Bella’s kidnapping.

“Zeke! No! Please!” Bella’s cries bounce off the walls as that bastard grinds on top of her.

Something inside me splits wide open.

I detonate into the room, my lungs searing as I hook my arms around him. I tear him away and drag him by the shoulders before launching him into the wall. The impact sends one of Cade’s paintings clattering to the floor. The wet crunch of Zeke’s nose against the wood is loud, vicious, and fucking satisfying as hell.

He staggers and barely stays on his feet.

I don’t give the asshole time to recover. My fists connect to his ribs. Once. Twice, until I feel something give. He grunts but won’t go down. He swings wild and lands one to my chest. I refuse to flinch.

“That all you got?” I hiss.