Page 51 of Barinov

“I’m sorry,” she whimpers. “I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. “El. It was—”

“I know,” she cuts him off. “Caleb called and told us what happened.”

That’s when Haley reaches me and slides her arms around my waist. “Lex,” she breathes, her cheek pressed firmly against my chest. “Are you ok?”

“No.” I exhale a breath that’s been lodged in my ribs since we left that damn rainforest. “Not even close, Hales.”

Rez walks up and rests a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, cousin. Whatever you need, I’m here,” he says, his deep voice icy-calm after everything. Not that I’d expect anything else.

We may joke about Mom being the stone cold Ice Queen—or as Ellie calls her, the Ice Bitch Witch of Moscow—but she’s got nothing on Rez’s dad. And Uncle Miro taught my cousin well.

I nod.

Ellie pulls away from Cade and turns to Briggs, hugging him just as tight. “You okay?” she asks softly.

“Yeah, darlin’,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Just perimeter duty. I’m more worried about y’all.”

“I’m fine by the way,” Laing announces from the doorway. He’s dragging his duffel toward one of the booths and drops it with a thud. “In case anyone was wondering.”

“We weren’t,” Knox deadpans as he walks over with a laptop slung under his arm. He lays it on the table and glances up at me. “I dug into Jack while you were gone.”

“And?”

“Not much to find. He married Claire Donnelly. They lived in a house in Brooklyn until she died a few years back. Rez and I went over to that house and—”

“Yeah,” Rez scoffs. “That old couple was super thrilled about two random dudes showing up and asking if they could dig through their basement for buried secrets.”

I snort. “Bet they loved that.”

“They didn’t.” Knox shrugs. “But we didn’t find shit. The place was clean. If Jack ever had anything stashed there, it’s long gone.”

Tex steps in from the shadows. “Did you check his apartment?”

“Same story. Clean,” Knox says. “Not a damn thing that links him to Luca. From the looks of it, Jack was just… a guy.”

“What about the NYPD?” Roman asks, plopping down into a booth. He rolls his shoulder, wincing slightly at the movement. “Did you find anything on Luca there?”

“That’s the thing,” Knox says, sitting down and opening up the laptop. He swipes his way through some screens. “The NYPD has no record of a Detective Luca. None. Just a Detective Jack Donnelly. And I pulled everything. I’m talkin’ birth certificates, medical records, employment docs, all of it. That’s where shit gets a little weird.”

“Weird how?” I ask, my stomach already knotting.

Knox clicks a few keys and turns the screen toward me. “Jack’s birth certificate looks legit, right? Father unknown, that’s not completely uncommon. Especially since his mother was so young.” He points to a name on the screen. “But the mother listed, this Carolyn Donnelly… bitch doesn’t exist. Not in any database. No birth or death certificate, school records, census, nothing. Not even a parking ticket.”

“That’s because his real name is Luca Cassinelli,” Roman grits, rubbing a hand over his chest. “Not this Jack Donnelly you all keep talking about.”

“I know.” Knox nods slowly. “Which means somewhere along the way, Luca split off and created Jack. Jack’s just… a shell. A squeaky clean record with a whole-ass life built from scratch and I can’t figure out for the life of me when it started.”

He exhales hard, rubbing his temples. “And every time I try to dig into Luca directly, I get blocked. Shut out of every system I touch.”

“Did you try Cassinelli?” Roman asks.

Knox nods. “Tried Luca Cassinelli and Donnelly. Hell, I even tried Jack Cassinelli just for shits and grins.”

He glances at Nate, then over at Tex. “I think it’s Zeke. I think he’s built some kind of firewall to stop any of us from ever getting close to Luca.”

“Fucking figures,” I say through gritted teeth.