Page 7 of Barinov

The hours crawl by as we wait for the guys to arrive from Roman’s office. Outside the frosted glass, the sun sinks behind the Manhattan skyline, turning the whole city into a watercolor smear of gold and violet. Inside, the fire crackles. It curls around the logs and paints our living room in copper and shadows.

Lex is sitting beside me on the couch, staring off into the flames. His fingers violently tapping against his bouncing knee.

“Ugh!” he gripes, slamming his fist into the leather. “Where the hell are they?”

“They’ll be here.”

He starts picking at the fresh bandage I just wrapped moments ago.

“Leave it alone.” I slap the back of his hand. “We’re almost out of gauze.”

Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep.

The front door unlocks as the guys finally show up. Tex steps in first. Nate follows, clutching an armful of folders. Knox brings up the rear, backpack slung over his shoulders.

“Alright,” Nate begins, dropping the mountain of files on the table. “We finished cleaning up at The Obsidian.”

“Problem is,” Knox adds, ripping a laptop out of his bag. “All the feeds at NOX have been wiped clean. Every last one. There’s no footage of anything at all from today. Not you guys in the lobby, not Bella in Roman’s office, nothing.” He lets out a weary sigh. “It’s like the entire day never happened. Not digitally anyway.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Lex scoffs. “That’s because that fucker, Zeke, erased it for his best buddy, Luca.”

“Lex,” I say. “Stop.”

“I’m serious!” He turns to me, blue eyes burning with fury and fear braided together. He’s breathing like a bull. The adrenaline still rolling in his chest. “Luca may be real. Fine. I’ll accept that. But that fuckface, Zeke, is still involved in this. And that puts him at enemy number one on my damn hit-list.”

“Barinov.” Tex steps in. “Pull it back.”

Lex snaps his head toward him. “Don’t tell me what to fucking do.”

His voice has that hoarse, splintering bite to it. The one that means he’s one breath away from breaking. Or worse, igniting into a wildfire only Bella can seem to extinguish these days.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “This is not going to end well,” I mumble to Knox under my breath.

Knox’s fingers freeze over the keys, the machine-gun clatter cutting to a sudden silence as he looks up at Lex. “You didn’t know him,” he says. “We did. I promise, Zeke would never willingly hurt her, Lex.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Lex fires right back.

“And,” Tex adds. “You don’t know the kind of hell he crawled through just to keep her breathing all those years. So don’t twist him into someone he’s not because you’re scared.”

“I’m pissed. Not scared. There’s a big difference.”

Nate’s focus shifts between them. His eyes are calculating which one he’s going to have to drag off the other first.

“Enough,” he warns.

But the two of them are way past listening.

“He wiped the feeds,” Lex seethes, shoving a pointed finger toward the laptop. “That shit doesn’t happen by accident.”

“It also doesn’t mean he took her,” Tex snaps.

“Well, it sure as hell doesn’t mean he didn’t.”

Nate slams his fists on the table. “EVERYBODY STOP!”

The sound ricochets through my ribs, freezing everyone in the room in an instant.