Page 113 of Blackwood

“I told them before we were ever a thing,” she says, voice quiet. “Ellie at St. Lyra’s graduation, and Hales and Knox the summer before Freshman year.”

Cade blinks, like the timeline just shifted under his feet. His brows pull together. “That long ago?”

She nods. “They were my roommates, Cade. My team. My family.”

I watch Cade swallow hard, like he’s trying to make space in his chest for that truth. For everything he didn’t know. Everything she carried before they ever touched. Before he ever kissed her like she was his.

“Where were you on Dad’s birthday, Bella?” Cade asks again.

“I was in New Orleans.” She looks down. “The Black Book families want their data back, and they will do just aboutanything to get it. I made a trade for some pieces of one, and their leader got me what I asked for. My revenge on Carlos.”

That name is gasoline. I shift forward, something feral curling in my chest. “What kind of revenge, baby?”

Her eyes meet mine. And for the first time tonight, she smiles. But it’s not sweet. It’s dark. Dangerous.

“I should back up. First, Zeke and I got Carlos put in prison. Mariela was pregnant and there was no way in hell we were letting that baby girl grow up with him as a father. So we bankrupted him. Zeke stripped away the cops, politicians, all of it. He leaked Carlos’s failed sales to the feds, enough they couldn’t bury. Carlos went down. Afterward, we sent Mariela cash, IDs, a way out. A safe new life for her and her daughter.”

She shifts in her seat. “So now… back to the New Orleans part. Sabine got Carlos transferred from Miami to New Orleans,” she continues, calmer now. No longer trembling.

“Her men attacked the transport van. Made it look like Carlos ran. And then they sat him in the bayou to wait for me,” she says letting out a huff.

Her voice is different now. It’s like me when I get into one of my rage spirals and don’t come out until someone’s broken or bleeding. She looks like she could kill a god and then go sleep like a damn baby.

Cade, on the other hand, looks like he’s about to faint. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

“Carlos didn’t make it out of that swamp.”

Cade’s voice is barely above a whisper. “You… you killed a man?”

Ok calm the fuck down, Cade. Fucker had it coming.

Bella’s head tilts. “Not exactly.”

Cade blinks fast. “The message. From Luca. Is this that Carlos?”

She nods once. “Yeah.”

“Okay. What aren’t you telling me?” I ask, “I haven’t seen these messages. What happened in that bayou, baby?”

“Well…” she says, like she’s about to tell us the ending of some twisted bedtime story. “Sabine—who, by the way, totally looks like a voodoo priestess—is a genius. And she lives for revenge. She has this snake that she swears can tell if a soul is rotten.”

She shrugs, “Turns out Carlos’s was.”

Cade looks like he’s going to be sick.

“She told me not to waste my revenge on a head-shot. Said that’d be too merciful. To be smart, savor it.” She shrugs again, all casual carnage. “So, since he had talked about all the nasty things he wanted to do to me with his dick, I shot him in it.”

I wince.

“Sabine shot him in the kneecaps and then we left him there.”

“Fuck, baby,”I mutter. “That’s… brutal.”

Cade looks green. Like,billionaire-heir-vomits-on-his-loafers,kind of green.

She stands and something in her breaks. Her fire is gone. That sharp, fearless energy she carries like armor just flickers out.

“And this,” she says softly, gaze locked on Cade, “this is exactly why I didn’t want to say anything.”