Damn, he wasn’t going to stop ringing the phone. Since 5:00 a.m. this morning, he’d been calling. I blew a steady stream of air through my nostrils and picked up the phone.

“Hey, bro—what be up?”

“Don’t fucking, ‘hey, bro,’ me. What the fuck are they up to over there?”

I walked down the hall and pulled open the door leading to what was once a state-of-the-art camera room, but now resembled Baghdad after the bombings. “Considering one of her men bashed in all my equipment, I have no idea.”

“Her men? What the fuck?” Barnes snarled. “How did they know you even had surveillance equipment?”

“Where have you been? They’ve only known since forever,” I shot back. To be the master planner behind all this, he could sometimes come across as being so dumb.

“You know something, Ms. LaFountaine? You’re really beginning to lose your usefulness to me.”

I swallowed hard, knowing I needed to clean this up. Barnes had already shown what he was capable of. “But you got Mason, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I got him, but you didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. That reminds me, have you been able to contact Andrew?”

“Nope, he doesn’t answer his cell—”

“What’s Yanni saying?” he blurted out.

“You must think that bitch and I are hella close or something—she doesn’t tell me anything. As a matter of fact, I haven’t talked to her, since they smashed up everything.”

“Well, it’s about time you went over there and made nice. I gotta know this final plan will bring everything full circle.”

“But, I, umm—”

“Get your silly ass over there and make nice,” he practically screamed, before hanging up.