Beneath

Chapter 11 (iv) — Stress Cake and Bad News

Snippet

For the love of God, Lola, pick up the phone.-Kai

Mr. Pedro planted BOMB. On his OWN DAUGHTER'S FLIGHT.

Baba dudu latte with fura di nono and osoji sauce. Raspberry zobo cheesecake. Zobo cream macarons. I am taking notes. I want the recipe too, Somebi, get in line.-Barbie

And then Neato says "you're not going to like this" and the chapter just ENDS THERE?

🏚️

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Kainene

The glimpse of us

For the love of God, Lola, pick up the phone.

Ten calls. Maybe eleven. Nothing.

I felt useless in a way that made my hands shake, so I dialed Nana instead. She picked up on the first ring.

"Did you hear the news?"

"What news?"

"Lola's flight." My voice came out faster than I meant it to. "She told me she was taking a regular flight first class, not the jet. There's been" I couldn't finish it cleanly. "There was an attempted crash. It was on the news."

"That sounds like Lola," Nana said quietly. Then, sharper: "How do you know it's her flight?"

"I don't know for sure. That's why I need you to drive there. Check on her."

I heard keys jingling. The shuffle of slippers being shoved on in a hurry.

"Heading out now," Nana said.

Then, muffled, to someone else: "Where are you going?" — Utonwa's voice in the background.

"To check on my friend. Lola."

"I'm driving," Utonwa said. "You can't drive in this state."

Nana's voice came back to me. "Kai. We've got this. Breathe. I feel it in my gut she's okay. She has to be."

The line went quiet, but the call stayed open, the sound of the car door and the engine starting filling the silence between us.

---

**Keside**

Watching Kainene fall apart — for Kamara, for Lola, both at once — might be the most human thing I've seen her do since I've known her.

There's a person underneath the composed, icy exterior she keeps perfected for the world, and I'd never seen her this raw. Unfiltered. Scared in a way she wasn't managing or performing.

"My team's picking up something on the trail," Neato called from the dining room, eyes fixed on his laptop. "Oby's memory logs gave us a starting point. We're piecing together what happened."

We worked in fragments — half-theories, partial footage, the kind of progress that feels like nothing until suddenly it's something.

I caught Kainene pacing the kitchen. The room between her and her siblings had gone thick with the specific silence of people who love each other too much to speak first.

She moved to the counter.

"Are you about to stress bake?" Somebi asked.

Kainene nodded. "But first — everyone needs to eat and drink something. I know it's hard. Kamara would want—"

She broke.

I was at her side before I'd decided to move, pulling her into me. She went stiff for a moment, then eased into it slowly, like her body had to be convinced before it would let itself be held.

I pressed my lips to the top of her head. "It's going to be okay," I murmured. "We'll find her."

I hesitated, then kissed her forehead properly. She shivered against me. I kept my hand moving in slow circles against her back until the shaking settled.

"Thank you, Kes," she said, stepping back, putting air between us.

I felt the absence of her immediately. More than I wanted to admit.

---

She busied her hands the only way she knew how.

First — a baba dudu latte, built with fura di nono cream, a dusting of Milo chocolate, and a thread of osoji sauce stirred through at the end. She made enough for everyone, refusing Oby's help with a shake of her head that told me everything I needed to know.

*Don't take this from her*, I mouthed to Oby. *She needs the motion.*

Then a raspberry zobo cheesecake — fura di nono folded into the filling, the icing somehow both tart and rich at once. It was, without exaggeration, the best thing I'd tasted since Lola's café.

Then raspberry macarons with zobo cream, made with the kind of focus that comes from a person trying to out-bake their own panic.

I groaned out loud at the first bite. Everyone did. Somebi wrapped Kainene in a hug that turned into both of them crying together, and then Somkele and Ugo folded in too — a tight knot of siblings holding each other up.

It felt too intimate to step into.

Neato got there before I could decide.

"You owe me that recipe," Somebi said, wiping her face, half-laughing. "Or I will genuinely fight you."

"Next time," Kainene said. "When my head is settled. When we're home and I'm hosting properly."

"Your stress baking," Somkele said, "should be illegal. It's the most beautiful thing."

"It's healthy," Kainene said, with a wet half-smile.

My phone went off, loud and insistent, breaking the moment.

"It's yours," Kainene said, handing it to me — and the brief contact of her fingers against mine still managed to spark something through me, even now, even like this.

I checked the screen. "It's Duke."

I answered, putting it on speaker without thinking. "Hey, Duke."

"I am going to *kill* him." Duke's voice was shaking with something that wasn't fear. "I swear to God, I am going to kill him."

"Kill who?"

"Mr. Pedro." The name came out like a curse. "I fucking hate that man. Did you know — he's the one who planned the crash? If she hadn't gotten that anonymous text, Kai, she wouldn't have known her own father planned to put a *bomb* on that plane."

All the air left the room.

"The fuck did you just say?" Neato's voice, flat with disbelief.

"Duke." Kainene's voice cracked through, urgent. "Calm down — please. I know Lola's told us he's dangerous, but this is — this is something else entirely. Is she there? Is she okay?"

"She's shaken," Duke said. "She needs a minute. She said she'd call you — check your phone, she sent something earlier."

"Why are you even there?" I asked.

"I was supposed to fly with her. Then I saw him try to talk her out of going at all — saw exactly how he operates." Duke's voice dropped, low and furious. "I get why she hates him now, Kes. He's despicable. Who tampers with human lives like they're nothing?"

Then, distant: "Oh — Nana and Utonwa just got here. I've got to go."

"Call me soon," I said. "Try to breathe. We need a real plan to bring him down."

"Mhm," Duke said, and the line went dead.

Neato looked up from his laptop. His face had gone very still.

"Found something," he said. "You're not going to like this."

---

🍿 Barbie as Narrator Holding Both Hands Over Her Mouth

I need everyone to sit with me for a second because I am NOT okay.

Mr. Pedro tried to plant a BOMB. On his OWN DAUGHTER'S FLIGHT. Because she dared to want to leave him. That man needs to be arrested, deported from polite society, and possibly launched into the sun. Who does that to their own child?

Duke being there — seeing it happen in real time, watching Mr. Pedro try to talk her out of leaving right before everything went sideways — that's not romance novel devotion anymore, that's a man who showed up exactly when it mattered. I need Nana's reaction the second she hears this. I need it immediately.

And then in the middle of all that terror Kainene stress baking an entire dessert menu for her siblings because it's the only way she knows how to hold a family together when she can't hold her sister. Baba dudu latte with fura di nono and osoji sauce. Raspberry zobo cheesecake. Zobo cream macarons. I am taking notes. I want the recipe too, Somebi, get in line.

Kes kissing her forehead in the middle of a crisis and her shivering at it even now, even with everything falling apart, that current between them doesn't switch off. It just goes quiet for a second.

And then Neato says "you're not going to like this" and the chapter just ENDS THERE?

Did they find Kamara? Is that what he found? Or is it something worse?

I need chapter twelve. I needed it five minutes ago. 🖤🍿