Page 102 of Shadow Of Sin

“Your brother will be safe on Friday morning. That’s a fact.”

She nods once and lets out a shaky breath. Then she gets up and starts packing without another word.

I watch her move around the room shoving clothes into a bag and my chest aches like it’s being split in two. She’s choosing to trust me. With her brother’s life, with her own life, with the belief that the man she’s following to a remote cabin in the woods is the same man who sat on her stoop weeks ago and told her the truth about her situation.

I am the same man. The plan is real. Sal will be safe.

But there are pieces she doesn’t know about.

I grab my phone out of my pocket when it rings. I frown at Ronan’s name on the screen and sneak a look at Eva, who seems lost in her own world right now.

Stepping into the hallway, I pull the door mostly closed.

“Is she on board?” he asks.

“She’s packing.”

“Good. We need to discuss what happens after Thursday.”

I grit my teeth because I know what’s coming. He’s been circling this for weeks. He doesn’t trust Eva. She’s a loose end, and to him, loose ends are liabilities.

He doesn’t like liabilities. And he sure as hell doesn’t like to keep them hanging around with enough insight on his organizations to put him in prison for the rest of his life.

“After Thursday, Dmitri’s operation is done,” I say. “Eva’s role will be finished.”

“Exactly. Her role will be finished. Which means we need to figure out what happens with her.”

“She stays, Ronan.”

“She’s a convicted felon who knows the inside of our operation, the DiMicheli operation, and Dmitri’s entire network. She’s the single biggest informational liability walking around Boston.”

“She’s not a liability. She’s the reason we have a plan at all to save everything we’ve built.”

“Your attachment to her is the liability. It’s compromised your judgment, and you know it.”

“My judgment hasn’t been compromised. My priorities have shifted. There’s a difference.”

“Not from where I’m standing.”

My jaw locks. I can hear Eva moving in the room behind me. The zipper on her bag. A drawer opening and closing.

“She stays,” I say again. Harder this time. “That’s not negotiable.”

“Everything is negotiable. That’s how this family survives,” he bites out.

“Not this. Not her.”

Silence. Long. The kind of silence Ronan uses when he’s deciding whether to push through a wall or go around it.

“We’ll finish this conversation after Thursday,” he says. “But it is getting finished.”

“Fine.”

“And Wolfe? Don’t let this be the thing that breaks you and me. Remember where your loyalties lie. This is bigger than what happened with Dad. This could blow everything open for us.”

He hangs up after a second of me not answering. I stand in the hallway, the phone hanging from my hand, my thumb tapping against my thigh.

I told him she’s staying. But I know my brother.