Page 122 of Shadow Of Sin

“Fine,” I say. My voice cracks. “Stay.”

“Was that so hard?”

“You have no idea,” I mutter, my mind spinning with scenarios I have no freaking idea how to manage. I can hack my way into the Pentagon, but navigating Russian gangsters? Not high on my skill list.

He goes back to counting the register. I finish wiping down the tables, then the bar. The restaurant is dark except for the light over the bar and the glow from the kitchen.

It’s 10:15. The front door is locked. The street outside is quiet.

Dread snakes through my insides.

Something is about to happen. Something I am completely unprepared to deal with.

I reach into my jacket and feel the knife handle against my palm. Not because I think I can fight whoever walks through that door. Because holding something solid is the only thing keeping my hands from shaking hard enough for Sal to notice.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out with trembling fingers.

It’s a text from a number I don’t recognize.

Stay inside. Lock the back door. Don’t move.

I stare at the screen. My heart slams against my ribs so hard it rattles my teeth.

Someone knows I’m here. Someone is watching this restaurant right now. And whoever sent this message knows what’s about to happen.

I look at Sal. He’s stacking receipts behind the register, humming the same song he always hums when he closes. He has no idea that everything he thinks he knows about his life is about to shatter.

I want to tell him. God, I want to tell him all of it. That I love him, and I’m sorry, and none of this is his fault, and the man who is supposed to invest in his beloved restaurant was actually supposed to hurt him.

I grip the knife in my jacket and move toward the back door to check the lock.

My hand is on the handle when I hear it.

The front door. A knock. Slow and deliberate.

Sal looks up from the register. “We’re closed,” he calls out.

Another knock follows. Harder and more insistent this time.

My hand drops.

Then the door handle turns.

CHAPTER 30

WOLFE

There’s a version of tonight where everything goes right. Dmitri’s network burns. Sal is safe. Eva comes back. I tell her the truth, and she believes me.

And there’s another version where I lose everything.

I don’t know which one I’m living in yet.

That thought has been pressing down on my chest all day, getting heavier every hour, and no amount of planning or code can make it move.

But the operation starts in ten minutes, and I don’t have the luxury of falling apart.

My job tonight is the money. Eva spent three months inside Dmitri’s operation. She mapped every account, every financial connection, every dollar that moved through his network. She handed all of that intel to me, and over the past two weeks, I’ve been using it to set up access to every piece of his financial infrastructure. No alarms. No alerts. Just open doors waiting for me to walk through them.