Page 129 of Shadow Of Sin

I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know where to put it. It doesn’t fit inside the story I’ve been telling myself since the cabin. It defies the math. It wrecks the pattern.

But the case file is still real. Eighteen months ago, he found proof that I was innocent and buried it because I was nobody to him. Just a case number that connected to his family’s business. And the relocation plan is still real, too. My name. A new city. A seventy-two-hour timeline. Both documents sitting in the same locked folder on his laptop.

I dry my hands and look at myself in the mirror. I look like absolute hell. Mascara streaks my cheeks, my hair hangs in straggly strands, dark circles stain the skin under my eyes.

I pull out my phone. Seventeen missed calls from this morning and nothing since. He’s at the Molloy house getting stitched up right now. He’s probably in pain and exhausted and wondering if I’ll call.

I turn the phone off.

Not as punishment. Not as revenge. Because I can’t think clearly with his name on my screen. I need space and silence and time to figure out what’s real, because right now I have two sets of evidence that don’t match, and my brain is too fried, my heart too wrecked to sort through any of it.

The wall has a crack. But it’s still standing.

And I need it to stand for a little while longer so I can figure out my next move.

I walk back out. To the dining room. Sal waits by the door with his jacket on.

“Let’s go home, E.”

I blow out a shaky breath. “Yeah. Okay.”

We walk the two blocks to his apartment in the dark. I scan every car, every doorway, every shadow between here and his building. Lochlan’s probably still got some guys watching this block, but probably isn’t good enough for me right now. Dmitri’s operation might be burning to the ground tonight, but that doesn’t mean every one of his guys got the memo.

Sal’s hand finds mine halfway there. He doesn’t say a word. He just takes my hand and holds it, and I grip it tight because my brother just found out that his sister has been lying to him for months and he’s still reaching for me.

That’s way more than I deserve.

We get inside and he locks and deadbolts the door. I walk around and check all the windows. He watches me do it and doesn’t ask why.

“Get some sleep, E,” he says from the hallway once I’m settled in his bed.

I won’t. But I nod.

I sit in the dark with the memory of Wolfe stepping between me and that gun like it was the easiest decision he ever made.

And dammit, that just doesn’t fit next to a relocation plan with my name on it. It doesn’t fit next to a closed case file, or three weeks of cold text exchanges with his brother.

Nothing fucking fits.

But for the first time since the cabin, I’m not sure I have the whole story.

And that terrifies me more than anything Dmitri ever did.

CHAPTER 32

WOLFE

I wake up and reach for her, a searing pain shooting through me at the sudden movement.

She’s not there. My hand hits cold sheets and my brain takes too long to figure out why. Whatever they gave me for the pain turned my thoughts into sludge. Everything is slow and thick and wrong.

I’m at the house. In my room. In my bed. My left arm is strapped across my chest, and my shoulder feels like someone shoved a hot poker through it and left it there. Every breath makes it worse. Every small shift sends a jolt through me that makes my jaw lock and my vision blur.

Eva is not here.

I don’t remember much after the restaurant floor. Jagged pieces of memories bounce between my ears. Cillian’s voice. The stretcher. Eva’s hands. The look on her face right before everything went dark.

My bedroom door opens and Cillian walks in carrying a bowl.