Page 132 of Shadow Of Sin

“I’m going to make sure that asshole Daniel McCabe gets what’s coming to him. He’s the man who framed Eva. I have his digital signature from the case file. I can build a trail that leads investigators straight to him without it ever touching us.”

“And Eva? She just watches all of this happen and figures out it’s you?”

“She’s the best hacker I’ve ever met. She’ll put it together. When Daniel’s name shows up in an investigation and the evidence matches the analysis on my laptop that she already read, she’ll know exactly who’s behind it.”

“That’s a long play,” Gavin says.

“Eva is worth a long play.”

Gavin looks at Cillian. Cillian looks at Gavin. Something passes between them that I can’t read. Or maybe my brain is still too damn foggy to grasp it.

“Okay,” Cillian says. He stands up, walks over, and ruffles my hair the way he used to when we were kids. “Get some rest. You’re running on painkillers and cereal and whatever delusion is telling you that you’re fine right now.”

“I am fine.”

“You got shot twelve hours ago.”

“And I’m still here. That makes me fine.”

“That makes you stubborn.” He heads for the door. “Same thing in this family, I guess.”

Gavin follows him out but turns back in the doorway. “Hey, Wolfe?”

“Yeah.”

“For what it’s worth, I think she’ll come back. Anyone who makes you this stupid has to be the real deal.”

“Get out, Gavin.”

He grins and closes the door.

I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling. The pain is a constant, pulsing reminder that last night actually happened. That I drove across Boston, walked into a restaurant, and put my body between Eva and a gun because my brain shut off and my heart took over.

She’s out there right now. Maybe at Sal’s apartment. Definitely angry and hurt and confused and trying to make sense of a man who buried her case file and built a relocation plan and then took a bullet for her in the same week. I know all of that shit has to have sent her spiraling.

I’m not going to call her. I’m not going to text. I’m not going to show up at her door with explanations she’s not ready to hear.

I’m going to find the man who destroyed her life. I’m going to hand over her freedom on a platter. And I’m going to do it without asking for a single thing in return.

That’s how you prove to someone that you’re not the man they think you are.

Not with words. With what you do when they’re not watching.

I open my laptop with my good hand.

Eighteen months ago, I chose my family over a stranger in a prison cell. But now, I choose her, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make things right.

She’ll know it was me. Eva always finds the fingerprints. But that’s not why I’m doing it.

I’m doing it because it’s what I should have done eighteen months ago. Whether she ever speaks to me again doesn’t change that.

CHAPTER 33

EVA

It’s been two weeks. Fourteen days. Three-hundred-and-thirty-six hours since I watched Wolfe Molloy bleed on my brother’s floor after taking the bullet that might have ended my life.

Not that I’m counting.