Page 25 of Shadow Of Sin

“Ronan doesn’t buy anything from anyone. That’s his whole personality.”

“That’s fair.” He steals the ball out of my hands, which he almost never manages, and puts up a jump shot that actually goes in. “Count it.”

“Lucky.”

“No, it’s skill, bitch.”

“Statistically improbable.”

“God, you’re such a pain in the ass.” He’s grinning, though, so I know he’s annoyed. I love that about him. He’s unexpected in his own way to the world, but to me, he’s completely predictable.

We play for a while longer. He scores a few, I score more. This whole experience is the closest thing I have to meditation…the ball on concrete, trash talk, the cold air burning my lungs. My brain slows down on the court. Not all the way, but just enough to think about one thing at a time instead of twelve.

He grabs a rebound and holds the ball instead of shooting. “Is it dangerous?”

I know he’s not talking about basketball. “Define dangerous.”

“Is it dangerous to you, Wolfe?”

My shoulders sag. Shit, what a loaded question. I think about Eva. The map. Dmitri. The lies I told Ronan an hour ago. “Probably.”

He nods and passes me the ball. “Take care of yourself.”

There it is. The phrase he saves for the moments when he can see me heading somewhere he can’t follow, and he’s choosing to let me go instead of yanking me back. Because I’m the only one who can go into this territory without getting chewed up and spit out.

So far.

“I will.”

“And don’t sit on whatever this is for too much longer.” He sinks one more shot. It’s clean, nothing but net. “Shit always comes out. And the longer you wait, the worse it looks when it does.”

“Well, I have a deadline. Ronan made that clear.”

But my brain splits it in two, the way it always does. Cillian’s talking about the lies I told upstairs. I’m thinking about the older one. The file. The gaps. The woman sitting in an apartment across town who doesn’t know I saw something wrong and walked away.

Because back then, she wasn’t my problem to solve.

And now she is.

I put on Sabbath for the drive back. My brain needs something louder than the noise already in it.

The contrast hits me. South Boston to this neighborhood is about twenty minutes and in a different universe. The Molloy compound has security, landscaping, and a driveway that could fit six cars. My temporary place has a radiator that sounds like it’s dying and a hallway that smells like starch.

I check the feeds the second I get through the door. Sal’s fine at the restaurant. But the Albanian pattern is getting tighter. The guy with the gold chain walked past Rosario’s twice today. Yesterday it was once. The shorter one showed up this morning and sat in a car across the street for fifteen minutes.

They’re not there for the chicken parm.

I add another monitoring layer and sit in the dark, Cillian’s voice bouncing around my head.

Don’t sit on it too long. Shit always comes out.

He’s right. It will. And I’m running out of time to figure out how to make sure Eva survives the fallout when it does.

Because this time, I can’t just file her away.

This time, she’s mine to protect.

CHAPTER 7