Page 81 of Shadow Of Sin

“Then what are you talking about?”

He stops circling and drops his guard about an inch.

It’s an invitation.

I don’t take it because Ronan’s invitations are traps.

“You’re in deep with her,” he says.

“She’s part of the operation.” Sweat drizzles down the sides of my face. I wipe it away with the back of my arm.

“She’s in your apartment. She’s at your desk. She’s in every decision you’ve made since this all started.” He puts his guard back up. “I’m not blind, Wolfe.”

I throw a jab. He slips around it easily.

“She’s good,” I say. “She’s the best asset we’ve ever had.”

“She’s also a convicted felon who was working for the man trying to destroy our family.”

I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “She was coerced.”

“Everyone’s coerced by something.” He throws a body shot that I don’t see coming. It connects hard enough that I double over for a second, the wind knocked out of me. “The question is what happens when Dmitri puts pressure on her. Real pressure. The kind that makes coercion look like a little nudge.”

I wince as I straighten up and reset. My ribs are throbbing, my breaths ragged. I blink fast, my eyes burning from the sweat.

“She won’t fold,” I rasp, circling him.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve watched her stand in your office and tell you things without flinching that could get her killed. Because she walked into a room full of Molloys knowing we could destroy her, and she sat down and did the work anyway. Because three days ago she found out Dmitri engineered her entire life, and she didn’t fucking cut and run. She sat back down at the desk and helped us map his operation.”

Ronan stares at me. We’re both breathing hard.

“You sound like you’re defending more than an asset,” he says.

“Maybe I am.”

His expression turns curious. He watches me for a second before laying into me one final time. But I’m ready for him now.

He throws one more combination. I block the jab, slip the cross, and catch the hook before it lands. I hold his fist for a second. He lifts an eyebrow at me.

“Don’t let her be your blind spot,” he says. “Everybody’s got one. Dad’s was power. Don’t let her be yours.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

He pulls his fist back and nods once. “Then you’d better make damn sure she’s worth it,” he says.

We tap gloves. He heads out of the ropes, and I follow, my entire body aching from being my family’s punching bag du jour.

Cillian and Gavin watch from the bench. Gavin’s mouth hangs open. And there’s something in Cillian’s eyes that I recognize. It’s pride. He doesn’t need to say anything, but I feel it.

I unwrap my hands. My knuckles are red. My ribs are sore. My brain is finally, mercifully quiet in the way that only happens after someone hits you hard enough to reboot the system.

Eva’s face flashes through my head anyway. Her voice. The way she said, “I was the weapon” three nights ago, her voice cracking. And how it broke me to hear the pain in her voice.

Cillian was right. My head’s not fully in the game. Part of it is always with her now, whether it’s on the mat, in the gym, or in a room full of my brothers. Part of my brain belongs to a woman who’s back in my shitty apartment over the dry cleaner, and I can’t get it back.

I’m not sure I want to.