Page 82 of Shadow Of Sin

CHAPTER 19

EVA

I open the door to my apartment and my stomach drops into my sneakers like a goddamn lead weight.

My go bag is on the kitchen table.

The black duffel bag that lives hidden in the back left corner of my closet with the handle facing out, in exactly the same position where I put it the day I moved in here, is on the fucking kitchen table. I check it every day. It’s my ritual. My lifeline. The thing that says I can disappear in minutes if my world catches fire.

Now it’s sitting in the middle of my kitchen table like a centerpiece. And next to it, flat on the cracked wood, is a photo of Sal.

He’s behind the bar at Rosario’s, laughing with a customer. It looks to have been taken through the front window. The timestamp in the corner says yesterday.

My legs lock up, every muscle twitching, and my stomach clenches so hard I nearly double over. I grip the doorframe with one hand and the other goes straight to the knife in my jacket. I hold it so tight my knuckles crack.

They were in my apartment. They went through my closet. They found the one thing I packed for survival, and they put it on display like a goddamn trophy. Right next to a photo that says, “we can get to your brother whenever we want.”

I scan the room on autopilot, checking for anything else that’s out of place. Everything looks normal, which makes it worse. They came in, touched my things, arranged their little presentation, and left without disturbing a single other object. That takes patience. That takes skill. That takes someone who wanted me to know exactly how easy it would be to do something so much fucking worse.

I pull out the burner and call Wolfe. He picks up on the first ring.

“Someone was in my apartment.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel, which isn’t saying much. “They pulled my go bag out of the closet and put it on the table next to a surveillance photo of Sal.”

One second of silence ticks past. Then two.

“Don’t touch anything. Leave now. I’m sending Cillian. He’s close by.”

“Wolfe—”

“Eva,” he growls. “Get out of there. Wait on the street. Please.”

The “please” does it. Wolfe doesn’t say please. He throws out facts and directives and dry observations about cereal. “Please” means he’s scared and he’s trying not to show it.

I back out the door and run down the stairs, practically tripping over my own feet to get to the ground level.

The street looks normal on this Tuesday afternoon. That’s the thing about danger. It never comes with a warning label.

A woman with a stroller passes by. Then a cluster of kids on bikes tear past. The neon sign hanging over the dry cleaner buzzes the way it always does.

Sweat beads pebble the back of my neck, my breaths short and shallow. My apartment was just violated by people who work for a Russian criminal and the neighborhood looks like freaking Pleasantville.

I want to scream. Instead, I lean against the building, wrap my arms around myself, and wait.

Cillian pulls up in a blacked-out Range Rover four minutes later. He gets out, takes one look at my face, and doesn’t ask a single question.

He walks around the front of the car and pulls open the passenger side door. “Get in,” he says.

I get in, my hands trembling in my lap. He closes the door, walks back to the driver’s side, puts the car in gear, and floors the gas.

“They left my go bag on the table,” I say after a few blocks. “Next to a photo of my brother.”

His jaw tightens. “Message received.”

I twist the ends of my hair around my fingers. “I don’t understand. Why not just kill me? They know where I live. They know I turned. Dmitri has everything he needs to do whatever the hell he’s got planned. I’m a loose end with a laptop and a prison record. Why break into my apartment and arrange a little art installation instead of putting a bullet in my head?”

“Because killing you will start a war with my family, and Dmitri’s not ready for that fight yet. He’s still building leverage. Right now, he needs the Molloys off-balance, not raging.” Cillian glances at me. “You’re more useful to him as a threat than a body. If he hurts you, my brother will lose his mind. If my brother loses his mind, he’ll make mistakes. Dmitri wants mistakes, not martyrs.”

I let that sink in. I’m alive because my death would be tactically inconvenient. That’s not exactly a warm blanket of comfort.