Page 85 of Shadow Of Sin

“It’s been touched. It’s not mine anymore.” My throat tightens and I swallow hard past the knot. “I know that sounds crazy⁠—”

“It doesn’t sound crazy. I threw away a radio I spent three months rebuilding because my father smashed it to hurt me. I know what it means when someone contaminates the thing that makes you feel safe.”

Goddamn this man.

“I’ll make you a new one,” he says.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know what goes in it. I’ve been paying attention.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake. I press the heels of my hands against my burning eyes. I will not cry. I will not cry in this room.

“When this is over,” I finally say when I think I can get the words out without an accompanying sob. “What happens to me? My apartment is gone. My old life is gone. I don’t have a resume that doesn’t include a felony conviction and three months of working for Russian organized crime.” I drop my hands. “Where do I go? What do I do? Who the hell am I without this operation?”

He’s quiet for a second. His thumb taps against the doorframe.

“Adriana offered you something,” he says. “Forensic accounting. Legitimate work.”

“She was being nice.”

“Adriana isn’t nice. She’s strategic. She offered because you’re good enough to be worth an offer.”

“That’s a very Wolfe way to give a compliment.”

“It’s the truth.” He steps into the room and sits next to me on the bed. Our shoulders touch. “You asked who you are without the operation. You’re Eva Moreno. You’re the best hacker I’ve ever worked with. You silence my brain. You scare Ronan, which almost nobody does. You read rooms better than anyone I’ve ever met. And you make your brother laugh in a way that fills up an entire restaurant.”

I stare at him. He says it the way he says everything, in that matter-of-fact tone of his.

“That’s a lot of things,” I say.

“You’re a lot of things.”

“Some of them are felonies.”

“Some of the best things are.”

I lean my head against his shoulder and heave a deep sigh. He puts his arm around me. His thumb draws circles on my shoulder in that rhythm I’ve come to know as well as my own heartbeat.

“I don’t know how to do the comfort thing. I get that this is a moment where a normal person would say something reassuring and meaningful.” His blue eyes darken. “I don’t have that. But I can tell you that you’re sitting in a house full of people who will make sure nothing happens to you or Sal. And I can also tell you that I’m not going anywhere. Even though I’m very bad at this.”

“You’re not bad at this.”

“I’m very fucking bad at this.”

“Wolfe. You just listed six reasons why I matter as a human being without blinking. Most people can’t do that for someone they’ve known for years.”

“That’s because most people don’t pay attention.”

“And you do.”

“To you?” He pauses. “Yeah. To you I do.”

I close my eyes and lean harder into him. He lets me. He always lets me.

And that’s the thing that scares me most. Not the break-in. Not Dmitri or the Albanians or what comes next.

It’s that I’m starting to need this man. And the last man I needed destroyed me.