Page 11 of Shadow Of Sin

“You want me to be a double agent?”

“I want you to do exactly what you’re already doing, except now it has an ending instead of an endless loop that keeps you in hamster-mode.”

I let out a snort, because that’s exactly what I feel like most days.

And now this stranger is offering me a deal. He’s packaging this like a business transaction, all nice and neat and tied up with a red bow. I’ll be trading one cage for another if I agree to this. I almost let out a dry laugh because nothing about this is nice or neat. A gorgeous and evidently brilliant stranger tracked me down, broke into my most secure system, showed up at my front steps looking like some kind of hot nerd superhero, and is now offering to turn me into a spy in exchange for information.

That’s not a deal. Just as I suspected, it’s a different cage with fancier bars.

“Why should I trust you?” I ask. “You broke into my system. You tracked me here. And then you show up out of nowhere like some kind of…of…” I pick up the knife and wave it in his general direction. “How is this any different from being used by someone else?”

He’s quiet for a second, but I don’t think it’s the kind of quiet where he’s trying to make up some bullshit about how this offer is better than my current predicament. I think it’s something else that has the gears in his brain turning.

“I can’t give you a reason to trust me,” he finally says. “I haven’t earned it. But trust me, if I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it from behind a screen and you’d never have seen my face. I’m standing here because I don’t want to do this without you knowing who I am.”

Dammit.

That lands in a weird place. It’s not smooth. It’s not charming. It’s got none of the polish Daniel used to slather over every sentence, the kind that made you feel special right up until you found out it was all part of his ruse. This guy isn’t performing a damn thing. He’s just saying what’s in his head, and I can’t tell if that makes him trustworthy or just a better kind of liar.

But those eyes. They’re locked on mine, and they haven’t moved once. He looks at me like he’s perfectly fine sitting here all day until I make up my mind. That patience is the same thing I found when I looked at his tracks all over my system. Forty-nine minutes of open access and he just chose to look and leave. He could have wrecked everything I built.

He didn’t.

I hate that it matters to me. I hate that I’m standing in my own kitchen running the scenarios the way I always do, stripped of emotion. And what’s left is fucking ugly. I can’t protect Sal alone. I’ve been barely keeping it together since I got out, running Dmitri’s jobs, keeping my head down, praying nobody looks too close at the work I’m doing.

But now I know someone has looked very closely, and the clock is ticking, and I’m one woman in a crappy apartment with a dulled kitchen knife, a go bag, and nobody in the world I can call for help or advice.

Except, apparently, this guy. This stranger who found me when nobody else could, and drove here himself instead of sending someone else.

“What about Sal?” I ask. “While I’m playing double agent, what keeps him safe?”

“I’m already watching him. I found Sal before I found you. He’s easier to track because he doesn’t hide. I’ve had eyes on him for a week.”

A week. He found my brother before he found me. He’s been watching Sal for a week, and I had no freaking clue. My stomach flips because I’m supposed to be the one protecting Sal, and this guy has been three steps ahead of me the entire time. Part of me is grateful. The other half wants to crack him in his perfectly chiseled jaw.

This guy’s been keeping Sal safe without me knowing, and that should make me feel better. But instead, my world tilts because I don’t know this person. I don’t know what he really wants, and every time someone has offered me help, it’s come with strings I couldn’t see until they were already wrapped around my neck and pulled tight.

“So what happens when you’re done with me?” I ask. “When you’ve got what you need?”

“Then you walk away. Clean. No debt, just freedom.”

My eyes burn and I blink hard. I am not crying in front of this man. I don’t care how blue his eyes are, or how tired I am, or how close I am to fraying like a cheap rug. I swallow past the lump in my throat and focus on the math.

If I say no, nothing changes. I keep doing Dmitri’s work with no exit, no plan, no ending. If I run, I start over with nothing, and Sal’s still exposed. If I say yes to this stranger, Sal gets protection I can’t give him, and I get something I haven’t had since before prison…a way out. And all it costs me is trusting someone.

All it costs me.

Like trust is a small thing. Like it didn’t cost me fourteen months of my life and everything I’d built. I trusted that asshole Daniel, and while I was locked up in a cell in New York, Sal spiraled. He gambled harder, got in deeper debt, and by the time I got out, Dmitri owned him.

That’s on me. Not the gambling. That’s Sal being Sal. But I was supposed to be there for him. I was supposed to keep him from going off the rails, the way I always did, and I wasn’t there because I trusted the wrong man.

So yeah. Trust is expensive. Trust is the most expensive thing I’ve ever paid for.

I look at the knife on the counter. It was never going to save me, though.

The things that threaten me don’t come with fists and guns. They come through screens and bank accounts and my brother’s debts, and the man sitting at my kitchen table is the first person I’ve met who lives in that same world.

I put the knife back on the table. “Just so we’re clear, I’m doing this for Sal. Not for you, not because I trust you, not because you gave a nice speech in my kitchen. This is math. Period.”