Page 130 of Shadow Of Sin

“Hey.” He puts it on the nightstand. “You’ve been out for about ten hours.”

“Eva,” I choke out. My voice sounds gritty and rough like I swallowed gravel.

“She stayed with Sal.”

A deep, sick ache spreads through my chest.

She’s not here because she’s taking care of her brother. Sal, who just watched a man get shot on his restaurant floor with no idea why.

But deep down I know the real reason. She’s also not here because of what she found on my laptop. Because she thinks I was planning to cut her out of my life. Because eighteen months ago I looked at evidence that could have freed her and closed the file. She was nobody to me then. Just a case number that threatened my family’s business. That’s not a defense. That’s the problem. And she has every reason to think I’d do it again.

I close my eyes and the pain in my shoulder flares so hard I have to bite down on my back teeth to keep from letting out a yell.

“You need to eat,” Cillian says. “Tony wanted to cook you something, but I figured you’d want something basic. So, Honey Nut Cheerios, it is.”

“Thanks,” I rasp.

He places the bowl in my lap. I pick up the spoon and try to eat with my right hand. It’s awkward and slow, and some of the milk drips down my chin, which is humiliating. But the taste is familiar and comforting, and my brain latches onto it the way it always does.

Because right now, familiar and comforting is nice.

“How’s the shoulder?” Cillian asks, dropping into the chair by the window.

“Like someone put a hole through it,” I mumble in between bites.

“That’s very original, Wolfe,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

“I got shot, Cillian. I’m not going to be creative about it.”

He sits there, watching me eat for a few minutes before he speaks again. “The operation went without a hitch. Well, until you showed up at Rosario’s and got yourself shot up,” he says.

I scoop another spoonful of cereal into my mouth, then wipe the milk drizzle from the corner of my lips. “Fuck off,” I grumble. “Tell me the rest.”

“Lochlan’s team grabbed everything in Revere. Hard drives, records, cash. Your program ran all the way through.”

“And Gavin? He handled everything from here like I told him?”

“Yeah. He had to restart the program once. He’s been telling everyone about it all morning like he personally took down Dmitri’s financial network.”

“Not shocking.”

“The FBI packages went out at midnight. By this afternoon, the feds are going to have enough to open investigations on the whole lending operation.”

“And Dmitri?”

Cillian’s face hardens. “He took off. By the time Lochlan sent guys to look for him, the place he’d been staying was cleaned out. He must’ve seen it coming and bolted before the walls closed in.”

I reach over to put the cereal bowl on the nightstand. My shoulder screams at the movement and I have to wait for the pain to pass before I can think clearly again. Cillian jumps up from the chair and grabs it before what’s left of the milk spills over the sides.

I settle back against my pillows with a shuddering sigh. Dmitri is out there with no money, no network, and no muscle. He’s a man standing in the wreckage of everything he built. That makes him very fucking unpredictable.

“What about Viktor?” I ask.

“That’s where it gets interesting.” Cillian leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “Ronan got in touch with Viktor this morning and gave him the full evidence package. He told Viktor all about Dmitri going rogue, operating without authorization, threatening the families. The whole thing.”

“And?”

“Viktor pretty much renounced him. Said he was cutting him loose immediately. He didn’t argue any of what we found, didn’t negotiate for his safety, didn’t take a day to think about it. He just washed his hands of the whole thing.”