Page 141 of Shadow Of Sin

Ronan nods. “Adriana and I will take the meeting with Viktor. Lochlan, you’ll be there, too, since Adriana is already involved. We ‘ll go in, listen, and give away nothing until we understand what Viktor knows and what he doesn’t. We have to be really careful about how we handle this.

“And there’s something else,” Lochlan says, looking around the table. “Viktor’s people made a comment to Adriana. Something about unresolved debts. The ‘sins of the father’ are the exact words they used.”

Eamon. Our double-crossing scumbag father. Nobody says his name in this house anymore, but his shadow still falls across every room.

“He’s holding that over us,” Cillian says, his jaw going hard.

“He’s reminding us it’s there,” Ronan says. “Whether he plays it depends on how the meeting goes.”

“So Viktor has a grudge, Dmitri has a hard drive full of secrets he can sell to the highest bidder, and some third party we don’t know about could be shopping for it right now,” Gavin summarizes. “Fucking great. Love that for us.”

“Wolfe, I need you deep in Dmitri’s digital trail,” Ronan says. “If he’s reaching out to buyers, there’s a trace somewhere. Find it.”

“On it,” I say.

“Gavin, you’re on physical tracking. If Dmitri surfaces anywhere, I hear about it first. Don’t try to beat anything out of him. Just get me a location.”

“Done,” Gavin says, a smirk on his lips. “But it’d be tempting to beat the hell outta him. Just saying.”

“Cillian, keep your ears open everywhere. People talk, and you’re the one in this family who can get them drunk and loose-lipped.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Take it however you want. Just bring me something useful,” Ronan says.

He stands up and pushes his chair away from the table. “We’ll talk again after the Viktor meeting. Nobody moves on anything alone. We do this as a team.”

The meeting breaks up. Gavin and Cillian shove each other through the doorway. Lochlan separates them with a look before someone knocks over a lamp.

I stay seated.

Ronan sees it. He always does. He closes the door after the others leave and sits back down across from me.

“Something on your mind?” he asks.

“I need to talk to you about Eva.”

“I figured.”

“Not about what she knows or what she represents to the family. About what she is to me.”

We’ve been avoiding this for six weeks. Eva moved into my apartment and Ronan didn’t say a word about it. No arguments. No ultimatums. Just a cold silence between us that we both pretended wasn’t there. But tonight, sitting in this room with Viktor closing in and the stakes getting higher, I’m done pretending.

He folds his hands on the table and waits.

I shift under his piercing stare, gritting my teeth. “She’s permanent, Ronan. I need you to know that. Not temporary. Not conditional. Not someone I’m going to walk away from when things get complicated. She’s my future, and I need to know that you’re okay with that.”

“You’re asking my permission?” He lifts an eyebrow.

I shake my head. “I’m just telling you how it is. But I’d rather have you with me on it than against me.”

His jaw works. He looks at the table for a long time, then drums his fingertips on the surface.

“You treat everyone who isn’t blood as a threat,” I say. “Adriana. Eva. Anyone who gets close to this family. And I understand why. Dad beat that into us. He taught us that letting people in is how you lose control.” My chest tightens because I know that better than anyone.

“He wasn’t entirely wrong.”

“He wasn’t entirely right either. Lochlan married someone outside this family, and it made us stronger. Eva mapped the operation that saved us. Every move we’re making right now against Viktor is built on intelligence she gathered.” I hold his gaze. “These women aren’t threats. They’re the reason we’re still standing.”