Page 32 of Shadow Of Sin

“What are the other two?”

“You’re a straight shooter, no bullshit, which I appreciate. And you look decent in glasses.” I slide off the stool before my mouth gets me in any more trouble. “Goodnight, Sal!”

“’Night, E!” Sal calls from the kitchen. “’Night, neighbor!”

We walk out into the cold. The street is quiet. Our breath clouds the air between us.

“Thanks for dinner,” I say, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Sal made dinner. I just showed up.”

“Yeah, well.” I shove my hands into my pockets. “You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Showing up.”

He looks at me. The streetlight catches his glasses and for a second, I can’t see his eyes, just the reflection. Then he moves and they’re back…clear and blue and penetrating, like he could see through to my soul.

If I let him.

“Goodnight, Eva.”

“Goodnight, Wolfe.”

I walk in the direction of my building. When I get into my apartment, I lock my door and check the deadbolt twice.

This morning, a man grazed my shoulder to remind me he owns me. Tonight, a different man sat at my brother’s bar and told me he used to take things apart to understand how they work, and his father thought that made him broken.

Two men. Two kinds of dangerous. One wants to use me. The other one looks at me like I’m the most interesting thing he’s ever tried to figure out, and I can’t decide if that’s better or worse.

I’m in trouble. Real, actual, no-way-out trouble.

Because the man I should be afraid of isn’t the one who touched my shoulder today.

It’s the one who made me feel something.

CHAPTER 8

WOLFE

Sal’s been polishing the same glass for five minutes.

The glass has been clean since minute two. I noticed because I notice things like that. Same circular motion, same pressure, same speed. When someone repeats a task that’s already done, it means their brain is somewhere else.

I’m sitting at the bar in a Slayer shirt eating the chicken parm that’s become the only meal I look forward to. The breading has this crispy texture that my brain locked onto the first time, maybe because it matches the crunch of the Cheerios, and now it wants it again every time I sit down here.

The lunch rush has cleared out. There’s a couple in the corner finishing their coffee, two guys at the far end of the bar watching basketball, and me. Sal’s got my ginger ale poured before I even sit down because that’s what Sal does. He remembers.

“So I’ve been thinking,” he says, leaning on the bar.

“About what?”

“About you.”

My eyebrows furrow. “Me?”

“Yeah, well, you eat here almost every day. You sit at the same stool. You order the same thing. You drink ginger ale like it’s going out of style.” He taps the bar with his finger. “And my sister keeps showing up at the same time you do, which she says is a coincidence.”