Page 5 of Shadow Of Sin

I don’t sleep. Obviously.

By five-thirty, I’m still sitting in the dark staring at a screen full of code. My eyes are gritty, my neck is killing me, and I’ve had enough coffee to fuel a small aircraft. I need to move. I need to not be in this apartment anymore.

I grab my jacket and head for Sal’s restaurant down the street.

Rosario’s is a four-minute walk from my place, which is the main reason I picked this neighborhood. It’s not much to look at from the outside, just a narrow storefront wedged between a dry cleaner and a nail salon with a hand-painted sign that Sal’s business partner Marco made when they opened. But inside, it’s warm and loud and it smells like garlic and freshly baked bread and everything that feels like home when you don’t have one.

Sal’s behind the bar when I walk in, wiping down the counter even though the breakfast rush doesn’t start for another hour. He does this every morning…gets here before anyone else, sets up alone, and talks to himself while he works. I know because I’ve shown up at this hour more times than I’d like to admit.

“E!” He looks up with that big, warm grin. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks. Love you too.”

“I mean it. When’s the last time you slept?”

“Define sleep.”

He shakes his head and slides a cup of coffee across the bar without being asked. It’s already got sugar in it because he knows how I take it. He always knows. That’s Sal. He remembers every regular’s drink order, every server’s birthday, every distributor’s kid’s name. He collects people the way I collect data…thoroughly and without trying.

“Sit,” he says. “I’m making eggs.”

“I didn’t ask for eggs.”

“You didn’t have to. You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one where you haven’t eaten since yesterday and you’re running on caffeine and stubbornness.” He’s already cracking eggs into a pan. “Which, by the way, is not a sustainable nutritional strategy.”

“Says the man who ate pizza rolls for dinner three nights last week.”

“That’s different. Pizza rolls are a food group.”

I smile because I can’t help it. Sal does that to me. He’s the only person on the planet who can make me feel normal when everything else surrounding me is in flames. He slides a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me and leans on the bar, watching me eat with that satisfied expression he gets when he’s feeding someone. Like it’s the only thing in the world that makes total sense to him.

He built this place from nothing. A shitty lease on a space nobody wanted, a borrowed stove, and a menu he wrote on the back of a napkin. Three years later, it’s actually something. Not a goldmine, but something. And he did it while handling my legal bills and visiting me every two weeks in a prison four hours away and never once making me feel like any of it was my fault.

It was my fault. But Sal would choke on his own tongue before he’d say it.

“So, what’s going on?” he asks. “And don’t say nothing, because you only show up this early when something’s eating at you.”

“Nothing’s eating at me. I just wanted to see your face.”

“My face.” He lifts an eyebrow. “At five-thirty in the morning.”

“It’s a great face.”

“Eva.”

“Sal.”

He stares at me. I stare back. This is a game we’ve played since we were kids. Who blinks first. He always loses because Sal doesn’t have the patience for standoffs. He’d rather just ask the question again, louder.

“Fine,” he says, throwing up his hands. “Don’t tell me. But eat the damn eggs.”

I eat the damn eggs. They’re good, they’re hot, and someone made them for me. That’s enough.

The front door opens while I’m scraping the last of them onto my fork. Two men walk in, clearly not here for breakfast.