Page 95 of Shadow Of Sin

She snorts and kisses my shoulder. “You’re such a weirdo.”

“And yet, I had you begging not too long ago. So who’s the weird one?”

“Point taken.” She pulls my face up and looks at me again. This time her eyes are wet. She’s not crying. They just…glisten. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“That was...” She lets out a low whistle. “I can’t even put it into words.”

“We’ll find one.”

“Or maybe we won’t.” She lifts herself onto her elbow and kisses me. Soft. Slow. Nothing like the desperate urgency from five minutes ago. “Maybe some things don’t need words.”

I clean myself up, then roll onto my side and pull her back against me. She fits in the curve of my body like she was made to fit there. Her back against my chest. My arm secure around her waist. My nose in her hair.

We lie there. My thumb traces circles on her hip. She puts her hand over mine.

“We should sleep,” she says.

“Yeah.” Like my brain’s going to allow that to happen.

“We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

But neither of us sleeps.

And I make her scream my name into her pillow five more times before the sun comes up.

The next morning I take Eva to Rosario’s.

She hasn’t been there in almost a week. Lochlan gave the order. Visiting Sal could draw Dmitri’s attention to the restaurant and blow the surveillance perimeter. But this morning Eva told Ronan she was going whether he liked it or not. He went along with it and said he’d speak to Lochlan, probably because arguing with Eva has become a fight nobody in this house wins.

Lochlan’s team cleared our route. Cillian’s people have eyes on the block. We take a car with tinted windows. I park across the street and scan every window, door, and parked car outside before we move toward the restaurant.

I can hear the excitement in Sal’s voice from my spot on the sidewalk. I’m sure people three blocks away hear it, too. I stay outside for another minute to check out the perimeter because my brain automatically makes me process any potential threats to Eva.

I head for the front door when a man steps out of the alley next to the restaurant.

He’s one of the Albanians. I recognize the stance, the look he gives me. He’s part of Hoxha’s crew. Lower level, though. One of his soldiers.

“Molloy,” he says.

I stop.

“Walk away. She’s not yours to protect.” He keeps walking toward me.

I slowly turn to look at him, my lips pulled into a tight line. I don’t answer, but my brain reads him. His stance is wide, which is fucking stupid. His weight is on his back foot, which means he’s going to lead with his right. I catch a glimpse of something on his hip. It’s the handle of a knife. It wouldn’t be a gun. It’s too public for a gun.

He steps closer. “I said walk away.”

Everything goes still. The neighborhood sounds fade to white noise. There’s just me, this man, and the space between us.

He reaches for his hip.

I move.

He swings the blade, the hiss of it slicing the air. I step inside the arc the way Cillian taught me. I redirect his wrist and use his momentum to slam him into the brick wall. The knife clatters on the ground. He tries to turn away, probably to run, and I slam him twice in the ribs with hard and precise shots. They’re the same spots I’d aim for on the heavy bag except this one grunts and doubles over. I catch his arm, wrench it behind his back, and pin him against the wall with my forearm across the back of his neck.