3. Eva
EVA
I open the front door of my building and step out backward to lock it. Then I turn, almost colliding with the man sitting on the stoop. I choke on a gasp and reach for the handrail before I face-plant on the cracked concrete.
The plan was to go for a run. I haven’t really moved my body in days, and the restless energy crawling under my skin is making me twitchy.
My hand goes to the knife in my jacket pocket. I don’t pull it out, but my fingers close around the handle.
He looks up.
I’ve spent twenty-four hours imagining what the person who broke into my system looks like.
To be honest, I saw him as the quintessential tech nerd — antisocial with longish, greasy hair in a ratty flannel shirt who lives in his parents’ basement, eats Hot Pockets, and probably hasn’t showered in a week or longer.
But the guy I’m staring at kind of blows my mind, if I’m being honest. He’s about my age with dark hair, glasses, and blue eyes sharp enough to cut glass.
He’s wearing a faded Metallica t-shirt under an open jacket, which is interesting because the glasses scream professor, and the shirt says something else entirely.
And the combination is messing with my ability to put him in a box, which I hate because boxes are safe, and this guy doesn’t fit in any of them.
He’s also hot as hell. Of course he is. Because that’s exactly what I need right now, to be standing here with a knife and sweaty palms, my heart going a hundred miles an hour, and my freaking brain decides this is the moment to notice he looks like Clark Kent’s edgier cousin.
And I swear to God, if my brain doesn’t stop noticing how attractive he is while I’m in active crisis mode, I’m going to lose it.
“You should go left at the split,” he says.
I freeze.
That line. My brain sizzles with memories. I’ve spoken that line before…
Suddenly, it hits me. The man in the hallway at the gala almost two years ago. I gave him a tip about bad wiring and walked away without looking back. Most people wouldn’t remember a throwaway comment from a random security worker at an event they were crashing. This man held onto it.
That tells me two things. He has an exceptional memory. And I made an impression I didn’t intend to make.
Neither of those things makes me feel any bit safer.
I tighten my grip on the knife. I just need him to think I’m someone he shouldn’t screw with.
“Who the hell are you?” I say in a tight voice.
“I’m the person who was in your system for forty-nine minutes. You left the door open, so I figured I’d introduce myself the old-fashioned way.”
I stare at him. I watch his expression as I piece everything together…the gala, him with his cables, me with my warnings. Realization clicks behind my eyes so damn fast that surprise flickers across his face. Like he expected me to be quick, but not that quick.
“You,” I say.
“Me.” He keeps his hands where I can see them, which tells me he’s thought about this and knew not to back me into a corner. “So, are you going to use that knife in your pocket, or can we have a conversation inside?”
I grit my teeth, let go of the knife, and pull my hand out of my pocket.
“How do you—?”
“Occupational hazard,” he says. “I know the tells.”
Jesus.
And he knows way more than the fact that I have a knife in my pocket. He’s been in my system. So he basically knows everything. About Dmitri. About Sal.
He’s not making guesses or fishing for information I might let slip.
He had all of this in his arsenal before he sat down on my damn stoop. People don’t just know this much by accident. They go looking for it…that is, if they decide it’s worth looking for.
Fuck. I stare at him, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it vibrate in my throat.
I carry my brother’s debt like a weight permanently tethered to my heart, and I don’t talk about it, ever.
So hearing this complete stranger lay it out like it’s just another data point in his little file makes me want to shove him off my steps and scream into a damn pillow.
But I don’t. I dig my nails into my palms and force myself to breathe.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t walk past you right now,” I say.
“I know who Dmitri Kozlov is. I know what he’s got on your brother. And I know you’ve been doing his work for months because you don’t have another choice. Yes, I know everything.” He holds my gaze. “And I’m here now because I think you might have another option now.”
“You can say all of that from my stoop. Why should I let you inside?”
“The guys who come into your brother’s restaurant,” he says. “The ones with the gold chains. Do you know who they work for?”
My blood goes cold. Not because of what he’s saying about Sal or the question he asked about the guys. I already know the debt is a noose named Dmitri. What scares me is that this stranger knows it, too. That means he’s either working for Dmitri or he’s something worse.
“Inside,” I say. “Now.”
He follows me as I trudge up the stairs to my door. I unlock it and we walk inside. I don’t apologize for my shoddy apartment because at least it’s mine.
He sits at my kitchen table. I stand because I’m not going to be comfortable while a stranger is in my home. I pull the knife out of my pocket and slap it on the table. It’s not pointed at him, but I don’t put it away, either.
“What option?” I grit out.
“My break-in to your system started a clock,” he says. “If Dmitri’s people run any kind of check on your setup and notice something’s off, they’ll know you’ve been found. And when Dmitri thinks you’re compromised, he won’t come for you. He’ll go for Sal.”
I grit my teeth. I already know that’s how the bastard operates. You don’t squeeze the person you’re using. You squeeze the person they love.
My throat locks up. Not because any of this is news.
I’ve known how the trap works since Dmitri showed up at my door two weeks after I got out of prison with a folder full of Sal’s debts and a smile that made me want to throw up all over it.
But hearing this stranger with the piercing blue eyes and band t-shirt talk about the structure of my cage makes it real in a way I’ve managed to avoid by just never acknowledging it.
“So, here’s what I’m proposing,” he says.
“You don’t stop. You keep doing Dmitri’s work.
You keep delivering, keep your routine, don’t change a thing.
But every job he gives you, you bring the intel to me too.
I’ll map what he’s building. When I have enough, I take him apart.
You walk free. Sal walks free. It’s over. ”
“You want me to be a double agent?”
“I want you to do exactly what you’re already doing, except now it has an ending instead of an endless loop that keeps you in hamster-mode.”
I let out a snort, because that’s exactly what I feel like most days.
And now this stranger is offering me a deal.
He’s packaging this like a business transaction, all nice and neat and tied up with a red bow.
I’ll be trading one cage for another if I agree to this.
I almost let out a dry laugh because nothing about this is nice or neat.
A gorgeous and evidently brilliant stranger tracked me down, broke into my most secure system, showed up at my front steps looking like some kind of hot nerd superhero, and is now offering to turn me into a spy in exchange for information.
That’s not a deal. Just as I suspected, it’s a different cage with fancier bars.
“Why should I trust you?” I ask. “You broke into my system. You tracked me here. And then you show up out of nowhere like some kind of…of…” I pick up the knife and wave it in his general direction. “How is this any different from being used by someone else?”
He’s quiet for a second, but I don’t think it’s the kind of quiet where he’s trying to make up some bullshit about how this offer is better than my current predicament. I think it’s something else that has the gears in his brain turning.
“I can’t give you a reason to trust me,” he finally says. “I haven’t earned it. But trust me, if I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it from behind a screen and you’d never have seen my face. I’m standing here because I don’t want to do this without you knowing who I am.”
Dammit.
That lands in a weird place. It’s not smooth.
It’s not charming. It’s got none of the polish Daniel used to slather over every sentence, the kind that made you feel special right up until you found out it was all part of his ruse.
This guy isn’t performing a damn thing. He’s just saying what’s in his head, and I can’t tell if that makes him trustworthy or just a better kind of liar.
But those eyes. They’re locked on mine, and they haven’t moved once.
He looks at me like he’s perfectly fine sitting here all day until I make up my mind.
That patience is the same thing I found when I looked at his tracks all over my system.
Forty-nine minutes of open access and he just chose to look and leave.
He could have wrecked everything I built.
He didn’t.
I hate that it matters to me. I hate that I’m standing in my own kitchen running the scenarios the way I always do, stripped of emotion.
And what’s left is fucking ugly. I can’t protect Sal alone.
I’ve been barely keeping it together since I got out, running Dmitri’s jobs, keeping my head down, praying nobody looks too close at the work I’m doing.
But now I know someone has looked very closely, and the clock is ticking, and I’m one woman in a crappy apartment with a dulled kitchen knife, a go bag, and nobody in the world I can call for help or advice.
Except, apparently, this guy. This stranger who found me when nobody else could, and drove here himself instead of sending someone else.
“What about Sal?” I ask. “While I’m playing double agent, what keeps him safe?”
“I’m already watching him. I found Sal before I found you. He’s easier to track because he doesn’t hide. I’ve had eyes on him for a week.”
A week. He found my brother before he found me.
He’s been watching Sal for a week, and I had no freaking clue.
My stomach flips because I’m supposed to be the one protecting Sal, and this guy has been three steps ahead of me the entire time.
Part of me is grateful. The other half wants to crack him in his perfectly chiseled jaw.
This guy’s been keeping Sal safe without me knowing, and that should make me feel better.
But instead, my world tilts because I don’t know this person.
I don’t know what he really wants, and every time someone has offered me help, it’s come with strings I couldn’t see until they were already wrapped around my neck and pulled tight.
“So what happens when you’re done with me?” I ask. “When you’ve got what you need?”
“Then you walk away. Clean. No debt, just freedom.”
My eyes burn and I blink hard. I am not crying in front of this man. I don’t care how blue his eyes are, or how tired I am, or how close I am to fraying like a cheap rug. I swallow past the lump in my throat and focus on the math.
If I say no, nothing changes. I keep doing Dmitri’s work with no exit, no plan, no ending.
If I run, I start over with nothing, and Sal’s still exposed.
If I say yes to this stranger, Sal gets protection I can’t give him, and I get something I haven’t had since before prison…
a way out. And all it costs me is trusting someone.
All it costs me.
Like trust is a small thing. Like it didn’t cost me fourteen months of my life and everything I’d built. I trusted that asshole Daniel, and while I was locked up in a cell in New York, Sal spiraled. He gambled harder, got in deeper debt, and by the time I got out, Dmitri owned him.
That’s on me. Not the gambling. That’s Sal being Sal. But I was supposed to be there for him. I was supposed to keep him from going off the rails, the way I always did, and I wasn’t there because I trusted the wrong man.
So yeah. Trust is expensive. Trust is the most expensive thing I’ve ever paid for.
I look at the knife on the counter. It was never going to save me, though.
The things that threaten me don’t come with fists and guns. They come through screens and bank accounts and my brother’s debts, and the man sitting at my kitchen table is the first person I’ve met who lives in that same world.
I put the knife back on the table. “Just so we’re clear, I’m doing this for Sal. Not for you, not because I trust you, not because you gave a nice speech in my kitchen. This is math. Period.”
“Understood,” he says.
I fold my arms across my chest. “I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Wolfe,” he says.
“That’s not a real name,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
He shrugs. “It’s the one I’ve got.”
I start to ask about a last name then snap my lips closed. It’s not like he’ll tell me the truth, anyway.
He stands up from my kitchen table and pulls on his jacket. At the door, he stops.
“I’ll be around,” he says. “Close by. When Dmitri gives you the next job, finish it and then come find me.” He pulls a burner phone from his pocket and puts it on the counter next to the knife. “There’s one number programmed. Use it.”
He walks out. The door closes behind him and my apartment goes quiet.
I stand there for a full minute. Then my back hits the door and my knees buckle.
I slide down until I’m sitting on the floor with my palms pressed against my face, my body trembling.
The kind of trembling that starts deep in your chest and works its way out until your teeth rattle and crack together, and it’s got nothing to do with the cold.
Get it together, Eva. Get up. Move.
I give myself sixty seconds. Then I get up.
I pick up the burner phone from the counter. It’s small, cheap, the kind you buy at a gas station. One number in the contacts. No name attached.
Then I lock my door, check the deadbolt twice, and stand at the window looking down at the street. He’s already gone. There’s no car pulling away, no shadow on the sidewalk. He disappeared as quietly as he showed up.
I just agreed to betray the most dangerous man in my life for a stranger who sat on my stoop like he had all the time in the world. He didn’t threaten me. He didn’t charm me. He just showed me a door I didn’t know existed and waited to see if I’d walk through it.
That’s either the most honest thing anyone’s done for me since Sal, or the most sophisticated trap I’ve ever seen.
I sit down at my desk and stare at the burner phone and the knife. I run through the exit plan in my head. My go bag is in the closet. I’ve memorized every street between here and three different bus stations. If shit goes sideways, I can be gone in ten minutes. God knows, I’ve done worse.
Regardless, my eyes are wide fucking open. And right now, that’s all I’ve got.