4. Wolfe
WOLFE
The apartment I find is a one-bedroom above a dry cleaner that smells like chemicals and regret. The radiator works, which puts it ahead of most places in Eva’s neighborhood. The landlord took cash and didn’t ask for ID.
It’ll do.
The whole point of getting this place is to keep eyes on my targets.
I could run surveillance from home, but I need to be close to my source.
I need access. I need to build trust. And I can’t do any of that through a screen.
Eva is already suspicious of me. If I didn’t give her a face to put to my system break-in, she might have spooked and bolted, and I’d be left with no answers about Dmitri’s plans for our family.
So here I am. Close to her, close enough to my brothers so that I can get back to them quickly and without raising any eyebrows.
I spend Saturday morning getting set up. Monitors, cameras, the basics I need to keep eyes on Sal’s block without anyone knowing I’m here. By noon I’ve got what I need, which isn’t much compared to my setup at home, but it’s enough.
There are four days until Ronan’s deadline. Four days to figure out what I’m going to tell him that isn’t the truth, but also isn’t a lie he’ll see through, either. My brother’s a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.
I check my phone when it pings with a text from Cillian.
Thursday game was weak. Tuesday better happen.
I type back.
Wasn’t weak for me. But I’ll be there on Tuesday so you can redeem yourself.
Whatever. We basically tied.
I furrow my brow.
You were down by six.
Fuck off, Wolfe.
I put down the phone and start to work. By five o’clock, the smell of antiseptic cleaner has pretty much eaten through my nasal lining and my stomach grumbles.
I need to eat something that isn’t Honey Nut Cheerios.
The box I brought from home is already half empty and I’ve been here less than twelve hours.
I head to Rosario’s because it’s close, and because I want to see the place from the inside.
Those are the reasons I’m going with. Not the one that makes my heart rate kick up in a way I haven’t experienced. Ever.
A chime above the door jingles when I step inside.
The restaurant is small with maybe fifteen tables and a bar that seats eight.
The scent of garlic, bread, and tomatoes hits me the second I walk through the door.
I don’t usually notice food smells, but this one is hard to ignore. It’s strong and makes my mouth water.
Sal’s behind the bar. He spots me right away and does the thing I’ve been watching on camera for days. He looks right at me and smiles, the exact way he welcomes all of his customers.
It’s jarring. Most people don’t do that. Most people size you up before they let you in.
“Hey! Grab a seat anywhere,” he says. “Bar’s got the best view, though.”
I sit at the bar. “What do you have that isn’t alcohol?”
“Not a drinker?”
“No.”
“I’ve got Coke, Sprite, ginger ale, and water that comes out of a tap I personally guarantee is clean.” He shrugs, a sheepish grin on his face. “Mostly.”
“Ginger ale, please.”
“Solid choice.” He fills the glass and slides it across the bar. “You’re new around here.”
I nod. “Just moved in down the block.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Above the dry cleaner on Ashford.”
He winces. “Oh man. That place smells like—”
“Yep. Exactly.”
He laughs, a big belly laugh. It’s genuine, too. Hard not to react to. The guy two stools down looks over and smiles even though he doesn’t know what’s funny.
“I’m Sal,” he says, reaching across the bar.
“Wolfe.”
“That’s a hell of a name.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He doesn’t push for a last name. Doesn’t push for anything, actually. He just grabs a menu and sets it down in front of me. “Chicken parm. That’s what you want. Marco, my chef, he’ll lose his mind if you don’t try it.”
He walks away and I flip open the menu. I tap my fingers against my knee whenever I’m trying to find a solution to some problem…the main problem being my hunger. I scan the pages of the items, furrowing my brow. So many choices.
Too many choices.
Why don’t all restaurants have cereal?
“So what’d you decide?” Sal asks as he returns to me. “Chicken parm, right? It’s the best!”
Chicken parm. I swallow hard. It’s not my usual. Not even close. I never order chicken out because if it’s the least bit rubbery, I’m out. And forget parm…all those textures and layers. No fucking thank you.
But Sal looks so excited, I give in. “Yes, I’ll have the chicken parm.”
“Smart man.” He taps the bar twice and disappears into the kitchen.
I drink my ginger ale and look around. The restaurant is half full for a Saturday.
Families, couples, a few guys watching a basketball game on the television mounted on the wall in the corner.
My brain settles a little, the way it does when everything around me is straightforward.
It’s nice and definitely doesn’t happen often enough.
Sal comes back while I wait for my meal.
He leans on the bar and keeps up a steady flow of conversation.
He asks where I’m from, what I do, how long am I staying.
It’s not like he’s interrogating me, either.
He’s just interested. I can’t remember the last time someone asked me questions because they actually wanted to hear the answers.
I give him my cover story, that I relocated to the area to do freelance computer work and needed somewhere cheap while I get my business off the ground.
“Computer guy,” he says with a nod. “My sister’s into that stuff too. She’s really good at it.” He says it proudly, but so casually as if he’s completely unaware that what she actually does could land her in prison again. “She comes in most nights. You two would probably get along.”
Something tightens behind my ribs.
“Maybe,” I say.
The chicken parm arrives, a serving so big, it takes up the entire plate. I pick up my fork and slowly work it around the food, trying to figure out exactly where to cut. He watches me, waiting for a reaction, so I just say fuck it.
I cut a small piece of the edge where the breading is crispiest.
Then I put it into my mouth and chew.
Wow. It’s excellent. Not rubbery at all.
That or it’s been so long since I’ve eaten real food, I’ve forgotten what it tastes like.
“Good?” Sal asks, watching me eat with the look of a man whose entire purpose on earth is feeding people.
I nod. “Really good.”
“Glad to hear it. Lemme know if you need anything else.” He grins and goes to take care of someone else.
He mentions Eva two more times to another customer before I finish eating.
I don’t think it’s done on purpose. She just comes up, the way she probably comes up in every conversation he has, because she’s the most important thing in his life and he can’t help circling back to her.
I get that. I have the same thing with Cillian, though I’d probably rather get punched than admit it out loud.
The front door opens and the chime jingles.
I know it’s her before I look. I don’t know how, and that’s going to bother me later, but something in the room just shifts.
When I turn, Eva stands in the doorway, her jacket zipped to her chin, eyes already doing the sweep of the restaurant just like she does of the street when she leaves her apartment.
Her eyes land on me.
She doesn’t react. She’s too controlled for that. But her eyes hold mine for a long second and I catch the flare before she shuts it down.
“E!” Sal calls out. “Get over here. I saved you the good stool.”
She walks to the bar and sits one seat away from me. Close enough that I can smell her soap…the same one from the gala hallway, the one that’s been stuck in my head for almost two years. Far enough away that Sal won’t think anything of it.
“Sal,” she says, leaning forward. “Feed me.”
“You always say that like I’m running a shelter.”
She tilts her head to the side and winks. “You kind of are.”
He grins and heads for the kitchen. The second he’s out of earshot, she looks at me.
“You’re eating here,” she says in a low voice.
“I live here now.”
Her eyes narrow. “Since when?”
“This morning.”
“You moved into my neighborhood like a fucking stalker.” She lifts an eyebrow. “Not creepy at all.”
“Your neighborhood is incidental.”
“Incidental.” She snorts. “You broke into my system from God knows where, showed up on my stoop, and now you live down the block. But sure. Let’s call that incidental.”
“It makes things easier.”
“For who?”
“Both of us. You don’t have to travel far to bring me what I need. I don’t have to travel far to keep an eye on your brother.”
Or you.
But I leave that part out.
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple.”
“Nothing about this is simple, Wolfe.” She glances at my glass. “Is that ginger ale?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t drink?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t.” She shakes her head. “Clark Kent over here, with his ginger ale and his glasses and his secret identity.”
“I don’t have a secret identity.”
“You don’t have a last name. That’s basically the same thing.”
Something loosens in my chest. She’s fast, she’s sharp, and she’s not trying to impress me. She’s trying to knock me sideways, and it’s working in a way I wasn’t ready for.
Sal comes back with two plates. He slides one in front of Eva and puts the other next to her.
“Who’s the second one for?” she asks.
“Your friend.” He nods at me.
“He’s not my—“
“Your neighbor, then. Whatever. I made extra.” He turns to me. “Wolfe, you want seconds?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“See?” Sal points at me while looking at Eva. “Polite. You could learn something.”
“I’m plenty polite.”
“You told the UPS guy to go to hell last week.”
“He left my package in a puddle. That was a proportionate response.”
I pick up the second plate and move one stool closer so I’m sitting next to her. She watches me do it.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“The food’s set up here.”
“You were fine where you were.”
“And now I’m closer to the plate.”
We eat. Sal moves between us and his other customers, dropping in to add something every few minutes. At one point he asks me what kind of computer work I do.
“I build things that keep other things from breaking,” I say.
“In English?” Eva says.
“That was English.”
“That was the vaguest sentence ever spoken in this restaurant, and Sal once described his meatballs as ‘an experience.’”
“They are an experience,” Sal says.
“They’re meatballs.”
Sal’s looking between us with an expression I’m choosing to ignore. He’s got the face of a man who’s already writing a toast for a wedding that isn’t happening.
“I’m gonna go help Marco,” he says, backing away. “You two keep...I don’t know, doing whatever this is.” He grins and disappears through the red doors.
“He’s going to be unbearable,” Eva says with a groan.
“About what?”
“About you.” She chews like she’s annoyed at the food for being good. “He thinks I need people.”
“Do you?”
“I need Sal to be safe. That’s the whole list.”
“That’s a short list.”
“Short lists are easier to protect.”
She said it simply. Matter of fact. But I heard what’s underneath.
She’s someone who has cut everything out of her life except the one person she can’t lose.
I know what that feels like. My list has four names on it.
Five, now. And that fifth one happened fast enough to make my head spin. It hasn’t really stopped.
We eat in silence for a minute. Her knee is close to mine under the bar. Not touching. Just there.
Sal comes back out and refills her water. He catches her eye and does something with his eyebrows that I’m clearly not supposed to see. She gives him a look that could freeze a radiator.
“Stop,” she says.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your eyebrows said plenty.”
“My eyebrows are my own business.” He turns to me. “Wolfe, come back anytime. I mean it.”
“I will.”
“And take care of my sister.”
“Sal,” Eva says, a warning in her tone.
“What? I said take care, not take out. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t need anyone taking care of me.”
“Everybody needs taking care of, E.” He says it lightly, but his eyes flick to me for half a second. He has the look of a brother who knows his sister carries everything alone and is hoping the guy at his bar might be someone she can share the weight with.
I hold his gaze. I don’t nod or promise anything. I just hold it because I don’t know how to process the fact that I care at all.
Eva stands up. “I’m leaving before you two start braiding each other’s hair.”
“Love you, E.”
“Love you too, you menace.” She looks at me. “Goodnight, neighbor.”
“Goodnight.”
She walks out and I can still feel her in the room after she’s gone. Like she rearranges the air when she moves through it, and it takes a minute for everything to settle back down.
I finish my ginger ale, drop some cash on the bar, and thank Sal.
“Hey, Wolfe?” he says as I’m leaving.
I turn.
“She’s tougher than she lets on. But she’s also more fragile than she’d ever admit.” He polishes a glass that’s already clean. “She’s been let down by a lot of people. And she doesn’t trust easily.”
“I hear you,” I say. Hard to trust people when you can’t really read their intentions. I thought I had it right once. I was very wrong.
He nods. I walk out into the cold night air.
Back at my apartment, I pull up the security feeds and review them.
Everything’s quiet. The Albanian I saw walking past the window while I was eating is parked in a car two streets over.
Same car as yesterday. He’s making a habit of being around here, which means I need to figure out who he is and why.
My phone buzzes. Ronan’s name flashes across the screen.
“Do you have an update?”
“I will on Tuesday.”
I can almost smell the smoke that’s probably coming out of his ears. He hates not getting what he wants when he wants it. But he also knows he can’t rush this.
“Tuesday, Wolfe,” he says in a tight voice before he ends the call.
I put the phone down and look at the feed from Eva’s building. Her light just went on.
I sit back in the chair and scrape a hand down the front of my face.
This is going to collapse. The math says I should be planning for that. Complete and utter devastation.
Instead, I’m watching my target through a screen, and I can’t make myself look away, even though I know how this will end.