6. Wolfe
WOLFE
Ronan texts me at six in the morning. Three words.
Time is up.
I tug the back of my hair and sit up in the bed that came with the apartment.
It’s time. Today is Tuesday. My five days were up on Sunday and today we’re meeting.
I was already awake before my phone buzzed on the nightstand. I don’t sleep much on a normal night because of the constant noise between my ears, and I slept even less last night.
I get up, pour a bowl of Cheerios, and eat standing at the counter the way I do every morning. The box goes back lined up with the edge because that’s where it belongs. I make coffee, check the feeds on Sal who’s still safe, and sit at the table staring at those three words on my phone.
Ronan wants results. I have plenty, but none that I can actually give him yet.
Eva’s been feeding me intel from Dmitri’s jobs for the past few days—the new one and past ones she’s done—and the picture is already taking shape.
What I don’t have is a way to hand it over without exposing my source.
Right now, this whole operation is dependent on keeping her safe and working for Dmitri.
The second I say Dmitri’s name, Ronan will pick up the phone and call Viktor. Dmitri will get tipped off. And the second I reveal that my source is a woman who’s been poking around inside both families’ systems for months, Eva will go from asset to threat in Ronan’s head.
So I need more time. Not to gather intel. To figure out how to bring it to my brother without losing my only source. And without putting Eva in a room with people who won’t see what I see when they look at her.
I don’t unpack that last part. Not right now.
I pick up my mug to blow on the hot coffee before taking a sip. Her case file flickers through my head the way it has since I met her. The gaps I noticed almost two years ago. The parts that didn’t add up. I push it down because right now it doesn’t help either of us.
I take off my glasses, rub my eyes, put them back on.
I pull on a clean shirt, Zeppelin today. Then I grab my keys.
In addition to meeting Ronan, I have a basketball game to win against Cillian.
I’ve been basically invisible since I got the flash drive from Eva…
set up in a crappy apartment across town, running a parallel operation my brothers don’t know exists.
No texts to my brothers, no showing up at Cillian’s bar Venom, nothing.
Ronan’s going to have questions.
But so will Cillian. He just asks them differently than everyone else. Sometimes that makes them even harder to answer.
Ronan sits behind Dad’s old desk when I get to the house an hour later. He looks up and gives me a nod. “This better be good, Wolfe. We’ve waited long enough. I even gave you extra time against my better judgment.”
Christ. Here we go.
Lochlan sits in a chair by the window with his arms crossed.
Gavin’s on the couch with his feet up and a bruise on his jaw that’s turned a yellow-green color.
I guess I missed the blue-purple phase for that one.
My brother attracts trouble like rotting meat attracts scavengers.
Cillian leans against the wall near the door, which is where he always stands because Cillian likes being close to the exit. Smart man.
“Talk,” Ronan says.
“I’ve identified the ghost. I’m monitoring their activity in real time. But I need to keep watching to trace who’s directing them. If I move on the ghost now, the person pulling the strings disappears.”
The lie comes out clean. Everything I just said is technically accurate.
I have identified the ghost. I am monitoring her activity.
And I am trying to trace the full scope of Dmitri’s operation.
What I’m not saying is that the ghost is a woman named Eva Moreno who’s sitting in an apartment twenty minutes from here feeding me intel from the inside.
Or that her name crossed my desk almost two years before any of this started, and I saw something wrong then and filed it away like a bill I didn’t want to pay.
My thumb taps against my thigh under the table. The rhythm I fall into when my brain’s stuck between two things that don’t fit.
I’m hiding two things from my brothers. One I can justify. The other one sits in my throat like a lump I can’t swallow.
“So you’re watching but not acting,” Ronan says. His eyes darken, sparking with anger. “How long do I wait while you watch?”
“I’ve got a detailed profile of how they work, what systems they’ve hit, and how they move. When I have enough to trace the puppet master, I’ll bring you everything.”
“When,” Lochlan says. “Not if?”
“When. Whoever’s pulling this person’s strings isn’t going to stop. There’s too much at stake.”
Lochlan leans forward. “You keep saying someone’s directing them. Who?”
I bring a hand to the back of my head and rub my neck. “I’m still working on that.”
“That’s a lot of ‘still working on it,’” Gavin says from the couch. “Even for you.”
He’s not wrong. I’m usually the one with answers before anyone knows the questions. The fact that I’m showing up empty-handed for the second time doesn’t sit well with anyone in this room, least of all me.
Ronan’s stare could cut glass. “These intrusions have been hitting our systems and the DiMichelis’ for months. Adriana’s team flagged another hit two weeks ago. We look exposed, Wolfe. Weak. And I don’t do fucking weak.”
“Look, I just need one more week—”
“You said that last time. And you went beyond my deadline.”
“The situation changed. I’m closer than I was before.”
Ronan looks at Lochlan. Lochlan looks at me. Gavin stops bouncing his leg, which means even he feels the tension. Jesus, it’s choking me. Cillian stays quiet by the door, not usual for him.
“One week,” Ronan says. “After that I bring in outside help and we handle it my way.”
I know what his way looks like. It’s fast and ugly and usually ends with someone maimed…or worse.
“Understood.”
Lochlan gives an update on a security contract for a client under our family’s protection. Then Gavin gives a report on something about a warehouse on the south side that I only half-listen to because most of my brain is still processing the huge bullshit story I just fed to my brothers.
Ronan wraps the meeting up in under an hour and I jump out of my seat, ready to bolt out the door.
On my way out the door, Gavin catches up to me in the hallway. “Hey. You good?”
“Fine. What happened to your face?”
He grins. “You should see the other guy.”
“You say that every time.”
“Because it’s true every time.” He slugs me on the arm. “Seriously though. You seem off. Like, more than usual.”
“I’m not off. I’m just…focused.”
Gavin cocks his head to the side. “That’s kinda the same thing with you. But if you’re not giving me anything, I’m gonna go and make a sandwich.”
“Don’t have anything to give. Enjoy your sandwich,” I say.
He shrugs and heads back toward the kitchen.
He’s more observant than people give him credit for. That’s Gavin’s secret weapon, and sometimes I think I’m the only one who gets it. Everyone assumes he’s the reckless one, the kid brother who runs on impulse. Which he is. But they also miss the fact that he’s watching. Always watching.
I head out back to the basketball court. Cillian’s already got the ball, shooting free throws.
“It’s about fucking time you returned to the land of the living,” he says, tossing me the ball. “No texts. No calls. You didn’t swing by Venom. You didn’t answer any of the times I reached out. What the hell, man?”
“I was working. Remember? I had a job to do.”
“Eh, you’re always working. You still answer your phone.”
He takes off after me. I edge past him, jump, and sink a three-pointer. “What do you want me to say?”
“The truth would be fun. We could try that for a change.”
“I told you. I’m handling something. You heard it yourself from the king’s lips.”
“King.” He snorts and rolls his eyes. He drives right, running down the court. I cut him off because he always starts right. Then he spins, dips left, and I’m there waiting because his left spin always pulls up short. He takes the shot anyway.
And misses.
“You’re still going left,” I say, grabbing the rebound. “Are you ever gonna learn?”
“And you’re still dodging the question. Are you ever gonna answer it?” He stops and sweeps a hand through his hair. “Ronan’s not buying whatever you sold him in there. You know that, right?”
“Ronan doesn’t buy anything from anyone. That’s his whole personality.”
“That’s fair.” He steals the ball out of my hands, which he almost never manages, and puts up a jump shot that actually goes in. “Count it.”
“Lucky.”
“No, it’s skill, bitch.”
“Statistically improbable.”
“God, you’re such a pain in the ass.” He’s grinning, though, so I know he’s annoyed. I love that about him. He’s unexpected in his own way to the world, but to me, he’s completely predictable.
We play for a while longer. He scores a few, I score more.
This whole experience is the closest thing I have to meditation…
the ball on concrete, trash talk, the cold air burning my lungs.
My brain slows down on the court. Not all the way, but just enough to think about one thing at a time instead of twelve.
He grabs a rebound and holds the ball instead of shooting. “Is it dangerous?”
I know he’s not talking about basketball. “Define dangerous.”
“Is it dangerous to you, Wolfe?”
My shoulders sag. Shit, what a loaded question. I think about Eva. The map. Dmitri. The lies I told Ronan an hour ago. “Probably.”
He nods and passes me the ball. “Take care of yourself.”
There it is. The phrase he saves for the moments when he can see me heading somewhere he can’t follow, and he’s choosing to let me go instead of yanking me back. Because I’m the only one who can go into this territory without getting chewed up and spit out.
So far.
“I will.”
“And don’t sit on whatever this is for too much longer.” He sinks one more shot. It’s clean, nothing but net. “Shit always comes out. And the longer you wait, the worse it looks when it does.”
“Well, I have a deadline. Ronan made that clear.”
But my brain splits it in two, the way it always does. Cillian’s talking about the lies I told upstairs. I’m thinking about the older one. The file. The gaps. The woman sitting in an apartment across town who doesn’t know I saw something wrong and walked away.
Because back then, she wasn’t my problem to solve.
And now she is.
I put on Sabbath for the drive back. My brain needs something louder than the noise already in it.
The contrast hits me. South Boston to this neighborhood is about twenty minutes and in a different universe. The Molloy compound has security, landscaping, and a driveway that could fit six cars. My temporary place has a radiator that sounds like it’s dying and a hallway that smells like starch.
I check the feeds the second I get through the door.
Sal’s fine at the restaurant. But the Albanian pattern is getting tighter.
The guy with the gold chain walked past Rosario’s twice today.
Yesterday it was once. The shorter one showed up this morning and sat in a car across the street for fifteen minutes.
They’re not there for the chicken parm.
I add another monitoring layer and sit in the dark, Cillian’s voice bouncing around my head.
Don’t sit on it too long. Shit always comes out.
He’s right. It will. And I’m running out of time to figure out how to make sure Eva survives the fallout when it does.
Because this time, I can’t just file her away.
This time, she’s mine to protect.