Page 41 of Eyes in the Shadows

And that’s why piquing his curiosity is so dangerous. He probably knew that within 15 minutes. “So, what, now we can’t even have girls over?” I aim for levity, but neither of them looks very impressed.

“Of course we cannot,” Dimitri snaps. “But even so, she is not a girl—she isthegirl. From the night of the mission failure.”

I’m not sure if he put it together or Wes told him, but there’s no use denying it now. I sigh. “She is. I’ve been… keeping tabs on her.”

“What about her has you so ass over tit, Mac? Couldn’t be her credit score,” Wes says, pulling a face. “Oof, 525.”

“Now you’re showing off,” I grumble.

“No, I’m showingyouhow easy it was to find her. She can’t be here, you know that.”

My hands curl into fists because he’s saying all the things that I haven’t been letting myself think. “Her safety was compromised. Rossi sent a fixer after her.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wes mutters as Dimitri curses in Russian.

Dimitri looks up at me and I scowl at the look in his eye. “Don’t say it—”

“If Rossi has her information, her safety is a lost cause. She knows too much.”

“No.” I shake my head.

He taps the glass on the top of the desk emphatically with two fingers. “You brought her here. She has seen our faces, knows our names. So now shereallyknows too much, and that is your fault.”

“No!” I growl. “We can… I’ll keep her here until the job is done.”

“And then what?” Dimitri scoffs. “You will let her go? What if she involves the police?”

“She won’t go to the cops. She could have already and she didn’t.”

“Even if that’s true,” Wes cuts in, and his reasonable tone is so fucking grating. “You know you can’t just cut her loose after the job is done. Not with what Rossi already knows about her.”

I shake my head and cross my arms. “Once we take them all out, the city will be empty—”

“Unless the supplier comes looking for anyone who knows information about their deaths. She is like a bright sign that says, ‘easy target.’ They will find her,” Dimitri points out harshly.

My stomach drops at the possibility that soft, compassionate, lovely Eleanor might end up in enemy hands. I can’t picture her being interrogated, being broken… I won’t go there. “She’d never betray me—us, I mean.”

“We’re not saying she’d want to, but… She has a family,” Wes said, spinning his laptop and showing me an old picture on her social media, holding a tiny baby, with the captionAunt Eleanor, Reporting for Duty!“She’s got weaknesses for them to exploit.”

“So, what? You want me to just kill her?” Dimitri and Wes exchange a look and I uncross my arms and lean forward, preparing for battle. “If anyone so much as lays a hand on her, they lose that hand.”

“You cannot compromise this whole mission for—”

I cut Dimitri off with a swipe of my arm through the air. “I’m not discussing her termination. I’ll take her somewhere else if you want me to, but we all know it’ll be less secure. And the more time I have to spend keeping her safe, the less time I’ll have to cover your asses. You feel me?”

“Mac,” Wes tries, after exchanging a look with Dimitri that’s all betrayal and disappointment. He hides it, but he’s too expressive to do it well—he didn’t expect me to pick her over them. “Do you even know her? Who could she possibly be to you after, what, two weeks?”

“She’s… non-negotiable. I’ll take complete responsibility for her.”

Dimitri mutters something in Russian about security risks and Wes turns his laptop back around and starts clacking away. “Maybe there’s something I cando—wipe her from the internet, give her a new identity. We’ll have to relocate her after all this, obviously. And she will have to stop being Aunt Eleanor if she wants to keep her family safe.”

Relief floods my system, and I let my shoulders drop. It’s not ideal, maybe—most people would object to being picked up and moved somewhere far away against their will—but it’s better than the alternative. Alive is good. Alive means I can make sure she’s safe; it means I get to keep her…

But she’ll hate me. I’ll be the guy who ruined her life. The guy who made her leave her home, leave her job and friends, and made her cut ties with her family…

But she’ll be alive.

“Wipe her for now. Her family is far enough away that it’ll buy us some time.”

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