Page 96 of Eyes in the Shadows

Eyes watering, he coughs and reaches for his water. “It’s fine.”

“I just thought since you know where he is now and everything up until this point has really just been about killing him, right? So, I figured tonight’s the night?”

He shakes his head and pounds his chest with a fist. With a final cough, he settles. “No, not tonight. We’re keeping an eye on him while we check on another lead.”

I frown at the lack of details—that’s new. “A lead you won’t tell me about?”

“I’ll tell you if it checks out.” He looks down and starts sawing off another piece of meat. “I don’t want to share suspicions with you if you have to live here when the job is done. I wouldn’t want to bias your future interactions with people by scaring you about them.”

I swallow in a throat that has just gone thick. Right. The after. When I stay here—where I live—and Mac leaves. “Makes sense,” I say. I hear the smallness of my voice, but Mac apparently doesn’t over the sound of his knife against the steak.

“But now that we know where Rossi is, we’re just keeping tabs on him. Making sure we don’t lose him again. And meanwhile Wes is following a money trail, following up on our lead.”

I shake myself out of it.Focus on the now, Eleanor.

No use getting two steps ahead of myself. I have him, right now, right in front of me—that’s where I need to be.

Mac finishes his dinner—in a significantly better mood after some food, I might add—and pulls me in for a kiss before heading out. After feeding Wesley, then myself, then Dimitri, I clean the kitchen and wander back downstairs to watch a movie. The projector situation is just as intimidating as the speakers inthe gym, but now I have the internet in the palm of my hand to look up the instructions.

I’ve already decided to try to stay awake as late as possible. I can’t completely shift my waking hours because I tried working nights once and it made me sick, but the restaurant has me up until 1 or 2 AM most of the time anyway. What’s a few more hours?

The restaurant. It was so easy to use past tense when talking to Chef Anh about it. So easy to let myself think of eight years there as part of an old life.

I pop in an action movie—one with a lot of fight scenes—and picture Mac as the protagonist, fighting off three guys at once. I bet he could. I bet he’d look badass doing it, too. So I text him.

How many grown men do you think you could fistfight at once?

It takes him a few minutes to get back to me.

Probably max 5 or 6, depending on skill level.

My eyes widen and I glance up at the screen. The actor is making it look easy, but I know how highly choreographed it is. I also don’t feel like Mac’s bragging.

Okay, but how about toddlers?

20. Easily.

20?! But they bite!

But they’re basically babies. They wouldn’t know how to organize against me.

How many if they could organize?

There’s a pause and I can picture his face as he considers. As he gives my ridiculous question enough thought to give a reasonable answer.

Probably 12.

I laugh and set my phone down. After a minute it buzzes again.

What about you?

I’d never fight a toddler! What a horrible thing to ask.

There’s another pause, where his typing bubble appears then disappears.

I miss you.

I inhale heavily and put my phone back down. It feels kind of like something is sitting on my chest and I can’t get the whole breath in. I focus on the movie, but I’ve seen it already. So, I change it to something else I’ve already seen, hoping this one will keep my attention better. I probably shouldn’t be surprised when it doesn’t. I wake on the couch after the credits have ended, and decide to put myself to bed.

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