Heartless Sinner, page 10
“But I was the easiest,” I pointed out. “Her family owes me allegiance.”
“Yeah, and you’re the one who’d marry her,” Toby said, then sighed. “The truth is people have been talking about how you’re thirty five and not even close to getting married. Your old man had a good reason for telling you to hurry up and get yourself to the altar. It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility to think that Marla heard the rumors, realized she had an opportunity to climb up the social ladder, and…”
“But her brother’s beating?” I shook my head, unable to imagine Marla doing something so horrific. “I mean, Marla’s strong but come on. And how could she stab her own brother multiple times?”
My brothers could drive me nuts sometimes, and honestly, with Dante wanting out of the family… I had sometimes, in darker moments, wondered what would happen if I was ordered to kill him. I’d wrestled with myself, wondering if I could do it or not, should I do it, or not.
But even if I did, I’d never beat them and stab them like that. I loved my brothers. I didn’t want to kill them but I sure as hell wouldn’t want them to suffer like Dmitri had.
Toby got quiet. “I mean… you’re good guys, you Russo’s. It’s a pleasure to work for you. But not everyone’s like that. Some families have real dark skeletons.”
Or Marla was just that ruthless, that heartless. She’d already shown remarkable self-control. She was determined, and smart. Could she have let me seduce her? Could she have played me, made me think that I was in charge when really she was the one pulling the strings the entire time?
Fuck. The possibility made my stomach churn. “Okay,” I told Toby. “Look into her.”
If Marla Preston was playing me, she was going to get hellfire rained down on her like nothing she’d ever seen before.
CHAPTER 14
Marla
* * *
The bodyguard that Vince picked out for me was nice enough. His name was Jack, his hands were the size of my head, and he opened doors for me. Probably the best I could ask for in a bodyguard.
I didn’t like the feeling of someone always at my elbow. I hadn’t realized until now how lucky I’d been, being a part of a less powerful family. I had chaffed against the idea of being in the mafia and had wanted a way out, but now I was realizing that I’d had it easy at our level. I could go where I wanted by myself, do whatever I wanted, even go to college and have fun without having to do anything about my family, other than not tell people anything about them.
Now I had a bodyguard, and probably would for the rest of my life, because I was going to be a Russo, and the Russo’s were powerful and had enemies.
On the other hand… I thought back to this morning, to how Vince had washed my hair and held me, how he had treated me with such care, almost reverence. Like I wasn’t just some good fuck but someone he actually valued. Wasn’t that what I wanted in a husband?
And being powerful came with perks. Perks like money and connections, the kind of comfortable life I craved. And justice for Dmitri. I couldn’t forget that. I needed to find out who killed him and make them pay.
Hopefully, personally.
I hadn’t realized I was someone capable of violence. After all, my distaste for it was part of why I had wanted to get away from this life. But now, knowing that somewhere out there was the person who’d so violently killed my brother…
I wanted to be the one to snatch the life right out of their chest.
Mom and Papa were no longer in the emergency safehouse but had been moved to another one, a small cramped and hidden apartment that was located in the meat freezer at a butcher’s shop. We went into the large walk-in freezer, swung back one set of shelves, and stepped through into the connecting room.
Because walk-in freezers were so insulated, the walls so thick, nobody could hear any noise made in the apartment, and it kept the cold inside the freezer so Mom and Papa weren’t wearing parkas all the time.
“Oh, Marla, darling.” Mom came to me at once and pulled me into her arms. “It’s all so horrible.”
“Is Papa not here?” I asked once we ended the hug. “He should be staying here.”
“Bah. You know your father. He wants revenge.”
I frowned. “He needs to let Vincent handle this.”
Mom took my hands, her lips pursing. “Is it true then? You engaged yourself to Vincent Russo?”
“You don’t need to act like it’s the end of my life. Weren’t you just saying I needed to find myself a husband? And the Russo’s are powerful and rich. What more could you possibly ask for from me?”
Mom squeezed my hands. “The Russo boys aren’t to be trusted! One of them is an associate, a lawyer. You know how dishonest lawyers are—”
“We kind of need lawyers, I mean look at what happened—”
“—and that second one has a new girl on his arm every week! And Vincent is a capo, you know what they’re like—”
“Mom. This was the only way I could get the power and resources to find out what happened to Dmitri!” I pulled my hands away, frustrated.
Mom scoffed. “As if we couldn’t figure it out ourselves. It was probably one of the Russo brothers themselves! You know Dmitri had gotten into a spat with Marco about girls they’d both been dating. They were both always finding girls, having sex with them, then discarding them. Sometime the same ones! Your poor brother hadn’t learned how to settle down.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes at her. Yeah, God forbid Mom get on Dmitri’s case to settle down when she could just badger her daughter instead.
“What do you think is more likely?” Mom demanded. “That some random other family decided to kill your brother? Or that one of the Russo brothers got into a beef with him and killed him, and then tried to cover it up! You’re not a stupid girl, Marla. You know that what happened to Dmitri and the sniper attack on your father are simply too different.”
“I don’t think Vincent is the type of person to kill someone so cruelly, or to hide it,” I pointed out. “His job is to take care of people like that!”
“What if it wasn’t him?” Mom shot back. “He’d cover for his brother’s mistake if he’d killed Dmitri. And then you come along and play right into his hands! You offer to marry him!”
My stomach flipped at my mother’s insinuation. “Vincent wouldn’t do that,” I said, but my voice sounded feeble and weak, even to my own ears.
Seriously, how well did I really know him?
One date, and two rounds of passionate sex, and I was ready to believe that a mafia man wouldn’t hurt someone I cared about? I was ready to believe that Vince was some good guy that would never hurt me? How stupid and foolish did I want to be?
“How did this whole thing happen?” Mom asked, clearly still skeptical.
I explained everything—how I’d realized that since we were basically under the jurisdiction of the Russo’s and they were our umbrella family, they could help us with their greater resources.
As I explained the mutually beneficial relationship I’d struck up with Vince, I realized what an idiot I was. I hadn’t done any research to eliminate him as a suspect in my brother’s murder. Or, rather, any research to eliminate Marco or someone else in the Russo circle, someone whom Vincent would be honor-bound to protect.
How could I have failed to do that? How could I have failed to realize that nobody was eliminated as a suspect?
Mom saw the agonized look on my face and clucked her tongue in sympathy. “There’s no way to back out of it now, is there.”
“No. Not while saving face, and not without creating… problems.”
But if Vince really was involved in some way then now he was in charge of the investigation! What the hell was I supposed to do?
Well. I would do what I should’ve done in the first place.
“I’ll find out if the Russo’s are behind this, okay Mom?” I said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m getting revenge for Dmitri.”
No matter who they were.
CHAPTER 15
Vincent
* * *
I was out all day working with the Preston crew to make sure everyone was on the same page about protecting the family from further attacks, then hit up some of Dmitri’s favorite haunts. Turned out he liked the same strip club as my younger brother, which was a worrisome connection. If Dmitri pissed someone off, it could be that Marco pissed off that same person.
When I got back to the apartment, Jack was outside the door, playing on his phone. I nodded at him and headed on in.
To my surprise, Marla was in the kitchen, setting out plates, and she’d gone to great lengths to create a romantic atmosphere. She looked up as I entered, then smiled. “Hey, thought you’d be back a little later. Now I can’t pretend I cooked this myself.”
“Oh?” I asked, taking off my jacket.
It looked like she had ordered… mmm, Thai food. Fantastic.
“I thought it was important we still get to know each other,” Marla explained, lighting the candles on the table. “And I wanted to thank you for helping my family, so I thought… a nice night in?”
“I’m getting something out of this too,” I replied, keeping my tone lighter than I felt. Marla hadn’t exactly made it easy for me to win her over. She’d made it clear I had to prove to her that I was worth her time. Why the about-face?
“Still.” Marla shrugged, apparently at a loss for words.
Hmm. Someone needed to brush up on their acting skills.
But it wasn’t going to benefit me to reveal my suspicions too soon, so I smiled at her and sat down, ready to tuck in to a tasty dinner. Besides, I wasn’t going to say no to Thai food.
Marla finished setting up the table and sat down, but I noticed she mostly just pushed her food around.
“What did you find today?” she asked.
“Not too much,” I replied. “We’re in the gathering information stage and that’ll take a little bit to get the ball rolling on. But I’m putting everyone on it. It means that whoever did kill your brother will be aware there’s some kind of investigation going on but that’s fine. It’s a trade-off I’m willing to make instead of a longer, subtler investigation.”
Marla nodded. “What sort of questions are you getting information on?”
I considered her question. How much to tell her? I couldn’t refuse to tell her anything at all. Marla wasn’t the kind of woman who would take it’s none of your business as an excuse. She was going to demand to be involved in the investigation no matter what I did, so I might as well share with her and see what her response was. See if I could trust her, or find clues that she was actually the one behind this and had set me up.
“We’re looking into who the sniper was,” I said casually, twirling noodles onto my fork. “Snipers have particular signatures, so we’re pretty sure that by looking into the community we can figure it out. It’ll be a faster way than trying to unearth who, out of the dozens of families, could have decided to get a new foothold by going after you.”
Marla nodded again. She still just poked at her food, and I noticed that she shifted around in her chair a bit, like she wasn’t quite comfortable on her seat.
“That’s good,” she finally said. “I asked my mother, and she gave me some interesting information on my brother. She said that he got into spats with people all the time, usually over women.”
I arched a brow. “You think this might be personal and not a larger mafia thing?”
“I’m not sure,” Marla said with a shrug. “But it’s something that I think is worth exploring.”
I finished eating and stood up to take care of the dishes. “You really went all out tonight, candles and everything.”
Marla blushed. “I’m not good at this… um… at this whole wife thing. I don’t know what’s expected.”
“Hmm.” I rinsed the dishes and stacked them into the dishwasher. “But you’re making a lot of effort, so that’s admirable.”
“You have no idea.” Marla stood up and I heard the rustle of clothes—and when I turned around, she’d dropped her dress to the floor.
She wore a set of red lacy lingerie, the bra a push-up, all of it just see-through enough for me to get a glimpse of her nipples underneath.
Jesus. After talking to Toby, I was still suspicious of her and her motives, but my cock sure as hell didn’t care. My mouth went dry. She looked insanely fuckable.
Looking completely unaffected by her seduction attempt took effort, but somehow I managed to keep my reaction indifferent. “You really need to get better at this whole… subterfuge thing,” I told her.
Marla sucked in a quick breath, then flushed, faltering a bit before regaining her composure. “What do you mean?”
I stalked towards her, trying to read her expression, which held its own suspicions. “You really think one nice, cliché romantic meal and some fancy underwear is going to get me to tell you whatever you want? And here I had hopes for you.”
“Can you blame me?” Marla hissed at me, and drew herself up, which only made her breasts more prominent beneath the lace. “Do you know who had a beef with Dmitri? Your own brother. How do I know this isn’t some scheme to cover your own tracks and your own brother’s mistake?”
“I should ask you the same thing,” I shot back as I stood a foot away from her. “You put on a very pretty show, making me think that wooing you was all my idea. When did you decide to try and climb the ladder? Was it before or after your brother’s death? Are you just an opportunist, or are you a murderer as well?”
Marla looked outraged. Her body trembled with fury. I had to admit, it was pretty damn hot.
“You think I would’ve killed my own brother? Just to marry you?” She scoffed, her chin tipping up haughtily. “I hate to break it to you, hotshot, but you’re not special enough for that.”
“Oh?” I was angry, and confused, and my dick wasn’t helping matters by being hard as a goddamn rock. “All those orgasms I gave you say otherwise.”
“Those weren’t anything special, either,” Marla snapped angrily.
Oh, that was the wrong game to play. Whatever else she was, she was a puddle for me in the bedroom. I knew that much.
“Is that so?” I grabbed her by the hips and yanked her against me. Marla gasped in shock, and I felt her tremble. “Or are you just telling yourself that so you feel better about begging for me, about spreading your legs so easily for your mark?”
“You’re not my mark,” Marla said, and she sounded truly offended at the suggestion.
“But you don’t deny the attraction…” I mused.
I slid my arm around her waist, everything in my body thrumming with the desire to put her in her place, to make her call me ‘sir’ and promise to be mine, to admit that I was the best she’d ever had, to get a promise of her loyalty.
Marla’s hands seized the front of my shirt in a grip nearly tight enough to rip the fabric. She pushed at me, but I didn’t budge. “And how’d you come to this brilliant conclusion that I was a sociopath, huh? Who gave you the idea?”
I smirked at her. “Why, scared I figured it out?”
“No.” Marla bared her teeth like a furious, pissed-off wildcat, and my cock throbbed harder in my pants, clearly turned on by this woman who was ready to fight.
“I want to know who put such an asinine idea in your head, so I can rip them limb from limb and show them what I’m really capable of when I’m angry,” she said, her voice rising in pitch. “But no matter how mad I was at my brother, I would never kill him. No matter how ambitious I was, I would never murder him. I wanted out of this damn world. I wanted out of the mob, and now I’m stuck, married! To you!” she yelled, jabbing her finger into my chest. “You boorish, brainless, insufferable—”
I seized her mouth in a kiss, gripping the long strands of her hair with my free hand and tugging her head back so her lips aligned with mine. So she was forced to take my tongue when I pushed it into her mouth. Marla moaned, and she pressed her body closer to mine, her hips hitching ever so slightly against me, like she wanted to roll them against my cock but was holding herself back, not wanting to give in.
“You can’t go back now and act like being with me is such a chore, sweetheart,” I warned her, the both of us breathing hard as I broke off the kiss. “Not after this morning. Not after last night.”
“The last thing I wanted to do was marry you,” Marla seethed. “But I agreed to it, for the sake of my brother. I would never hurt my family. And I’m going to be loyal to you, because of that promise, so I can get justice.”
A low growl escaped me. I should be harsher with her. I should demand proof, I should question everything—but I didn’t want to. I wanted her to be telling me the truth.
That made her a weakness of mine. And that was dangerous.
“Then prove it,” I ordered. “Prove your loyalty.”
“You prove to me that you’re not responsible for my brother’s death,” Marla snapped furiously.
I shoved her against the table, using my grip on her hair to hold her in place so I could slide my tongue into her mouth again. “Oh…” I whispered, speaking each word in between another fierce kiss. “I’ll… prove it… by finding the killer… and giving you his head…” I slid my hands under her thighs and hauled her up into my arms. “…as a fucking wedding present.”
“No you fucking won’t,” Marla hissed. “You bring him to me alive and I get his confession and I get to kill him. I want proof not a dead man who can’t talk and who will hide all your secrets!”
She yelped as I carried her across the apartment and into the master bedroom, tossing her onto the mattress. She ended up on her back, her legs splayed, and I could see the shine on her panties—she was wet. Fuck.
