Page 18 of Heartless Sinner

My runner arrived, clothes in a shopping bag. I told him to let my father know where I was going and apprise him of the situation. “Let him know I’m checking on that weather he mentioned.”

Dad would know what that meant.

Marla eyed the clothes I handed her. “What are these for?”

“Can’t go meeting your parents in dirty, wrinkled clothes,” I pointed out.

Marla took the items, then closed the door again. I waited impatiently, dragging my fingers through my hair and trying not to think about how she was naked just on the other side of this thin wooden barrier.

When she emerged again, I just about swallowed my tongue. My runner had probably thought he was grabbing some simple clothes, but there was no such thing as simple when it came to designer. The jeans fit Marla’s figure like a glove, showcasing her long legs and pert ass, and the dark teal blouse revealed just enough of her cleavage that I was fucking salivating. I wanted to rip it all off of her right that second.

Then I looked up and saw the emotion in her eyes. For the first time since I’d met her, Marla looked… nervous. And fearful.

“It’ll be all right.” I held out my hand for her to take. “Whatever happens, I’ll always keep you safe.”

She swallowed and took my hand, glancing down at the floor. “I believe you. That’s not what I’m worried about.”

The fact that she trusted me meant more than almost anything else. The dragon inside of my chest, which had been growling this entire time, began to purr.

“It’s the fact that I don’t know what’s going on.”

She looked back up at me, and the frailty was gone, replaced by a businesslike expression. I understood it—never show weakness—but I wanted that moment back. I wanted her to know that she could be vulnerable around me. That she could put herself in my hands, not just physically but metaphorically, and I would take care of her. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t?

“I want to know why this is happening,” Marla explained. Her tone was as fierce as the steel that flashed in her eyes. “My family might not be as powerful as yours but we haven’t done anything to piss anybody off like this. We pay our dues, we stick to our territory, we don’t start shit. Somebody’s after something and I don’t know what, and I intend to find out because they put my family in the crosshairs and that was their big mistake.”

I wouldn’t want to be alone in a room with Marla if I was the man responsible for all of this. I put my hand over hers. “We’ll figure this out, and we’ll get the bastard. I promise you that.”

Marla nodded. Toby entered, nodding at me to let me know the team was assembled. It was time to go.

“You know. . .” Marla whispered quietly as we walked side by side to the elevator. “My whole plan was to get out of this life.”

She gave me a small, sad smile, and so many emotions roiled inside of me that I couldn’t keep track of them. I was determined to show her that I was worth a life in the mafia, that I could make her so happy she wouldn’t care that she was still a part of this life.

The other part of me was furious with rage that some bastard had dragged her back into something she didn’t want, forced her to be a part of something she had tried to flee.

“Then we’ll get the guy,” I repeated. “And we’ll make him pay.”

Marla smiled. “Thank you.”

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Chapter Ten

Marla

* * *

I wasn’t an idiot.

The fact that I had been out on a date with Vince, and then in his arms in his apartment, didn’t mean that he might not be involved in this situation. He could very well be setting all of this up so that he looked like the hero who saved me, my knight in shining armor, thinking I would be none the wiser.

But when he said that he’d find the bastard for me, that we, the both of us, would make the man pay—I couldn’t help but trust in his words. He sounded so—so genuine. And mafia men, while known for lying, were not exactly known for being Hollywood actors. I looked into his eyes and I saw no lies there.

This was a terrible idea. But I trusted him.

I hadn’t intended to admit to him that I planned to get out. Nobody in my family knew that. Oh, sure, they knew I wasn’t exactly happy with the family profession, but I hadn’t risked telling them that I was genuinely planning to leave. As a woman it would sure be easier than if I was a man, one of the heirs, but they still wouldn’t have liked it. It was hard to leave the mafia life without it finding a way to suck you back in.

Honestly, I was lucky that my family was lower-level. Higher up families? Oh, there was definitely no escape. The last person I knew who’d done it successfully had moved across the country to California and hadn’t spoken to her family for a year while she’d established her own life. She was from a lower-level family like me. Upper families? Like the Russo’s? Yeah, you might as well turn fed and enter witness protection at that point. You had to disappear or they’d never get their claws out of you.

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