Page 2 of Heartless Sinner

Dad fixed me with a look colder than a glacier. “You’re half past thirty, Vincent. Do I really need to tell you how important it is that you find yourself a wife?”

My liaisons with women were brief and discreet, for a reason—because none interested me beyond a few nights in their company. I had no time or inclination for a clingy or demanding wife, and I’d yet to come across a strong, capable woman who could handle our dangerous world with aplomb. Someone who was more my equal and understood and accepted the criminal elements of mafia life.

Someone confident and reliable, like my mother had been.

I swallowed a bite of my own pasta and shrugged. “I have a lot of things on my plate.”

“Make room for it,” my father said in that strict tone of voice that brooked no argument. “I’m not getting any younger and I need grandchildren, for starters, and you need to produce an heir. I need to see my sons settled down.”

“Maybe you should talk to Marco about it,” I said, with a little more smart-ass rebelliousness than I should have. “He’s probably given you five grandkids already that you don’t even know about.”

“Marco knows better than to knock up one of his women.”

That was fair. Marco was what you’d find if you opened the dictionary and looked under the definition of ‘manwhore’ but he wasn’t fucking stupid. Nothing caused problems in a mob family like a bastard with a random sugar baby for a mom.

Dad took a few bites of his carbonara and calmed himself. “Look, I know it’s a lot to ask. But I’m not expecting you to fall in love here. I’m not looking for you to star in one of those dramatic, unrealistic soap operas your mom loved so much. But you need to soften your image. How we present ourselves to the outside world is everything. You look strong, people think you’re strong. And people are going to start talking if my son’s a capo and thirty-five and he hasn’t ever had a long term girlfriend. You get what I’m saying?”

Yeah, I got it, loud and clear, but that didn’t soothe the annoyance coursing through me. People would spread rumors that there was something wrong with me, that I was gay or hurt women or couldn’t get a hard on. That there had to be a sordid reason why women never lasted more than a few dates.

God forbid it just be that I was focused on my damn job, and doing whatever necessary to keep my family’s place solidified in the underworld. I didn’t need any distractions, and that included adding a wife to my pile of other obligations.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I said, careful to leave the irritation out of my voice. “For the record, getting married isn’t something I’ve really thought about. I’m not ready to settle down, or commit to one woman, you know?”

Dad snorted with amusement. “Nobody’s ever ready to settle down, son. And nobody ever does.” He winked at me.

I chuckled, because he expected me to, but inside I felt just kind of… hollow. Dad joked a lot in that way—it was just how you were with the guys, making it sound like you were a ladies’ man who kept a few mistresses. But I knew he’d been loyal to Mom. You went behind Mom’s back at your own peril. She was the kind of woman who would have cut his dick off in his sleep if he’d dared to dip it elsewhere.

The jokes had gotten a lot more frequent since she’d died, and I’d always thought that it was a defense mechanism so he didn’t have to show how much her death had truly wrecked him. Dante had tried talking to Dad about it because my brother was that kind of guy—all in touch with his feelings and shit—but Dad would always shut him down.

I figured, hey, let the guy cope however he needed to cope.

My point was, the reason Dad had been loyal to Mom was because she’d stood up to him. She’d had high standards for her husband and she hadn’t been shy about putting him in his place. But she’d also thought the sun rose and set on him. Mom would’ve done anything for Dad.

You’re just like your father, Vinnie, she’d say, and she’d sound so proud and happy about it, as if me being like her husband was the best possible way to be.

That was what I wanted. A woman who could handle me at my worst but also adored me at my best. I wanted someone who made me be the best version of myself.

Finding that was a lot harder than it looked, though, especially when I was busy running around putting out fires and dealing with the family business. It wasn’t like I had an easy nine to five job. And given the nature of our business, my options were limited. I couldn’t just pick up a girl at a bar and hope she’d be understanding when I told her I was the heir apparent to the Russo crime family.

Non-mafia women were out of the question, and that narrowed down the field quite a bit. And I wasn’t comfortable marrying within the family ranks. Who knew if a soldier’s daughter was saying yes to me because she wanted me, and not because she felt she couldn’t say no? I refused to marry a woman against her will. That just wasn’t my style.

Dad didn’t want to hear about any of this, though. He wanted results. And I’d always been good at getting him those results. Clearly, he expected nothing less when it came to me finding a wife.

Resigned to fulfill his request, I nodded. “I understand, Father.”

“Thought you would.” Dad finished off his meal. “My compliments to the chef, as always,” he said to the waiter.

The waiter bowed slightly and Dad turned back to me. “If something’s brewing, then it’s especially important we get you looking like you’re on the straight and narrow. A wife will go a long way with that. You need to look like a respectable, upstanding family man.”

I refrained, just barely, from rolling my eyes at my father. “The other families don’t care about that kind of thing.”

“No, but the public does. And when this storm hits, whatever it is, the outside world’s going to get involved.” Dad’s tone was ominous. “It always does.”

Well, shit.

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Chapter Two

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