Page 31 of Heartless Sinner

“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.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Fifteen

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.”

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