Page 41 of Heartless Sinner

We drove back to the apartment in silence, but it wasn’t an awkward one. It was comfortable. Like if we had to say something we would, but there was no need.

Once we got back to Vince’s place, to my surprise, he didn’t get out of the car. Instead he had Jack meet us in the parking garage to escort me up to the apartment by myself. “I have business to take care of in the investigation,” he explained. “I’ll be back late so don’t wait up.”

I nodded. This is your life now, I reminded myself. Vince would go off to ‘deal with’ things and I would be at home, and he would come in late, and probably have to shower to get whatever it was off his body, his hands, and maybe if I was lucky, he would tell me who he’d ‘taught a lesson’ to. He’d keep me informed. But this was how it was.

Papa never told Mom anything. She was always in the dark. I didn’t want to be like that, even if I knew I couldn’t hope for complete transparency.

“Stay safe,” I told him, even though I knew that was probably a hopeless thing to ask.

Vince looked at me for a moment, then leaned in and cupped my cheek in his hand, kissing me softly. I was frozen with surprise, and by the time I thought to kiss back, he was pulling away.

Why would he kiss me like that? This was just an—arrangement. Sure we had good sex but—that was the sort of thing you did with someone you—

Did he think I still needed reassurance? Was that it?

I didn’t know what to do with the soft, affectionate look in his eyes.

Jack opened the car door for me and I got out, feeling tilted off my axis. Vince pulled away once the car door was closed again, and Jack led me up to the apartment.

I went into the apartment nice and easy, and told Jack I’d be just watching some TV and detoxing after the dinner—not from the food, but the noxious people. He nodded, a sympathetic look on his face, and reminded me he’d be right outside the door if I needed anything.

But once he was gone, I got to work.

My plans for the day had been foiled by the dinner plans, but the night was still young and I had no intention of just sitting around when I could still go out and get information.

I put on the TV, at just enough volume that Jack would be able to hear it without it being obnoxiously loud, and then went into the bedroom and changed. My furniture and everything still had to be dealt with but my clothes had been easily migrated to Vince’s oversized closet, and I grabbed a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt with some sensible shoes. I wanted to look like staff from a restaurant or bar, and wearing black was also a convenient way to be nondescript and blend into the shadows if I had to.

With my jewelry off, hair pulled into a ponytail, and burner phone in my pocket (I’d always had one, in case of emergencies, with a handful of phone numbers memorized), I was ready to go.

One problem: how to get out without Jack realizing.

The apartment was pretty high up, so going out the window probably wasn’t a smart idea. Of course Vince would have one of those fancy apartments that had a doorman and no damn fire escapes on the side of the building.

But…

I went into the kitchen, then the living room. A lot of these old apartments, especially the fancy kind, had dumbwaiters. Somewhere along here…

Ah-ha.

It was tastefully hidden behind a bookshelf, which made sense—nobody wanted to stare at that eyesore. I changed the channel on the TV to an action movie with lots of car chases and explosions, and then I moved the bookshelf.

Ugh, that was tough. I worked out but that was a heavy damn bookshelf. Fortunately I was skinny enough that I didn’t really have to move it a ton. I just had to move it enough to get the dumbwaiter door open and then crawl inside.

Of course, the moment someone walked into the apartment they would know that I was gone because of the moved bookshelf but I was just going to have to take that risk. I changed the channel again to a marathon of some murder mystery procedural, turned the volume down a bit so it wasn’t annoying, and then climbed inside the dumbwaiter.

This was, in a word, cramped. My knees were knocking into my breasts and my neck was going to have a crick from this, but with a little maneuvering I could use the rope to get myself down to the ground level.

By the time I reached it, my arms were burning. Thank God the door to get out wasn’t locked—whoever was on staff probably forgot about it—and I was able to, uh, semi-gracefully tumble out.

Now, I could just stride right out of the apartment building through the employee entrance without any one of Vince’s men noticing.

I went down the block, then hopped the subway. I didn’t want there to be any record of a rideshare or something on my card and I could use cash for the subway more easily.

Then I got off and walked to Dmitri’s favorite strip club, the Cozy Bunny—the same one that Marco Russo and other mafia boys liked to frequent.

If this really was something personal, like Mom had suggested, then it was going to happen here. Right?

I walked around the back, trying not to wrinkle up my nose at the smell from the alley of all the garbage and stale smoke from cigarettes and weed. If I was really a worker in this area I’d be used to it.

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