Page 45 of Heartless Sinner

“I don’t know why I can’t move,” she said faintly.

“You’re in shock. It happens. Should’ve seen me the first time I saw a lot of blood. I pissed myself.”

Marla snorted, a trace of her usual personality emerging for a moment. Then it faded again. “That poor girl…”

“Don’t think about it.”

“I have to.” Marla looked up at me. Her blue eyes were shining, but the tears didn’t fall. “This is because of my brother. He was stupid. He was sleeping with the wrong man’s girl, and now that poor girl’s been punished for it, too.”

I took a deep breath. “If it’s any consolation, she died quickly. The killer stabbed her strategically, so that she wouldn’t suffer.”

“Dmitri suffered,” Marla whispered, looking down.

“Hey.” I took her chin in my hand and lifted her face up again. “I’ll find him, Marla. I’ll deliver him to you. I’ve made that promise and I’ll keep it.”

Marla nodded.

I finished cleaning her off, then helped her out of the tub and let her get dressed while I quickly scrubbed myself. My clothes had blood on them from Marla, and hers were pretty bad—luckily she’d been wearing black so any stains wouldn’t show up—and I put them all in a bag to be taken to the cleaners.

When I finished, Marla was lying in bed, curled up small, facing the door like someone might come in. I’d never seen her like this before, and I hated it. She should always feel safe. She should be protected from the harsher parts of our business, and she shouldn’t have to confront it like this.

I lay down behind her and pulled her into me, pressing myself up against her back. I curled my arm over her waist and held her. I was definitely going to give her a little lesson in what happened when she did things like sneak out and put her life in danger—that killer could just as easily have murdered Marla to silence her, too—but that would be for later. Right now, she needed comfort, and that I was more than willing to give.

“You can cry,” I told her. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t cry,” Marla said stubbornly.

I turned her around to face me. “You just watched someone die. You could’ve died too. Your brother’s dead. It’s all right to let yourself feel that.”

Marla’s mouth trembled, and she quickly buried her face in my shoulder so that I wouldn’t see her tears fall. I stroked up and down her back, making soothing noises, as something occurred to me.

Why didn’t Sonya’s killer try to kill Marla, too? She was a witness, and part of the Preston family.

Why had the killer run instead?

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Chapter Twenty

Marla

* * *

I wasn’t sure if the phrase ‘crying myself to sleep’ applied here. I didn’t know if I’d done that or not. But I did know that I’d cried in Vince’s arms, and that at some point, I had stopped, and that I’d fallen asleep with him still holding me.

I hadn’t been lying when I said I didn’t cry. I didn’t. Not around other people. I already had my family treating me differently because I was a girl, why would I give them more ammunition? And to be seen as weak, even as a woman, in our world—here, the women prided themselves on being just as tough as the men.

But Vince had been… so kind about it. So understanding. I never would’ve expected that from a capo. I would’ve thought he’d just ignore my emotional outburst, or tell me that this was how our world worked and I had to toughen up. I was braced for him to say he was disappointed in me for being upset.

Instead he’d taken care of me.

When I woke up, it was with my head on his lap, his fingers stroking through my hair. He was awake, sitting up and looking at some papers, but he was still in bed with me. Still watching over me.

My heart hammered in my throat. I wanted to just lie here, with Vince’s fingers carding through my hair, for another few hours. I wanted to laze around in bed with him—and that was a very dangerous way to think.

Don’t fall in love with him. That voice in my head was a lot quieter than before.

Vince looked down. “Hey, sweetheart.” His fingers didn’t stop stroking through my hair. “How’re you feeling?”

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