Page 55 of Heartless Sinner

“For fuck’s sake, Marla!” Alexander hissed, his hands balling into fists on the table. “Can’t you trust me?”

“No!” I snapped, struggling to keep my voice down. “I want this person’s head on a pike, do you understand me, Alexander? My pike! I want them dead! And Vince promised he would get that for me and I trust him to do it!”

Alexander sat back. His face was oddly pale, his expression grim. I’d never seen him look like that before.

The silence stretched on, incredibly awkward. In the movies the passionate declaration always seemed so… badass, honestly. In real life it just left you staring at the other person while everyone else in the deli tried to avoid looking at you.

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Alexander said at last. He looked at me with an unreadable expression, and I shivered, feeling as though I was no longer looking at my brother but at a stranger, and I couldn’t grasp what had changed.

“I should go,” I said, standing up. Suddenly I wanted to run back to Vince’s place, into his arms, where I felt safe and secure and protected. Where my brother couldn’t turn into someone I didn’t know.

Alexander gave me a wounded look. “I wish you’d just let me handle this myself, Marla.”

I shook my head. “I promised our brother, Alexander, and I’m not backing out now.”

I hurried out of the deli before he could say anything more.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Twenty-Three

Vincent

* * *

I wanted to tell myself that I had no idea what spooked Marla earlier, but I wasn’t a fucking dumbass, as much as my father seemed to think so.

That pissed me off, honestly. And… all right, Marla did have a valid point in saying it was stupid of me not to tell my father before making any kind of public announcement about our engagement. But I had busted my ass for years, being the good son, keeping Marco out of too much trouble and convincing Dante and Dad to find a middle ground with the lawyer gig.

Surely I deserved some measure of trust?

But that was beside the point. The point was that I’d played my fucking hand. I’d shown too much. I’m sure Marla knew how I felt about her, and she’d run.

I told myself it was fine. That it had only been a week, for crying out loud, and what kind of idiot fell that fast? Me, apparently. I couldn’t expect Marla to feel the same way in such a short time or even to care about anything other than finding her brother’s killer, which had brought us together in the first place.

She’d clearly freaked out, realizing through my argument with my father how deeply I wanted her, cared about her, relied on her. I didn’t want to scare her away and I didn’t want to be that creepy asshole who fell too far too fast and made the woman feel uncomfortable.

I’d have to find some way to work this out with her, to back off the way she needed until she was ready.

But first…I had a lead.

Toby had tracked down Sonya’s roommate, a housekeeper who worked in hotels. She was in the country illegally, so she’d packed up and fled the moment she’d heard about Sonya’s death, terrified that the police would come knocking to ask questions and would find out about her status.

She was currently staying with a coworker while she looked for a new place to live. I decided to pay her a visit. The offer of paying for her new apartment, rent covered for a year, would surely be enough to get her to talk. I’d found the old adage ‘you get more flies with honey’ rarely let me down.

We approached her at the end of her shift as she went to her car. “Miss Hernandez?”

She startled and looked terrified, poor thing. She was young, probably only about twenty—undoubtedly here to send money back to her family.

“We’re friends of Sonya’s,” I said quickly, while keeping a respectable distance between us. “We’re not law enforcement. We just need to ask you some questions so we can find out who killed your friend.”

The girl clutched her purse in front of her like a shield. “I don’t know anything.”

“You’re looking for a new place to live, right?” I said. “I can pay for you to stay somewhere, any apartment you’d like, for a year. Give you time to save up some money. No charge, no tricks, no favors. You wouldn’t owe anything.”

At this, the girl chewed on her lip, indecisive. When someone was hovering on the line like this, sometimes you needed to be quiet and give them space. I decided that Miss Hernandez was the type where I needed to keep pushing, instead.

“We know that Sonya cheated on her boyfriend with Dmitri Preston,” I explained. “We just need to know who that boyfriend is. I think he’s the one who killed both of them.”

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