Page 7 of Heartless Sinner

I’d heard a hundred stories about the exploits of the middle brother Marco, especially in the bedroom. The youngest, Dante, had kind of dropped off the grid the last few years but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a problem—just meant he was a slippery one.

And Vincent. Vincent was a capo. The heir apparent. I’d heard he was brilliant, that he was a hard worker, that he was ambitious. And heartless when it came to making people pay for the crimes they committed against his family.

All of that was going to work in my favor right now. It had to. I was determined to get revenge for what had been done to my family. To my brother, Dmitri.

But walking into Vincent’s apartment was nothing like I’d pictured. For one thing he had…good taste. Everything was expensive but well-made, not showy. There was no gold plating, no flashy art displays on the walls, no in-your-face state-of-the-art security system. He wasn’t showing off his family’s wealth and power through money. He just had good taste.

I could certainly appreciate that.

And then there was his enigmatic attitude. I’d grown up with mafia men and half the time it felt like they had a cock in their hand waving it around so you wouldn’t forget how tough and powerful they were. Vincent wore tailored dark jeans and a soft, dark green sweater, and spoke with a soft, firm authority. He’d politely offered me a drink and a seat. And he didn’t crack any jokes about me being a female in a man’s world.

I wasn’t sure what to make of all that.

And I certainly wasn’t sure what to make of the way he looked at me. It made me shiver with heat, made me feel exposed even though I wasn’t really showing that much skin. I felt like he could read every single layer of me, like he knew exactly what kind of person I was.

When I told him why I was here, Vincent’s eyebrows rose in genuine surprise. He had that classic Italian look, with olive skin and dark, piercing eyes, the strong jaw, the thick dark hair. He was worryingly my type—If my type were in the mafia, and I’d long ago sworn to marry outside of the family. I knew how violent this life was, and once I extracted my revenge for Dmitri, I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.

No matter how handsome the men were.

“Murdered.” Vincent repeated the word softly and pushed off the counter. His body, only moments ago relaxed, now tensed in a barely perceptible manner. “Any idea who did it?”

I shook my head. “Nobody’s talking.”

Vincent hummed in consideration, and the erotic sound made my throat dry. “What does this have to do with me?”

“I need your help.” I hated how those words came out, how pathetic and weak I sounded. I was never the type to ask for any kind of assistance. My family wasn’t the most powerful, but we were competent and knew how to stand on our own two feet. And now here I was begging like a damsel in distress.

“We owe you our allegiance,” I said, swallowing my pride to appeal to his benevolent side, if he even had one. “You’re supposed to give us protection in return. I need to find who did this.”

Vincent gave me an assessing look—one that made me want to squirm on my seat. “Our resources aren’t infinite. We can’t afford to waste them looking after the troubles of a smaller, weaker family. An easily replaceable family.”

I clenched my jaw, torn between fury at his careless words and a frustrating arousal at the confident, soft tone with which he said them. “There’ll come a time when you’ll need allies, and I can guarantee you my family will be there.”

“Some intangible promise for the future?” Vincent shook his head. “That’s not enough to risk my men and resources. What do I look like, one of the shopkeepers under your jurisdiction?”

He turned, his gaze stopping on something, and he paused.

I turned my head to follow his line of sight.

On the coffee table were files. It looked like about a few dozen, all spread out. It was the only bit of mess I could see in the apartment. If I tilted my head and squinted a little, I could make out the names on the files. I recognized them all—daughters, sisters, of mafia men. All women who’d been born into our dangerous world.

I felt a heated, intense gaze boring into me and I looked up to see Vincent staring at me. I shivered. His gaze felt like being caught in the trap of a predator, but I found I wasn’t scared. Quite the opposite.

“Go ahead,” he said, jutting his chin toward the coffee table. “Look at the files. I know you’re curious.”

Curious, and he clearly wanted me to see them, or else he wouldn’t have insisted. I slid off the stool and walked over. There was some kind of game being played here between him and I, and I knew that, but I wasn’t ready to walk away just yet. Not until I figured out what the game was.

I quickly picked up a handful of files and skimmed them.

The answer was obvious: Vincent was thirty-five, a capo, and still unwed. Never a good thing in his position. His father needed grandchildren to carry on the family. And nobody in the mafia liked or trusted an unmarried man in the upper levels of the organization. Made them too reckless, they’d say. That it was a sign he hadn’t yet grown up.

I continued to flip through the files. “Your father must be putting the pressure on you to settle down,” I said aloud.

“You could say that,” Vincent replied in a lazy drawl. “But we all have our pressures to deal with, don’t we Miss Preston?”

His rumbly voice sent a shiver down my spine and I tried to ignore it, but that arousal settled in my core despite my attempt. “Do these women know what they’re being considered for?”

“Should they?” Vincent countered a bit arrogantly.

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