Page 18 of Ruthless Sinner

If only it was that simple. But I loved my family, even if I frequently wanted to strangle them. And I didn’t want to be in charge. That wasn’t my way.

Jewel traced her finger around the crest, up and down the thorned vines. “I don’t know if I deserve better or not, because I haven’t really known you for that long. So I’m not going to give you platitudes that would probably be empty. But I can tell you that from what I’ve seen of you already, you’re nothing like what I thought you would be. And I know I’d want to stick around to know you more, if you’d want, and that’s more than I can say about most men I’ve met. I think you have depths. Depths maybe even you’ve forgotten you had.”

I stared up at her, completely unprepared for this. She wasn’t fawning, she wasn’t harsh, she was just… honest. And open.

I wanted to be worthy of what she saw in me. I’d never… felt that way about someone before. It was elating and terrifying in the same moment.

“Well, spend a little more time with me and we’ll see how your opinion changes,” I joked, trying to get back onto familiar, comfortable ground.

Jewel seemed to sense this, because she went back to asking me about my tattoos, tracing the designs as I explained them. I tried to keep them above the elbow so that they weren’t too obvious, only peeking out if I wore a t-shirt.

“You really take these seriously,” Jewel noted.

“They’re my story,” I replied. I didn’t know how to explain it other than that.

Jewel’s gaze tracked the various ink pictures for a moment, then she looked up at me, something vulnerable in her eyes. “Kennedy.”

“What?”

“My real name, my… non-stage name. It’s Kennedy.” She shrugged. “You showed me something… personal of yours, I figured it was only fair I return the favor.”

“Kennedy.” I rolled the word around in my mouth. “I like it. It suits you.”

Jewel—no, Kennedy—smiled at me. “Thanks.”

We’d done more than enough talking for one night. I curled my fingers under her chin and pulled her towards me. “C’mere, Kennedy.”

I kissed her softly, deeply, and for some reason, it felt like a first kiss.

CHAPTER8

Kennedy

Ididn’t know exactly what was happening here but I wasn’t going to argue with it.

Johnson, my supervisor, was ecstatic that I had regular ‘meetings’ with Marco. He didn’t ask what the nature of those meetings were, and I didn’t tell him. Plausible deniability for the bureau and all that. All so they could later say that they had no idea what I was doing in order to earn Marco’s trust.

Honestly, I was more shocked that Marco wasn’t tired of me. Maybe it was because every time he was interrupted, which was a couple times a week, I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I’d just laugh and say it was fine, and just go home.

Genuinely, I didn’t see why everyone else had always been so upset about it. Sure, I had to be okay with it, for my undercover work, to keep him seeing me. But I was a fed, I had some crazy hours myself. I knew how it worked. And why would I object to his interruptions when the rest of the time made up for it?

Marco Russo wasn’t the kind of man I’d thought he would be. When we weren’t having sex he would order us crazy takeout, and teach me how to play card games. He liked watching bad horror movies just so he could make fun of them. We went out for ice cream a lot, and he didn’t drink nearly as much as I’d assumed, but he had a real appreciation for cocktails.

There was a goofy, sweet side to the guy that I didn’t think anyone would’ve expected. And I really… liked it. I enjoyed spending time with him.

I was aware that people at the club talked about us. I was the first girl that Marco had kept seeing for more than a couple of weeks, and all of the girls wanted to know my secret. Some out of envy, sure, but others just generally enjoyed the gossip.

“What did you do?” they would ask me. “How’d you manage it?”

“I don’t know,” I would tell them, because that was genuine. I really didn’t know why I was different than all the others.

What was I supposed to say?I was pretty honest with him about my opinion and I asked about his tattoos?Not exactly stellar tips guaranteed to get your man.

Maybe it was just that I was okay with him leaving in the middle of the night—or even in the middle of sex—to go and take care of business. Or maybe he’d just never had someone who genuinely believed in him before? I wasn’t going to fawn over the guy even if that might’ve been the advised strategy, but I wasn’t going to dismiss him, either. Not when there was clearly more to him than just the playboy persona everyone knew.

Not that he wasn’t a bad boy, because he definitely was.

I’d been unable to find subtle ways to get him to go into detail about his work, the reasons he was called away, or his role in the family business. He would open up to me about his frustrations with his brothers and father, but he carefully avoided saying anything about their actual business dealings. I was building a great psychological profile of the family, but that would only be helpful academically. I needed hard facts. I needed to know how the operation ran.

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