Ruthless sinner, p.14
Ruthless Sinner, page 14
Vincent was a capo which meant he rarely conducted such raids himself, but often sent Toby in his place.
“We’ll get her to the doctor,” Toby assured me. He eyed her. “That’s not Misha’s usual method. What happened?”
“I think she pissed him off,” I said.
“That was stupid of her.”
“Kennedy’s not stupid,” I replied. “She probably knew our policy would be not to come for her. A quick death’s better than a slow one.”
Technically, I wasn’t lying. I was just conveniently leaving out the part where she’d wanted to die so that she wouldn’t have to hurt me by betraying me.
She’s not family, Dad had said, multiple times. Vincent had said it too. But what could possibly prove her to be family more than this? She’d wanted to die to keep me safe. To keep my entire family safe.
Toby seemed to accept my answer. “Tough cookie.”
“You have no idea.”
Hell, I barely had an idea, apparently.
We got her to one of our trusted doctors, who patched her up. Kennedy started to wake up during the process, but he gave her a sedative. I thought it would be better for her to wake up at my place, somewhere she felt safe, rather than at a strange backroom doctor’s office.
The doc gave me some ointment and medication for her injuries, and sent us on our way. They’re no-nonsense, our doctors. They know that we prefer the school of “shake it off” medicine.
I laid Kennedy carefully down in my bed, got an ice pack for her swollen eye, and rubbed the ointment on her bruises. She’d taken some real hits there. But when I’d been creeping into the building, I hadn’t heard a peep from her. No sounds of crying or begging or screaming.
She’d held up. Like a true mafia girl.
The elevator slid open just as I finished up with her bruises. It was Vincent with Toby.
And neither looked happy.
“Finally finished looking into your girl,” Vincent said quietly. I stood up. “Jade over at Cozy Bunny had the craziest story to tell me, about a client Kennedy took on before she went steady with you.”
I could remember that time. The older man. I’d been seeing red with jealousy.
“The story that Jade told me, is that she had someone check in on your girl, just to make sure everything was okay since they’d never seen the man before. And what does she hear but that this woman isn’t giving a lap dance or anything else at all. Instead she’d been giving the guy information. Information about us.”
Vincent’s eyes went dark and I saw our father in him, as our father lives in us all: that dark, swirling, menacing anger that pulses through our blood.
“She’s a fed,” I said quietly. “I know.”
Vincent stared at me. His fingers flexed and I realized his hands were gloved. So. That was why he’d come here. Gloves didn’t leave fingerprints.
“How do you know,” he said. “When.”
“Earlier. She told me before she passed out.” I took a subtle step to my right, putting myself directly between Vincent and Kennedy, helpless on the bed. “She wanted to die back there so that she wouldn’t be forced to give me, or anyone else in our family, up to her boss. I think we can turn her.”
Vincent’s tone held no humor. “You think your dick is really that magical.”
“What really happened with Marla and her brothers?” I countered. “I know that you’ve let people believe the Petrovs were responsible so you’re justified in your little meddling you’ve been up to, but if the Petrovs were involved you know I’d know about it. Something happened, and I have a feeling that something led to Marla choosing you.”
I stepped forward, just a little bit, just enough. “Kennedy’s chosen me. I don’t care where she’s from.”
“And how much might she have already passed along to her boss?” Vincent countered. “We have to punish these things. The feds have to know they can’t fuck with us.”
“Then keep her on our side,” I replied. “If we turn her, that’s just as devastating, isn’t it?”
Toby was already shaking his head. I wasn’t sure why, until Vincent answered for me. After so many years as Vincent’s right-hand man, Toby and my brother could practically speak for one another in times like these.
“They’d never let her live,” Vincent explained. “They’d consider it a betrayal. Same as if we had a rat in our nest. We’d have to take him out, and they’re going to take her out.”
“So, what, that’s it? We have to take her out first, then?”
I didn’t realize my voice was rising until I heard Kennedy stir on the bed behind me. She started to sit up, wincing, and I went to sit next to her. “Hey, it’s okay baby, take it easy.”
Kennedy looked at me, then at Vincent and Toby, through her one good eye. “You know,” she said to the other two.
“I didn’t tell them,” I interrupted her. “They found out—someone looked in on your talk with your boss at the club.”
Kennedy sighed and pressed the ice to her eye. “I knew he shouldn’t have come. It was reckless and put me in danger. But he’s a micromanager.”
“You know what we have to do,” Vincent said.
Kennedy swallowed hard, then nodded in resignation.
“No,” I snapped. “We don’t have to do anything. This is my girlfriend we’re talking about. I’m not going to let you just, what, fucking kill her?”
“We all know what happens to feds who turn,” Kennedy said softly.
“We can protect you,” I replied. I looked at Vincent, near desperation. “Can’t we? C’mon, who are we if we can’t protect the people we love?”
Kennedy made a small, startled noise in the back of her throat, and I cursed myself for not fucking saying anything sooner. I wasn’t exactly one for romantic speeches but I should’ve said something. I didn’t want the first time she heard me say that I loved her to be angry and in front of others, not even directed at her.
Vincent’s expression didn’t change. “Then what the hell do you suggest? This is a no-win scenario, Marco.”
I stood up again and loomed as only I knew how to. “You try to touch one goddamn hair on her head and I’ll knock you flat, Vincent. Don’t fucking try me.”
Vincent could hold his own in a fight. He was a Russo, of course he could. But he wasn’t the one who spent every day brawling, hauling in men who didn’t want to be hauled anywhere, fighting off rival gangs. He wasn’t the one who trained every day in the school of hard knocks down by the docks, getting his knuckles bloody.
Between the two of us, I was pretty sure I could take him.
Vincent stared me down. He knew I might be able to beat him. Vincent wasn’t one of those idiots who thought nothing could touch him. He knew the risks, and he knew my skill, at least with my fists.
“I can tell you what I know,” Kennedy offered quickly. “The D.A. is planning something. That’s why there’s a lot of pressure on my case. On me. I don’t know what’s happened but our plan has changed and now they want me to get information on you guys quickly so they can move.”
Vincent looked at Toby, who immediately pulled out his phone. I knew what he was doing—letting our lawyer brother Dante know that it was finally time to prove his loyalty. That had been the condition of allowing him to become a lawyer.
You never escaped family.
“I think that there’s more they aren’t telling me,” Kennedy added. “To be fair, I haven’t told them a lot. I didn’t tell them anything about the package plan or how you’re turning two families against each other, Vincent. But they’re keeping me in the dark about something. I don’t know what.”
“You think that’s enough information to be useful?” Vincent asked. “You think that I can trust you when you say you haven’t told them anything?”
I glared at my brother. I never thought that it would come to this. I’d never thought that anyone or anything could make me truly go up against Vincent. But turned out, love was a bitch that way. I’d do anything to protect Kennedy. And I knew she hadn’t given me up. I could feel it in my bones.
“Let me call my boss,” Kennedy said quickly. “Tell him that you suspect me, that Marco beat me up.”
A low growl sounded in my throat. I’d never beat my girlfriend, ever. Even if it was true and she had betrayed me, even if she’d been playing me this whole time. I just couldn’t allow that.
“You can listen in,” Kennedy said. “And based on what my boss says, we can move from there. He might ask me to pressure you for more information before I go, or he might ask me to do something to prove my loyalty to you. But whatever he says, I might be able to get him to let something slip about their bigger plans, about their partnership with the D.A.”
Vincent looked at Kennedy for a long moment. Then he looked at me.
I glared back at him. I didn’t want to fight my brother. Annoyed with one another we might get, but actually fighting? On opposite sides? I never would’ve thought it would happen, and I didn’t want it to.
For Kennedy, though, I’d do it.
Vincent sighed. “Let’s see what I can dig up, and how this conversation will go.” He wasn’t speaking to Kennedy, but to me, and I knew it. “This isn’t a pardon. Not yet. It’s a delay in execution.”
Kennedy winced, then nodded in understanding.
I swallowed hard. Vincent wasn’t doing this to spare someone’s life or because he had any faith in Kennedy. He was doing this for me. “Thank you.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” Vincent replied.
He turned and Toby followed him back to the elevator.
CHAPTER 20
Kennedy
* * *
The moment that his brother left, Marco relaxed. He sat down on the edge of the bed again and took my hand. “How are you feeling?”
“I ache all over,” I admitted. There was no point in being brave now. I was sure my face looked a mess. “But I’m not dead.”
“No, you’re not.” A shadow passed over Marco’s features.
“Why didn’t you let him kill me?” I asked softly. I didn’t understand. Marco said he loved me. That he’d protect me from his own brother. But I had lied to him this entire time.
“You tried to get yourself killed so that I wouldn’t ever know the truth,” Marco replied. “Not out of selfish reasons. Because you didn’t want me to feel betrayed by you. You didn’t want to hurt me like that. That kind of love and loyalty can’t… it can’t be bought or found easily and I don’t…”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone and I don’t know if I ever will again. And I don’t think that… the kind of loyalty you’ve shown is something I should give up. I don’t think a woman like you should be given up if you’re the guy lucky enough to have her.”
I swallowed. “You’re nothing like what I was told to expect in my briefing. I thought you’d be… so much less of a man. I thought you’d be stupid and violent and untrustworthy. But you were… you are everything.”
Marco didn’t look at me, instead looking down at our joined hands. Like he wasn’t quite sure if he’d be able to handle looking at me dead-on, like I was the sun and I’d blind him.
“I really didn’t want to hurt you,” I whispered. “I wanted you to never know. Because I… I’ve never felt like this, either and it terrifies me, but all I know is that I want to be loyal to you. Always.”
“Don’t know if you noticed this, sweetheart, but you’re a fed.” Marco’s voice was tired. His thumb traced circles along the back of my hand. “Aren’t I the enemy?”
“I don’t think that you’re any better or worse than cops,” I admitted. “I’ve seen how you take care of me, and take care of your own. I respect your brother, and I like your sister-in-law. And I…” I took a deep breath. “I’ve been alone, ever since my mother died. She was sick for so long, I lost touch with everyone I’d ever called a friend, taking care of her. And then in the academy, you don’t make friends. Especially if you’re a woman. You’re too busy trying to be the best and prove yourself. There’s nobody in my life.”
I leaned forward, wincing a little as the action pulled on my various bruises and cuts, and took Marco’s chin in my hand. I tilted his face up so that his dark eyes met mine. “There’s only you. And if it’s choosing between two groups, and one of them has the man I love in it… then it’s not really a choice. Not to me. It’s you, every time.”
Marco cleared his throat, then took my hand in his and pressed his mouth to my knuckles. A thrill ran up my arm. There was more passion in that touch just then than I’d gotten in actual sex from previous boyfriends. He kissed my hand like he was asking for benediction.
“Nobody’s ever chosen me before,” he admitted at last, his voice so low I could barely hear it. “I’ve always been… a disappointment.”
“Not to me,” I promised.
Marco turned my hand over and kissed the inside of my wrist, his lips against my thudding pulse. “I’ll tear them all apart,” he growled.
His eyes flashed like a wolf’s. I felt like if I could see all of his teeth in that moment, they would be sharp, every last one of them. “None of them will hurt you. Not the feds and not my family.”
“It won’t come to that.” Or at least I hoped it wouldn’t. “We’ll do reconnaissance, and we’ll figure out how to handle Johnson and the others.”
Marco pushed himself up and wrapped a supportive arm around my waist. His lips ghosted over the corner of my mouth, like he knew he had to be gentle with me but he also couldn’t resist touching me like this.
I gripped his shoulders, hanging onto him like a buoy in a raging sea.
“We’ll get through this,” Marco promised me. “You and me, we’ll get through this.”
“I’ve never trusted anyone like I’ve trusted you,” I admitted.
So I trusted him when he told me we’d find a way.
The next few days, I spent recovering. Vincent and I both argued that it would be best if we acted now while my bruises were still fresh, but Marco argued that he wasn’t going to send me into another dangerous situation when I was still on bed rest. Eventually I was convinced to see things Marco’s way when the ever-helpful Toby pointed out that the extent of my beating was too severe for the story I was telling my supervisor. Misha had been beating me in order to kill me. Marco was supposed to have just knocked me around a little to test me. Johnson, or really anyone with any common sense, would be able to tell the difference and would wonder how the hell I got out of that situation alive.
So we waited, while I stopped looking less like a murder victim and more like a woman who’d just taken a couple punches.
I kept waiting for Marco’s behavior to change. For him to show some kind of sign that he was wary or angry around me now. But it never came. He looked at me the way he always had.
There was only so long I could handle that before I was ready to burst.
One thing that helped with my recovery was nice hot soaks in the balcony jacuzzi. One evening Marco joined me, and I took advantage of the opportunity.
“Why don’t you hate me?” I asked.
Marco stared at me as he got into the jacuzzi. He was powerful, thick muscle from head to toe, his colorful tattoos standing out from his tanned Italian skin. He still made my mouth water every time and I was annoyed that I wasn’t quite fit enough to be up for our usual athletic sex.
“Why would I?” he asked.
He walked through the water towards me, drops sliding down his skin. He was power personified and I couldn’t resist sliding my hands up his chest, pressing down, feeling the muscles.
“Because I lied to you that whole time. I was a fed and I was planning to help take your whole family down. There’s got to be some anger about that, right?”
Marco snorted. “Did you actually give them anything to take us down?”
“…no?”
His hands slid under my thighs and he gently lifted me up, turning us around so that as he settled down on the step, I was on his lap. His hands moved up and down my back, soothing, almost but not quite massaging.
“You were willing to die for me, Kennedy. That’s not something I take lightly. If you’d told me before… I would’ve been angry. But what the fuck were you supposed to do, huh? Tell me right away and I would’ve killed you. Wait too long and I’d kill you for betraying me. You were stuck between a rock and a hard place. And now…” Marco kissed my mostly healed jaw. “You couldn’t have done more to prove your allegiance. Not in my eyes.”
“Your brother needs more convincing.”
“My brother did something for his wife. Or she did something for him. I don’t know, but it was big. He might not trust you but he understands how I feel. I know that much. And I know you’ll prove yourself to him once we take care of your boss.”
A dark look passed over Marco’s face. “Your boss is the one who needs to pay. He met you in the damn club. Like he didn’t trust you. That’s how you were found out.”
I swallowed. “I wondered—but I figured Jade wouldn’t have anyone watching if I didn’t request anyone to watch. It was a calculated risk.”
“Too big of a risk. If he really cared about you, he would’ve waited for you to be at your apartment or something.”
An odd look passed over Marco’s face, and he muttered again, “If he really cared…”
“What is it?” I asked.
Marco had that hunting wolf look, the kind he got when he was thinking. Like he’d just caught the scent of a potential deer. “Nothing. We’ll see, when you call.”
He kissed my neck, not like a prelude to something, more like a little reminder. Like he couldn’t help himself.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure. We’ll see later.”
I nodded. I trusted him this far, I could trust him with whatever little idea he had brewing in the back of his head. Especially after how I’d been working against him this whole time. I traced his tattoos with my fingers. “You know… I am feeling better.”
Marco gave me a firm look. “You’ve still got bruises.”
