Page 57 of Ruthless Sinner
“Lancaster!?” Johnson sounded surprised. Shocked.
He probably thought I’d do this up close and in person, as was my trademark. That I’d wait and kill her later, after this conversation.
To his credit he knelt down to try and do CPR. The corset made it impossible for him to feel her heartbeat. Kennedy stared, open-eyed and blank-faced, up at the stars. She was damn good at playing dead.
“Shit,” Johnson whispered. “Shit, she’s dead.”
He reached to check her pulse, and that just wouldn’t do. He’d declared her dead to anyone listening in on their conversation, and it had to stay that way.
I raised the gun, aimed, and fired.
Headshot.
Johnson was dead the second the bullet hit his brain. He fell like a sack of bricks.
I couldn’t hear the chatter, but I was certain the men listening in on the other end—the ones sitting in the fake taco truck van down the block—were losing their shit.
Two agents dead. They’d have no idea what to do with this.
I got down quickly from the roof as two of Jade’s bouncers came out and retrieved Johnson’s body. We’d deliver it to the DA’s office in the morning. The time for subtlety was over.
Kennedy got to her feet, wobbling and pressing a hand to her stomach. “I know you said it would hurt, but thathurt.”
“Yeah, fucking sucks.” I grabbed her and pulled her in for a hug, fake blood and all. “You okay?”
“I am,” Kennedy promised, even as she shook. “But I’ll feel even better when—when we’re away from all this.”
“We will be,” I promised her. “Very soon, we will be.”
I held her, held her damn tightly, and let her fall apart in my arms. She wouldn’t be alone anymore. Wouldn’t be used anymore. This was my woman, the love of my goddamn life, and from now on, she had me and the protection of the Russo family.
She’d never feel like this again.
CHAPTER24
Kennedy
The news was all over it.
A decorated member of the FBI was murdered by the same calling-card bullets used by a sniper employed by the Petrov family, one of Misha’s crew. Of course the man had been murdered in the raid to rescue me, but that wasn’t known to the general public. Vincent Russo had been smart enough not to mention his takedown of Misha and Co. until after I had ‘died’ and he made sure to frame it to anyone he spoke to as retaliation for my murder.
According to the press and the police, I had died a hero, murdered because I was Marco’s girlfriend and only after death revealed to be a mole for the bureau.
The DA was fuming up one side and down the other, apparently. This was going to bring down a lot of heat—but on the Petrovs, not on us.
Not that the Petrovs had time to deal with this. In light of their ‘blatant power-grab’, to quote the spokesperson for the Wen family, the Petrovs had been undermining the workforce of the Chinese families in the city by giving them the funds to purchase their freedom from indentured servitude.This is war,the Chinese families vowed, and the Petrovs had their hands full.
Could they declare their innocence? All they wanted. But which was worse? Claiming the idea that they’d tried to grab more power, or admitting that they’d been used and duped, set up, made into patsies?
At least one of those options projected strength and ambition, while the other only projected stupidity and slowness.
Marco was said to be publicly taking a vacation, somewhere warm and tropical, with beaches. He needed to get over the loss of his girlfriend, he said.
People rolled their eyes, certain he would have another girl on his arm soon enough. And he would.
Me.
My new name was Jackie. I thought it fitting, given my old name. I’d cut my hair short and dyed the strands to a soft auburn that Marco loved. I’d be a lovely vacationer that Marco met in the Bahamas and wooed into coming back to New York with him. With Kennedy Lancaster declared legally dead, murdered in front of witnesses—the Cozy Bunny bouncers—there was nothing the police could do even if they realized I was the same person and not just a woman wholookedsimilar. The other families would probably know, of course. But that would be what Vincent and Marco wanted.
