Page 6 of Ruthless Sinner
To my surprise she laughed and got up, walking over to a tasteful set of drawers and opening one of them to reveal cleaning supplies. “Don’t even worry about it,” she said dismissively. “Have fun storming the castle and all that.”
I blinked in shock at her flippant response. “Um. Yeah.”
On autopilot I pulled out my wallet to get the roll of Benjamins. Jewel caught it neatly when I tossed it to her. Then she gave me a joking curtsy. “Thank you, sir.”
I found myself chuckling. I’d had more women than I could count in my life turn me on, but few who’d made me laugh. “You’re not… upset? Annoyed? Sad?”
Jewel gave me an odd look that seemed to cover up a deeper emotion I couldn’t fully decipher. “Why would I be upset or sad?” She shrugged casually as she retrieved her colorful pasties from the sofa cushion where I’d left them. “We’re just using each other. It’s all fun and money in this business, right?”
I frowned. Why did her indifference bother me so much when that was usually my own modus operandi?
“Using you?” I shook my head, and forced a smile as I started buttoning my shirt. “Nah, just borrowing you for a little while.” I wasn’t quite ready to let her go, and I refused to analyze that decision, either.
“Well, you can always borrow me again later.” She blew me a kiss as she started for the door. “Good luck on the job.”
And that was…that,somehow.
What—what the fuck?
CHAPTER2
Kennedy
Ididn’t let myself breathe properly until I arrived safely back home to my apartment a short while later after clocking out at the club, right after my time with Marco Russo.
Then I had a nice little breakdown in the shower.
As I scrubbed off the glitter and all the evidence of our tryst in that private room, I could hardly believe that the night had happened. Even though I’d planned for this, even though I had known it was coming, I still didn’t couldn’t quite believe I’d managed it.
Do whatever it takes,my supervisor had said.We’re counting on you.
I’d known then thatwhatever it tookwould include sex, even if my supervisor and the rest of my team would never have gone so far as to say that out loud. It would always be my choice, officially.
But we all knew the truth. The only way I could get as close to Marco as I needed to was with sex.
As a federal agent, I understood how much was at stake. Up to this point, nobody had been able to infiltrate the Russo family to take them down. For a hot minute there’d been hope that we could arrange something with Vincent without his knowledge, since everyone in the community knew about the pressure on him to get married, but then he’d chosen Marla Preston of all people.
Marla Preston. My supervisor had lost hismindwhen he’d heard that through our channels. Here he was scrambling to find a high-enough mafia daughter that would be a Russo equal that we could turn to our side and get Vincent to marry, convinced that he would never marry below his station, and he’d gone for a random lower-level nobody.
I had to admit I had found the whole situation deeply ironic. The lower on the totem pole the person was, the easier they were to convince to feed information to the feds. But my supervisor had been so convinced that a lower person would never catch Vincent Russo’s eye, so really, the joke had been on him.
Not that it mattered in the end. My supervisor already had a backup plan in place, and that plan included me, going undercover as a stripper at Cozy Bunny. Since Vincent was no longer a viable option, they’d turned their sights to his brother, Marco . . . a gorgeous mafia made man I’d felt instantly attracted to the moment I’d laid eyes on him at the club.
Talk about a conflict of interestanddesires. My job was to pretend interest in him, to do whatever it took to get close to our mark, to lure him into a false sense of security so he spilled family secrets, but there had been nothing fake about how drawn to him I was. Or how much I wanted him in The Swan Room tonight.
I got out of the shower, put on my comfy pajamas, and sent a text to my team to let them know that after a month at Cozy Bunny and watching Marco, I’d finally given him a private dance. They’d be ecstatic. Hopefully soon I’d be able to get some good information from him to pass along.
I knew Marco wasn’t stupid and I was well aware that I had to be careful around him. That was something my supervisor hadn’t really considered, since Marco was only a soldier in his family business, but I’d clocked him pretty quickly—he wasn’t the same kind of idiot that a lot of men at the club were. I wasn’t flattering Marco when I’d told him he was complex—it was the truth from what I’d seen and surveyed over the past month—and it wouldn’t be easy to get usable information out of him the way that I’d hoped.
But I was determined to try. We’d heard that Marco talked too much in bed, and so into his bed I had to go. Unofficially, of course—the feds would neverofficiallypimp out one of their agents for an undercover operation.
There was a solid promotion in it for me if I did my job well, and I told myself that I cared only about justice, but that was a lie—I also wanted to advance up the ranks. Wrapping up the Russo operation would behuge. Marco’s grandfather had been equivalent to the real-life Godfather. His father Antonio, the current head of everything, was said to be even sharper, even bolder, even better—the carefully-honed and raised protégé.
They were one of the biggest mafia families in town. To take them down would be to destabilize the entire mafia world, and would pretty well scare shitless the other families. I had to get my information, no matter what the cost.
The gossip from the other women at the club had helped. It had prepared me for how this whole thing would go with Marco. Of course, nothing could have prepared me for actuallybeingalone with him and how easily he’d seduced me.
Or rather, how easily I’dlethim seduce me.
