Page 26 of Reckless Sinner
My father took respect very seriously.
He nodded, a bitter twist to his mouth. “We were going to kill that girl. She had no family, no friends, no connections. The woman was too naïve to realize how suspicious it was that she was being put in such a heavy undercover operation with so little experience, and with no reliable backup… where they’re finding the recruits for the bureau these days…”
He shook his head in disgust. “Anyway. We were going to arrange for her death and pin it on Marco. We had just about everything set up. But something fishy went on with the Chinese and the Russians—and the Russos were involved but we can’t fucking figure out how—and so the Petrovs went after them. Stupid of them, they overextended their reach, but it is what it is. Those people are no better than animals sometimes. One of their biggest enforcers, straight from the big boys in Moscow, has gone missing and the Russos are making it clear that it’s a warning shot. If the situation will actually devolve any further or if the Petrovs will consider that an even exchange of life and not press it… I don’t know.”
My father drummed his fingers on the table. “But either way, we don’t have our murder charge and we can’t get Marco on the stand like we planned. That changes things. I need you to find out from Dante what the Russos are planning. Vincent is clearly making moves.”
“How do you know it’s Vincent?” I asked, as politely as possible. My father rarely swore, so to hear him so animated told me how upset he was.
I understood, of course. This could ruin his plans to become Attorney General. His lifelong dream of dealing a killer blow to organized crime would die out.
Dad shook his head. “Vincent was recently married. If he hasn’t already knocked up his wife then I’ll be shocked. His job is to take over from his father and produce heirs. Our sources told us that there were rumors about Vincent for years because it took him so long to find a wife—that he must be violent or abusive—it’s been a long time coming and the big sign that he’s going to be the person in charge now even if his father still technically holds the title ofdon.”
Fair enough. “What do you think we should do now?”
“You are going to keep working on Dante,” Dad instructed me. “He’s got to be in it somehow.”
“What if he’s not?”
Dante could be lying to me. I couldn’t rule out that possibility. No matter how sincere he sounded, I had to be on my toes. He’d been raised by Antonio Russo after all and Vincent, his brother, had just proven that he was able to manipulate other families, even those more powerful than the Russos were. He was also a lawyer for crying out loud. He could be a much better liar than I thought.
But that didn’t mean that it was certain he was. He could be lying. But he could also be telling the truth. I had no idea which way it could go.
It seemed my father had already made up his mind.
Sure enough, my father chuckled. “Sometimes you’re so adorable, Delaney. I love how you continue to have such faith in people.”
I swallowed and looked down at my hands in my lap. “He’s wrestling with a lot. But I’ll see what I can get out of him.”
Even as I said the words, the back of my throat burned. How dare my father decide that he knew exactly who Dante Russo was? He didn’t know that Dante loved history and had studied it in college as an extra major just for the love of it. He didn’t know how close Dante had been to his mother and how he loved Jane Austen because of her.
Dante had said that he knew everyone just wanted something out of him, and that everyone assumed the worst. It hurt that my father was doing the same thing.
Or Dante could just be very good at luring you in. I couldn’t fully ignore that voice at the back of my head.
Dad nodded. “We need everything we can get on the Russos and we need it quickly. I want my takedown of them to be the thing that propels me into the AG seat.”
“Yes, of course,” I agreed.
I knew where this was going and what I would do, how I could get that information. Even if it was betraying Dante.
I would have to push a reconciliation between Dante and his family.
CHAPTER13
Dante
Ididn’t want to make Delaney leave so early. I knew that it was foolish of me to already be so attached, but for the first time in years I felt like I had someone who understood me—or at the very least was open to both parts of me. Not someone who was angry at my rejection of the mafia, or scared of whatever dark parts of me they thought lurked inside.
But sure enough, when I got up at a reasonable hour and went downstairs to head into work, there were already some reporters waiting for me. Along with a man in a cheap black suit. I clocked him instantly—his tie was too skinny for him to be a cop, and cops didn’t generally wear black anyways. Had to be a federal agent.
“Mr. Russo.” The agent stepped up and I ignored the reporters. They would keep pestering me no matter what, might as well just pretend they didn’t exist. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about a potential case of ours?”
“I’ll need to see some I.D.,” I said, keeping my tone polite. “I’ve had reporters try to fake being law enforcement before.”
This wasn’t true, but frankly I wouldn’t ever put it past a reporter in need of a good scoop. I knew it was their job to kind of be ruthless, and I also knew that the stereotype of the unscrupulous, ‘do anything for a story’ reporter had really fallen out of fashion in the journalist community. But I couldn’t damn well say to the man that it was still my instinct to distrust any kind of law enforcement.
The agent pulled out his I.D. and held it up for me. I took a good look at it. This had never happened to me but I had heard about it as a kid from my father—sometimes hit men from rival families would pose as law enforcement to make you compliant and then they’d take you out.
