Page 27 of Reckless Sinner
With what was going on with my family, I couldn’t be too careful. I was the only one outside of the family protection, no bodyguard, nothing. I would be a pretty easy target for an assassination if someone felt they needed to nab a big fish.
The badge was clean, though. Or if it was a forgery, it was the best I’d ever seen. Didn’t rule out the possibility of this guy being dirty and on someone’s payroll, but I would have to take that chance.
“Thank you,” I said, straightening up. “I’m on my way to work, mind walking with me?”
“Not at all.” The agent sent an annoyed glare at the handful of assembled reporters and followed me as I set off down the block.
Normally I would take a taxi to work, but I had a feeling I’d need to walk off the stress after this talk.
The agent—his I.D. had said Kaminsky—pulled out a notepad and a pencil. How delightfully and annoyingly old-fashioned. “Are you aware that there was a body dumped on the front steps of the D.A.’s office this morning?”
The D.A. is involved. Watch your back.“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”
Was it the body of Marco’s girlfriend? The undercover agent? Loyalty was everything in our world, but I still couldn’t see Marco allowing her body to be displayed like that, used to send a message and dumped like so much trash. Marco was the definition of a player, loving and leaving more women than I’d ever even met in my lifetime, but he had a genuine soft spot for them. Helovedwomen, adored them, thought them fascinating.
If he really liked a woman enough to actually settle down a bit with her instead of his usualwham bam thank you ma’am,would he really agree to something like that?
On the other hand, Vincent was in charge. And I could see Vincent being that ruthless if it would send a strong message.
“So you’re unaware of the Petrov murders last night.”
“The Petrovs murder people on lots of nights, Agent Kaminsky. I hate to tell you this but learning they killed someone is not exactly going to get me out of bed in the morning. Not unless you also hand me a case file, a box of evidence, and tell me to go prosecute them.”
“You seem rather callous about the matter.”
“I’m a lawyer. I see a hundred crimes every day. Trust me, I’m not callous. I just have to prioritize. The ones that are my cases that I can do something about? Good. But if I kept myself awake at night thinking of all the shit that goes on that I can’t stop or change, I’d never sleep again. I’m sure as a federal agent you’ve wrestled with something similar yourself.”
The man tipped his head as if to acknowledge the truth of that.
“Perhaps you can tell me what really happened and why I’m being questioned about it,” I added. “This seems to be a Petrov matter and my last name is Russo.”
Agent Kaminsky glanced skyward like he was trying to hide his annoyance with me. I grinned inwardly. Any day I could annoy one of these stiff suits was a good day.
“There were two people killed,” Kaminsky explained. “One of them was a highly respected agent. He was in charge of several undercover operations. His body was the one dumped. Autopsy showed that the person killing him was a Petrov enforcer known only as Misha—he always uses that particular gun, I think he even named it, sick bastard—and your family has also publicly pointed the finger at the Petrovs by killing Misha.”
“Why would my family care about a federal agent?” I replied. “No offense, Agent Kaminsky, you all do fine upstanding work. But I’m not like the rest of my family. I abide by the law and I have a great respect for agents like yourself. My father and brothers do not. They wouldn’t care if the Petrovs offed one of your own.”
“The other body,” Kaminsky replied, “belonged to an undercover agent. Name of…”
He flipped through his notebook. “Kennedy Lancaster. Alias Kennedy Shapiro, alias Jewel, worked as a stripper at the club your brother frequents.”
The rabbit one, yeah, I knew it well. Or, not well exactly, I’d never been there, but Marco had mentioned it a lot.
“She was intimate with your brother, and it seems she was part of the D.A.’s sting operation. We weren’t able to recover her body, and given that your family then murdered the Petrov enforcer who killed her, I think we can safely say that they made private funeral arrangements.”
“My brother is probably very embarrassed he let himself get that close to a federal agent,” I said honestly. “But again—it sounds like the Petrovs chose to kill my brother’s girl, my family retaliated, and the federal agent part was a coincidence. A fortunate one, to them, but I still fail to see why I’m being questioned or how I can help.”
“We’re just trying to cover all of our bases,” Kaminsky replied. He scribbled a few lines down in his notebook. “When was the last time you saw your family?”
“At my brother’s wedding. We don’t speak much. They don’t approve of my lifestyle choices.”
“When was the last time you spoke to any member of your family?”
Ah, clever. Seeing someone and speaking to them were two different things.
“At the wedding,” I repeated. “Like I said we don’t talk much. I spent a fun few hours avoiding my father, my brother caused a fistfight, all in all pretty much the usual.”
Kaminsky dutifully wrote it down in his notebook. “Do you have any idea why the Petrovs would want to murder the girlfriend of your brother?”
