Chapter Two
Jessie had to walk past him to get inside the kitchen. When she came within touching distance of Sergio, he lifted the strands of her ponytail to his nose. He inhaled the sweet scent of her shampoo, of her. She didn’t even notice. Sergio let go of her hair and watched her curvy figure exit the kitchen.
He couldn’t take his gaze off the perfect heart shape of her ass, the swell of her hips. He envisioned Jessie trapped underneath him, when he’d dig his fingers into the flesh of her hips, leaving bruises while he took her mouth. Sergio didn’t think she’d mind. When he first caught sight of her, he thought her an angel. Pure and untouchable. That was only the surface level. Truth was, there was darkness underneath the smiling mask she wore. The day he discovered the scars on her wrists, his opinion of her completely changed.
Oh, he still wanted her, craved her like a drug even. Still, Sergio refused to make a move. He knew his obsession with Jessie McDowell bordered on unhealthy, but he didn’t care. Being Victor Rossi’s right-hand man had its perks. One of them was access to beautiful women. Sergio had fucked plenty of them but none of them had the effect Jessie did. Ever since she started working at Mama Rossi’s six months ago, no other women existed for Sergio. She was it.
“Sergio, the boss wants an update on the Walsh brothers,” said a familiar sullen voice.
Aldo Rossi. Victor’s older brother. Unfortunately, or rather, fortunately for Sergio, Aldo didn’t inherit Victor’s smarts, only his viciousness. That was why Victor made Sergio his second-in-command, not Aldo. Aldo would always resent Sergio for that.
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
Jessie’s hair smelled like flowers. Like cherry blossoms, he mused. Sergio left the alleyway and joined the others in the meeting room next to the kitchen. Only Family members were allowed in here. This room was off-limits to the staff.
“Did you take care of the Walsh brothers?” Victor asked him right away. The big boss man never did like to mince his words.
“Their bodies are on their way to the crematorium as we speak,” he replied, taking the seat next to Victor. He didn’t miss the scowl Aldo wore.
“Good. The Irish mob would think twice to encroach our territories again,” Victor said.
Sergio listened to the meeting with half an ear. Victor would only turn to him if he needed someone dead or to extract information from unwilling lips. Sergio had been good at those things. Killing always came easy to him. Women were a complication. He didn’t know what had come over him when he joined Jessie during her short break.
Sergio had kept his gaze on her at all times throughout the dinner service just in case that pig would try something funny again. When Sergio noticed Piero grabbing her ass, he nearly snapped. He wanted to put a bullet between Piero’s eyes right there and then. Pigs didn’t live long, and Piero was the human equivalent in one.
He was small fry. The middle son of a small family the Rossi Family was allies with. Rumor had it he loved to use his fists on his family, his underlings, on everyone he could bully or intimidate. Piero had also been arrested for rape twice but was never convicted in court, thanks to his family’s influence. Those connections wouldn’t save Piero from Sergio’s wrath.
“What else is on the agenda?” Victor asked in an impatient voice.
Sergio understood Victor’s impatience.Tonightwas supposed to be Victor’s twentieth-anniversary dinner with his wife but Victor was a workaholic. He’d always put the affairs of the Family first. Sergio was the same. He came from nothing. His father had been a junkie, his mother a whore. It was his uncle Carlo who had shown him how to make a living killing. Carlo also introduced Sergio to Victor.
“Piero Ricci has the balls to show his ugly face tonight,” Aldo said.
That got his attention.
“What’s he done now?” Sergio cracked his inked knuckles, eager for an opportunity to work on Piero.
That leech needed to die. The world was a better place without him in it. Besides, he really didn’t like the way Piero looked at Jessie. Like she was a potential new toy. If anyone was going to break and claim Jessie, it was Sergio. He’d gut down any competitor who got in his way. Jessie was his. His prize, even though she didn’t know it yet.
“The fucker’s been skimming off some money from the collection box,” Aldo said. “It’s not a small amount either. Almost close to a million, according to our accountant.”
He let out a low whistle. The Ricci family was in charge of the debt-collecting business arm of the Family. As Aldo listed out Piero’s crimes, he grew bored. His thoughts returned to Jessie.
Fuck. The gutsy way she questioned him earlier made him rock-hard. Few women had the guts to look him in the eyes like that, like an equal. Jessie might not understand what she was doing, capturing his full attention like that. Then again, she wasn’t really what he expected. Sergio always assumed a woman like her would break under a man like him. He was wrong. She would bend. She’d adapt. Jessie was a survivor. After discovering her little secret, her scars, he dug up more information on her. He knew practically everything about her.
Jessie rented a ratty little apartment downtown. Despite her cheerful personality at work and the fact she got along with the rest of the staff, Jessie was a loner. She had no friends. No boyfriend. Work was all she thought about. The only person she’d been close to had been her mother. Freida McDowell committed suicide when Jessie turned eighteen.
Sergio hoarded all these little bits and pieces of Jessie in his head like a treasure. To him, they were all puzzle pieces, keys to unlock the real woman who lay buried underneath her mask.
“Piero Ricci has to go, are we in agreement?” Victor asked the men around the table.
“Let me do the honors, Victor,” he offered.
Aldo snorted next to him. “No surprise there. He hit on your favorite waitress, didn’t he?”
Sergio narrowed his eyes at Aldo. The fucker knew about his interest in Jessie. That didn’t sit well for him. Then again, the little prick had always been trying ways to knock Sergio from his seat at Victor’s right hand for years.
“Waitress?” Victor asked, turning to him with a frown.