The Killer's Prize, page 1
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Copyright© 2021 Winter Sloane
ISBN: 978-0-3695-0331-2
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
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WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE KILLER’S PRIZE
Winter Sloane
Copyright © 2021
Chapter One
Jessie McDowell couldn’t take her eyes off the man’s shoes. She knew she should be paying attention to their orders, but she couldn’t look away. They were white, wingtip Italian. Brand-new, save for the small red stain on the left shoe by the bottom laces. Like a pinprick of blood, Jessie thought.
“You got all that?” the customer asked her.
She clutched her pencil and parroted their orders. Her eidetic memory always came in handy in moments like these. “… and a bottle of Chardonnay to complete the meal,” she finished.
“That’s right, gorgeous.” The customer’s black eyes raked her from top to bottom, making Jessie suddenly feel self-conscious.
She worked at a pretty respectable restaurant, but she occasionally encountered a few creeps dining at Mama Rossi’s. Jessie knew she wasn’t much to look at. She had mousy red-brown hair, dark-brown eyes, and a figure some men would call curvy.
His unabashed stare raised goosebumps across her arms. In his late forties, he had more gray stands in his hair than black. He wore a suit, like almost everyone who came to eat at Mama Rossi’s. It didn’t look that expensive. Plus, it was white, like his shoes. Tacky, Jessie had thought. The suit also failed to hide his beer belly.
The dangerous men who often hung around the restaurant wore tailored suits that probably cost thousands. Jessie hadn’t always known Mama Rossi’s was operated by the Rossi Crime Family. When she applied for a job here, she’d been desperate and broke.
As long as she got a paycheck twice a month, she didn’t care who owned the restaurant. It was no different from working in other restaurants in Oakheart City. Jessie and the staff just needed to follow a certain set of rules, like not questioning the restaurant’s odd closing and opening times or the visitors the restaurant’s owner received.
Jessie really wished this sleazy diner would stop whatever he was doing. He reeked of alcohol, which told her he’d probably been drinking before dinner. His wife, tall, beautiful, and blonde, sat rigid in her seat, pretending to be interested in something else. The guy’s partner, also in his forties, gave her an almost bored look. Be professional, Jessie reminded herself. After all, she couldn’t afford to lose her job. She still had bills and rent to pay.
“I’ll be right back with your orders,” she said in a clipped tone. See? She could be professional, too.
“Stop. I’m not done with you yet.” The customer suddenly placed his hand on her ass and gave her butt cheek a squeeze. Jessie squeaked, taking a step back. The customer’s small black eyes grew mean and hard.
Don’t respond and walk away, Jessie told herself. She wondered if she could persuade Clarissa, another waitress, to trade tables with her. No. She didn’t wish to dump someone else on that pig.
“Hey, I’m still talking to you,” Mr. Big Shot said, rising from the table.
He grabbed her arm only to release it. Her head bumped into someone’s broad and solid chest. She let out a muffled yelp. That familiar cologne and scent hit her. She raised her head. Relief filled her as she spotted Sergio.
Sergio was one of the men who always hung around the restaurant. The staff liked to gossip during the restaurant’s low-peak hours. Sergio was apparently Mr. Rossi’s right-hand man. Whatever that meant. All Jessie knew was that all of Mr. Rossi’s guys and most of the customers were downright terrified of him. Jessie could understand why.
Sergio cut a pretty intimidating figure. He was six-foot-six, built like a linebacker. He had short, wavy brown hair that he wore short, and piercing green eyes Jessie swore sometimes changed color, depending on the lighting. Right now, it seemed more black than green. Sergio had a face most women would’ve called handsome, save for the harsh scar running directly down his left eyelid and across his cheekbone.
“Back off, Piero. Our staff’s off-limits, especially to scum like you,” Sergio said.
“Aw, don’t be like that, Sergio. I was just having a little fun. Besides, she likes me,” Piero said. “She flirted with me first.”
“Piero sit the fuck down,” the other man at his table said in a frightened voice. He tugged Piero to his chair.
“Is that true, Jessie?” Sergio asked in that growly, deep voice of his that made her shiver. In a good way.
It was a good thing Sergio couldn’t read her mind. Most folks might be scared of him, but she wasn’t. He’d always been nice to her, always greeted her and asked how she was every single day. Once Jessie would get home after a long shift and she lay in her lonely bed, it would be Sergio who starred in her erotic fantasies.
She remembered he’d asked her a question. “Not at all. I just wanted to take their orders,” she said.
“Go on then,” he said. “Piero here won’t bother you any longer, especially if he wants to continue breathing.”
Someone choked at the table. Jessie thought it was Piero’s wife.
She turned to leave, thankful for his save. Then Sergio uttered two words that sent a shiver down her spine and woke her soul. “Good girl.”
Jessie blushed as she left the dining area and relayed the table’s orders to the kitchen. She was at work, for God’s sake, and yet she started replaying a favorite fantasy of Sergio in her mind. Him pulling her down to his lap, his wicked lips on the nape of her neck, his big hands on her waist. His breath warm against her ear as he told her what a good girl she’d been.
“Jessie, table twelve wants to order,” said Clarissa, interrupting her train of thoughts.
Jessie slapped her cheeks, surprising the other waitress.
“What’s up with you tonight?” Clarissa asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Been distracted. That’s all.”
“No surprise there. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes,” Clarissa said. “Piero Ricci hits on every waitress every time he comes here. Good thing Sergio came to your rescue, huh?”
“Yeah. Let’s talk later. The restaurant’s getting busy.”
Speaking of shoes, Jessie remembered the ones Piero Ricci wore. Was the stain on his ugly wingtips blood? Something else? As usual, Jessie’s imagination often got the better of her. She needed to focus on getting through the night.
As she returned to Piero’s table with their orders, she noticed he avoided talking to her the entire time. Good. That was one asshole off her back. He didn’t apologize when he knocked over his glass of Chardonnay across the table, but she could feel his beady stare on her.
She grabbed a washcloth from the kitchen, biting her lip the entire time. Saying nothing would be the best course of action, although it was tempting to tell him off. Ask him what the big deal was.
Sergio, she noticed, had joined Mr. Rossi and two other men at a private table in the back of the restaurant. She should really stop thinking about the man. For one, Sergio was way out of her league. Why would a man like Sergio, so confident and put-together, would want anything to do with a plain and damaged waitress like her?
“I’m taking my five-minute break,” she told Tony, the manager.
He gave her a nod. Jessie went out back, to the alleyway behind the busy kitchen. When the restaurant got too overcrowded, sometimes it was a little hard to breathe in there.
Jessie traced the barely noticeable white scar on her left wrist. Very few people got to know the real her. To the rest of the staff, Jessie was well-liked, nothing special. Invisible. Sergio was different. He saw her. One time, she nearly dropped her tray, but he caught it and circled his hand over her wrist at the same time. The one with the scar.
He didn’t ask about it, but his eyes narrowed. It was such a forgettable, unremarkable moment for most people, but at that moment, Jessie had felt exposed. Vulnerable. Like a prey animal waiting to be shot down by a hunter. Some irrational part of her almost thought he’d report her to Tony, or worse, Mr. Rossi, and she’d lose her job. Then she realized it didn’t matter. She was a great waitress and never forgot a single order. The customers liked her enough to leave her big tips. That was all that mattered. Still, that encounter had unsettled her, even now.
Don’t forget he’s dangerous, whispered a voice in her head. If Jessie’s mother were still alive, she’d warn her to stay away from Sergio. Men like Sergio took and took, and never gave back. Just like her dad. Jessie took out the cigarette from her pocket and fingered it. She quit smoking three months ago, went cold turkey, but the urge to light the stick occasionally rose.
“I thought you quit?”
Jessie knew that voice.
Spotting Sergio standing by the kitchen doorway, she told herself to act normal. Too bad she could never relax around him. Sometimes, he looked at her like a hungry wolf. That would’ve scared most women off, but not her. Jessie often wondered what it would be like to be devoured by him completely. Body, heart, and soul. Her heart raced a little faster as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her. She focused on his words.
“How do you know that?” she asked, a little annoyed when he plucked the cigarette stick from her fingers.
Sergio took out his silver lighter, the one with the snarling face of some horrendous beast carved into the body. He lit the stick and inhaled. Then exhaled. She envied him, hated him a little right there and then.
“When it comes to you, Jessie, I know more than I should,” he eventually answered.
Jessie hadn’t imagined the lingering looks he sometimes gave her then. She didn’t mind. She had felt invisible her entire life. Like another specter in a city of ghosts. Jessie had been born and raised in Oakheart City. She’d probably die here, too. Just another name on the city’s records. Unremarkable. Easily forgotten.
“Why?” she had to ask.
Sergio never paid any attention to the other waitresses. In fact, in the six months she worked at Mama Rossi’s, she’d never seen him speak to another woman. Only Mr. Rossi’s men or their special guests. Sergio was all work and no play—or so she thought, anyway. What did she truly know about Sergio Castello? Practically nothing. They were complete strangers to each other. Jessie was just sick in the head to imagine there was more between them. A spark. Potential.
“You don’t want to know the answer to that question. Not yet,” he answered.
“What if you’re wrong?”
He flashed her an almost frightening smile that showed off the white of his teeth. “You’re not for me, Jessie, no matter how much I want you.”
Had she imagined his confession?
Sergio finished his smoke. He crushed it under the heel of his shoes. Despite the impeccable dark-gray suit he wore that fitted him like a second skin, Sergio didn’t wear fancy shoes. His were practical work boots, almost like he didn’t want to get his feet wet or dirty.
Jessie had a fascination with shoes. Her mother killed herself by looping several shoelaces together and hanging herself. Jessie had found a small mountain of shoes under her body.
Sergio had called her a good girl a few hours ago. She really wished she was. Jessie wanted to maintain that illusion for him because he seemed to think she was something special. She’d hold on to that feeling a little while longer to sustain her. To keep her going.
“Jessie, break’s over,” Tony yelled. “Get back in here. We have a full house.”
“Thanks for saving me earlier, from Piero,” she told Sergio. “I better head back. Can’t afford to lose this job.”
She meant for those last words to be a joke, but he didn’t laugh, much less smile at her.
“Men like Piero aren’t the monsters you should be watching out for,” he said. He opened the door for her. The kitchen bustled with activity as the chef yelled out instructions to his assistants. The glare of the kitchens almost seemed too much. Jessie preferred the dark quiet of the alleyway. She took a deep breath and murmured another thanks.
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. Tonight was 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.
