The Leader

3 Jazzy

CHAPTER 3

JAZZY

Dinner would be served in less than an hour and Jazzy still had to take a shower, but apparently that wasn’t important. Maybe him sending her doing their thing was his way of telling her that the upcoming dinner would be okay.

“Fine.” She left her grandfather in the hallway and climbed up the stairs, making a right until she reached the library in the upper right wing.

She didn’t bother to turn on the lights as she walked in the darkened room. Nowadays, she could open the safe blind, in less than a minute.

Thirty seconds later, a personal record for her, she got the pocket watch out and shut the vault.

“Yes!” She did a fist pump.

“Put it back.”

Jazzy jumped up and slowly turned around, looking to where the voice had come from. There, in the corner, in a chair overlooking the yard, sat a man. She couldn’t make out much of his face since the light came from behind him, obscuring half his face.

“Excuse me?”

He got up from the chair, standing into the light, and she stifled a gasp when she recognized him.

Giovanni Detta was a tall man. Much taller than she would have expected from the picture she’d seen on the screen of her phone. The picture didn’t do him justice. Then again, maybe no photo could grasp his magnetic look, with shocking blue eyes. She instantly suffered from a case of lust at first sight.

“Whatever it is you stole from that safe, put it back. Now. Or I will make you.”

And just like most hot, gorgeous men, he was an arrogant prick. It was the ordering tone in his voice that had her hackles rising. The way he just expected her obedience. It was the way Franco spoke to her sister. Cold and commanding.

Who the hell did he think he was, giving her orders in her own home? She could, of course, easily diffuse the situation by telling him who she was, but...she didn’t want to. f**k him, and men like him, thinking they were king of the world.

“You can’t make me do a damn thing, pretty boy.”

His eyes narrowed as he stalked toward her. Oh, he so didn’t like to be called pretty.

She shoved the watch inside her sports bra and stepped away from the safe. It could never hurt to create some space, just in case she needed to kick his ass.

“I don’t like to repeat myself.” His tongue spewed more icicles her way.

“Good to know,” she scoffed, and put her hands on her hips.

“You are going to regret this.” He pointedly took position in front of the door.

“Doubtful.”

With her sister’s battered body fresh in her mind, she lunged at him, colliding with his hard body.

Unfortunately, Giovanni Detta didn’t go down the way she had expected. Instead, he made some weird ass street fighter move, and she ended up on her ass.

He towered over her in his expensive Italian suit.

“Stay down.”

It wasn’t so much as what he said, but the chill in his voice that had her taken aback.

“I can’t stand thieves, especially when stealing from their boss, but maybe Antonio will take pity on you.”

“Yeah well, I can’t stand arrogant assholes,” she replied, jumping back on her feet. “Also, I don’t need anyone’s pity.” She’d had enough of that during the year she feared losing the use of her arm. Everyone around her treating her like an invalid. That is, everyone but her grandfather. Antonio Rossi didn’t do pity. According to him, either you conquered your fear, or your fear conquered you.

The second time she attempted to get past him, she tried a different tactic. She saw the surprise in his eyes, when she slowly walked up to him and put a hand on his chest.

“How about you let me go and I don’t hurt you?” She gently tapped his shoulder.

Other than his nostrils flaring, he didn’t show any outward emotion. His arctic blues were just as frosty as before.

“Never make a threat you can’t deliver, bella.”

There was a rasp to his voice that had her skin tingling. Oh, his voice; it was dark, sensual, and smooth as silk. The kind that would have her splayed at his feet if she were as shallow as to only care about his beautiful exterior. Because that, he was. He had the whole tall, dark, and handsome look going for him. The only imperfection on him was the scar on his left brow which, to her, made him all the more perfect. However, beauty on the outside meant nothing if your insides were rotten.

Jazzy gave him a sweet smile and raised her knee. He blocked her kick that should have landed in his nuts, and spun her around. Her back pressed against his chest, his arm around her neck. She was trapped, or so he thought.

She dropped her legs, making herself heavy, and felt him keel over. Using his moment of surprise, she pulled back his thumb, almost breaking it, and he let her go with a curse. She stepped back, and planted a kick to his stomach, making him slam against the door. The same door she wanted to get through. It was time for Giovanni Detta to go down.

The second time she tried to knee him in the balls, he ducked, grabbed her leg and twisted it, making her lose her balance.

She ended up on her back with him on top of her, the breath pressed from her lungs. He was effectively using his bulk to keep her pinned to the floor.

“Get off of me!” Jazzy tried to kick him off her, but he felt like he weighed a ton.

He pressed his hand on her throat, effectively cutting off any further protest from her lips. Her heart beat like a drum, freezing her limbs, and a buzz started in her ears.

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

Images of another time, in another room flashed before her eyes. She closed her eyes and counted to ten to regain her composure.

“I don’t take orders, bella, I give them.”

When Jazzy reopened her eyes—after counting to at least sixty—she found Detta watching her, a curious expression on his face. He had placed both his hands next to her head, holding her down with pure muscle. Oddly, her fear dissipated the second she looked into his eyes. He was watching her mouth, the same way she was looking at his sensual lips. Could a man even be described as having sensual lips? She had no idea. Her breath hitched, and she felt her body relax, as if deep down—in her core—she knew he wasn’t going to hurt her. She felt a slight disappointment that he had bested her, but more than that, she felt heat. Overwhelming, confusing heat, covering her from her head to her dainty toes. And judging by the growing bulge against her stomach, she wasn’t the only one affected.

Whatever he saw in her eyes made him curse. “Don’t move. Unless you want me to give you what your body is asking for.”

The arrogant prick!

He slid his hand inside her bra—his finger accidentally on purpose brushing over a stiff n****e—and pulled out the pocket watch.

Right. The watch he believed she had stolen. She’d almost forgotten about the reason she had ended up in this position in the first place.

She was just about to bite him in the chin—’cause really, what other option had she left—when the door opened, and Mary walked in. Her cousin gasped when she found Jazzy on the floor, Gio on top of her, holding her down.

“Oh my God, what—”

“Mary, finally. Could you tell this asshole I’m Mr. Rossi’s personal assistant and that I’m allowed to open his safe? In fact, that I do it all the time?”

His hot gaze raked over her barely-covered chest and a smirk curled his lips. “His PA?”

Her cousin cleared her throat. “Um, yes, she’s allowed to take things from the safe all the time.”

Mary couldn’t lie to save her life.

“That’s right.” Jazzy tried to wriggle from underneath him, but he was unmovable, like a rock. “I’m his right hand.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re just like his right hand.”

It took her a second to understand what he was insinuating. Gross.

He c****d a brow at the disgusted look she gave him, but then finally rolled off her.

The second he stepped away from her, Jazzy crawled back to her feet and fled the room, not caring about the watch anymore. She all but ran to her bedroom, getting her backpack from her closet.

Passport. Check.

Phone. Check.

Pile of cash. Check.

There was no way she was getting through a dinner with Giovanni Detta. She had a really bad feeling about him, and the way he had looked at her. The man might choose her just to spite her. Which just wouldn’t do. In the infamous words of Gaga; I’m a free b***h, baby.

She had places to go, promises to fulfill. Come hell or high water, she was going to finish Mike’s bucket list. And there was no time like the present.