The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 37

He’s right, even I know how this business uses any tiny thing to get the upper hand. It’s all about control. Damaging someone’s armour and sliding in below it to use to their full advantage.

‘’You don’t care about me, so this is all so stupid,’’ I say it meekly, meaning every word and knowing it’s true as he comes around to face me and lean back in his original place, resting a foot on the chair I am sat in and looks down at me.

‘’I don’t trust you, I don’t like you most of the time, but I care, whether I want to or not.’’ He frowns at me, no hint of the panic I feel right now in his emotionless face, and he’s infuriatingly cool about this whole thing. He gets up and wanders off again, listless or restless where normally he is as still as a statue and I wonder if this is how he displays stress. Inability to stay at peace when he is working through a dilemma and has to keep walking or moving while his brain plays it out.

‘‘You have a really funny way of showing it.’’ I snap after him, my insides turning and twisting in terror at the thought I might be in real danger, lightheaded, trembling and clammy and again he turns on me with agitation.

‘‘You think you know me? You don’t know anything about me, Cam … beyond the person you see here in this place. If I didn’t care, if I had zero shits to give about you then I would have handed you over to Sid any night of the week.’’ His bark takes me by surprise, sparking my inner flight or fight and I react with equal aplomb.

‘’I actually don’t know what stopped you; there’s a huge difference between caring and ownership, I don’t think you know the difference and you certainly don’t act like there is one.’’ I point out angrily not even sure why my anger is directed at him when it’s Santagato who is fucking up the life I am only just warming to. Alexi is an easier target and he’s here. I guess everything in some way could come down to being his fault, and I need to vent and yell at him because my head is about to explode.

‘’In this business ownership is everything, it’s the only language these people understand.’’ The only language he understands.

‘’That’s not caring. I don’t think you’re capable of really caring and you just use all of this as an excuse for being a complete controlling shithead.’’ Ironic that it’s coming from my mouth because I didn’t think I was capable either, until Alexi. Whether I want to admit it or not … the arsehole has made me care about him and I hate him for it.

How the hell can a girl with no ability to feel anything about anyone start to fall for the devil himself? I didn’t think I had an ounce of heart left inside of me to even beat anymore, and he has done nothing to warrant any feelings for him. Yet Santagato posed a real threat and all I kept thinking was—don’t hurt Alexi.

‘’Either way … one outcome, whether I care about you or just own you, it makes no difference. Santagato isn’t going to just back off. If the roles were reversed I would use any obvious weakness to get at him and throw him off his game. You pull out one brick and the tower starts to come down, I exposed a brick … He won’t let that go.’‘

‘‘This world is the reason you are such a twisted prick. If this is the norm between people who you play friends with face to face, and invite to your clubs as acquaintances, I would hate to meet one of your enemies.’’ I am completely deflated with all of this.

‘’Baby … they are all one and the same, that’s why I trust no one except blood. Out here they greet you with one hand while putting a gun to your head with the other. This is WHY I am the way I am.’’

Trusts no one, not even me. I shouldn’t care because I don’t trust him either but I have never given him anything to doubt since he walked into my life. I have enough sense to know where the lines lie, he is the first person in my life I have never lied to or played for my own ends. He is the first time in my life I have stability, security and protection, and he doesn’t demand me to give over my body to get paid. He made me stop running and gave me a taste of feeling safe and cared for, like I finally belong somewhere.

Alexi was the ‘’someone’’ who first showed me an ounce of worth by taking me under his wing and giving me shelter from a cold world in which I was endlessly trying to survive in. It’s no wonder my fucked-up brain has latched onto him as someone to feel something for.

He met my internal longings and sort of delivered them.

Security, safety and belonging.

‘’You’re just the same, you said so yourself. Is that what you do? You greet, smile and charm while putting a knife to my throat?’’ He’s just confirming every move and step since I met him has probably been exactly that, and those soft hints I think I see are nothing more than a clever game plan. Alexi is as bad as Santagato only more accomplished at hiding his evil—his skills are in the psychology and not the physical pain.

‘’Don’t think I don’t see your games and lies, London. You’re no angel, and you are not as honest and virtuous as you try to convince me you are. I wouldn’t put it past you to pull the trigger for any one of those men if they offered you more than I was. You’re an opportunist; I knew that when my men scraped you off the tarmac where Tyler’s left you.’’ He sneers at me and I just shake my head sadly, hurt that he really is way off the mark in evaluating me. For a man who is good at reading people, he can’t read me.

‘‘Shows how much you know about me, I know when I have it good, and I am not stupid enough to jeopardize that.’’

Somehow we both end up on our feet pacing one another in a weird circle, me in agitation because I cannot contain all this nervous energy, and he’s making me uptight by wandering around playing with things on the desk in a manner that doesn’t fit him. He’s like a caged animal or a boxer circling his opponent and unusually wired.

‘’You can keep singing the same song, but it doesn’t mean I am going to whistle along.’’ He narrows his gaze on me and I just roll my eyes at him, he’s so dense sometimes that it’s hard to believe he can be that same ruthless cougar, mentally devouring people in his wake. He doesn’t trust me, believe me or have any faith in my loyalty to him. Well he’s a jackass because I am not dumb enough to cross him for anything, even if I didn’t have some sort of weird feelings for him. I still value breathing.

‘‘You believe what you want. You’ll see one day, and I don’t have to prove anything to you.’’ I lift my chin defiantly.

‘’No, you don’t, you just need to do as I say, and right now, I want you to go upstairs and pack everything that’s yours, tomorrow morning you’re leaving.’’ He shuts me down with a sentence that feels like a slap in the face and my stomach drops to my toes.

‘‘What? You can’t be serious. This is where I live, where I work.’’ Icy cold panic grips my throat as I realise he does actually mean to send me off. ‘‘Not anymore.’’ He stops pacing and just comes to rest with those empty eyes on mine, no hint of humour. Just the palest grey, rimmed with a black outer edge that never fails to penetrate my mind. He’s deadly serious.

Tears bite my eyes despite trying to remain composed and pain lurches through my chest like a heavy weight.

‘‘Where exactly are you going to dump me?’’

‘’I told you. I have a house … the Hamptons, it’s near family. I’ll take you there and then when things settle down we’ll see how the land lies.’’ Deadpan, emotionless and giving no fucks about getting rid of me and it wounds to the core. Even after sex, I don’t mean a damn thing to him. ‘’What am I supposed to do in the Hamptons? I lived there before and it was about as exciting as watching paint dry.’’ There’s no Alexi in the Hamptons, there’s no club, no life, nothing to look forward to. It’s full of dull rich people who take pride in gardening and barbecues and Sunday brunch.

‘‘I’m sure you’ll find something enterprising to occupy your time. Get packed. My family have a private plane, I need to go ask my cousin for a loan of his jet for an early trip.’’ He picks up a steel ball from the display on his desk and tosses it from hand to hand casually, like he just announced something of little value.

‘’Just like that?’’ I have to stop myself from sniffing and making my emotion obvious, he would just use it against me and I can’t take much more of this. A pawn in the chess board he lords over.

‘’Just like that. Now go do as you’re told before I lose my patience.’’ This time it’s a stern snap. No nonsense, don’t fuck with me, Alexi, as he drops the ball with a thud back onto the weird base it sits on and I jump at his sudden change. He is lingering between normal and angry, and I am still too fragile to deal with tipping the balance.

‘’You’re a prick.’’ It’s impulsive, a reaction to him making me nervy.

‘‘So you keep telling me but it doesn’t change anything. I’m sick of having you under my feet, will be nice to have my apartment back and let loose again. The Hamptons will be a nice vacation for you, give me time to get my focus back.’’ I just blink at him, feeling like he just stabbed me in the chest with his damn letter opener. By focus he means women, and even though it shouldn’t bother me it does.

Like a wounding slice to my insides that hurts and digs at me cruelly. There’s nothing I can do to sway his mind; he owns me and therefore he can ship me any damn place he wants.

I hate him!

Sex was a mistake, a massive can of worms I should never have opened. The danger I felt before I took that step was all warning, my head telling me that my last defences were waning and I wasn’t strong enough to take him on. Sex was the last barrier before my heart took its first beat for more than a decade and let me start to fall in love with the one person who will have no qualms about crushing my soul.

I didn’t think I was capable of love, yet fate is punishing me for everything I ever did to those girls; to Sophie Huntsberger. This is Karma's way of paying me back for the life I have led, and I was the one who stupidly opened the door. Loving someone like him, it’s like putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger willingly. Except because he is the devil he follows you to hell and keeps tormenting you in the afterlife.