The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 40

I try my hardest to play it cool through an excruciating dinner with upper class gangsters. It’s obvious that’s what they are, yet everyone is living the fake normal life out here and it’s all behind closed doors. There are smiles and polite conversation about their monotonously boring lives and over-primped wives as they guzzle down overly priced food and act like they like their present company.

We are sat in one of this town’s most prestigious restaurants, surrounded by opulent settings and a sparkling chandelier over my head that is practically blinding us with light. A group of porky men with way too much cologne and wives that have had to be tied into their frocks to hold in the overindulgence. A lot of jewellery on display, so much so the dazzle has given me a headache and the men can’t seem to keep their bulging eyes off my cleavage.

Seems Alexi isn’t impressed with my choice of outfit and I did dress to just piss him off. He said conservative, yet he wants me to bend over and get fucked right after, so I dressed for the part. Ex-hooker turned mistress—in a very tight, low, and revealing little number that clings to every curve and stops mid-thigh. Cleavage popping, harlot red like my hair and laced up so tight at the back that it’s almost defying gravity in keeping my breasts covered.

I know I am rebelling and I will probably regret this decision very soon with the way he keeps glaring at me, but I should embrace the fact that life with Alexi Carrero is going to kill me one way or the other and at least if I stop trying to obey I will have some control over the inevitability.

He might choke me through sex this time and not let up until I no longer respond. It would be a blessing in disguise.

I sip on my fourth glass of red in a bid to drown out the mundane company and fuel my inner bravado. I feel tipsy and almost start to enjoy the waves of hostility coming my way.

‘‘You’re a very beautiful asset.’’ One of the suits' voice waves my way and a moustache covered smile follows, eyes firmly locked on my tits as I zone back into the conversation. His dowdy grey-haired wife is looking at me as though she wants to ram her shrimp fork into my eyeball and I smile politely. I’m guessing he asked Alexi if I was his wife and got his bog-standard reply of ‘’Hostess to my exclusive club.’’ He would never admit to having anything that remotely constitutes some sort of connection to a woman, that might be mistaken as a relationship.

‘’Thank you, I do try. Alexi likes me to shine when he shows me off.’’ I add with charm, but laced in sarcasm and get that cool set of greys thrown my way with an evil glint of displeasure. Same look this dress got me from the moment he took my jacket off as we started to sit at our table and saw it. Surrounded by eyes waiting to pounce on him, he couldn’t react, and he’s been simmering ever since.

He’s been very charming to his guests all night, oozing confidence and smiles. I can see why he never smiles much at the club. It’s all he does when faced publicly with important people, and he must get tired with the pretence.

He seems completely at home among the upper class all idly chit chatting and drinking expensive booze in elegant surroundings that use way too much gold in their decorating. Practically every inanimate object is shiny yellow metal.

Even with his tattoos on show that should ruin the look of an elegant businessman, somehow, he just seems to fit in all the elegance of the glamorous setting. Alexi is a thug who can pull off class. It’s disconcerting, but I guess being raised in a billionaire family entrenched with generations of mobsters it gets inbred. He can sit confidently in a plush red padded chair and use an array of cutlery like a pampered pro.

I have never really been comfortable around it, but I learned to play the part to fit in. High class clientele is generous, and it’s a lot less work for maximum profit than scraping the streets for enough to eat. I learned young that to succeed in more than survival you had to up your class and attract a better calibre of people.

Saying that, the rich tend to be way more devious and perverted with their requests, due to the fact they always get what they want and aren’t afraid to demand it. With money comes a whole other world of depravity. Upping my game just opened me up to a whole new level of pain. I got out of the game as soon as I could and had enough money behind me to start fresh, reinvent myself and find another means to make money.

Sex sells, it always does, and so I knew to get anywhere I had to keep it a part of my arsenal. I just didn’t want to be the vessel that was used anymore and devised my own little brood of girls to open their legs instead.

I was done being used, beaten and controlled and the night Rick put me in the hospital gave me my chance to take off and never go back. Who knew undergoing surgery to save my life and fix the damage he inflicted would open a passageway of escape and give me enough freedom to run as fast as I could.

I could have killed myself leaving the hospital in the state I was in, and the looks I got boarding a train in a bloody hospital gown with a black bag in my hands with all my worldly possession didn’t deter me. I was nineteen, knowing my life was going one way if I didn’t get out and I haven’t stopped running since.

I don’t know what it’s like to ever stop looking over my shoulder and I didn’t know what safe felt like until Alexi, which is completely bizarre. Always at the back of my mind is the thought that Rick might one day find me, but somehow, I don’t think he would dare cross Carrero in a bid to get at me.

‘’Do you want to dance?’’ I watch as the gentleman to my left asks his wife and holds out his arm. They are probably the sweetest couple at the table, and he is the only one, minus Alexi, whose eyes haven’t been glued to my bodice all through dinner. He takes his wife and helps her out of her chair so very carefully, as though she is a precious gem and I can’t help but watch with envious fascination. The way he obviously still worships the woman, even with her wrinkles and grey hairs, the podgy midriff in a gold sequin dress and aged skin.

He’s no catch himself, in his late fifties or more, portly and short, but she’s looking at him like he is a complete Adonis and the infatuation is evident. If I was another girl I would go as far as saying it’s cute in a way, wholesome if you liked that kind of thing. I have no idea why it makes me feel wretched to watch them, welling up inside and a lump catching in my throat that makes my stomach ache.

I glance away with a show of indifference and catch Carrero’s eyes on me, watching me like a hawk, always watching for signs of my weakness, and he smirks. The rising of the pair give way to more couples getting up to head to the ballroom floor and it’s not long before Alexi and I are left alone, and he looks like he has no intention of dancing with me. He’s been cold, more so than normal, and I know it’s because my outright defiance is brewing in that brain of his. Probably thinking up a heinous punishment suitable for the crime and I sigh at him with open irritation.

‘‘What is it? Why are you staring at me?’’ I wish he was invested in my cleavage, but that’s not what this is, he’s in thinking mode and something devious is going on in that brain.

‘‘Is that what you long for?’’ He nods after the couples on the floor and I blink at him in confusion.

‘‘What are you talking about? A life here in the Hamptons with some old crusty man pawing at me? No thank you.’’ I have way more self-respect than to become a trophy wife to some wrinkly old man for his money. I’d rather make my own.

Alexi laughs and shifts to lean back in his chair lifting his dessert spoon and tapping it annoyingly on the surface.

‘’The love-sick man … adoring you and growing old together?’’ If he could have made that question any more steeped in sarcasm and disdain he would have, but it’s weighty as it is. I hate that he caught me watching them and my face colours with heat that maybe for a moment deep down I got a pang of what that could be like, to have someone love me … but I’m not stupid enough to ever want it or believe in it. I have seen the real face of men my whole life, it’s all just masks and fairy tales and the reality is a dark and cruel result.

The reality is men like Alexi and their belief that women are just objects they can do whatever they want to. His idea of love is ownership and punishment when you disobey.

‘‘I gave up on that fancy a long time ago. I’m a realist. I’m damaged goods and decent men, if they even exist, avoid women like me as though we are diseased. We are good for sexual use but nothing more.’’ I lift my wine and take a drink, trying to keep that enchanting smile in place while we are so public, but Alexi leans into me, dropping his spoon and props his elbow on the table so he cages me in. That good old feeling of claustrophobia washes over me. He has this down to a fine art form now.

‘’So what do you long for, London?’’ He looks decidedly predator tonight and I recoil a little inside, wary of Carrero fishing for information. I have fallen into that trap way too many times.

‘‘I long for a tall, dark, sexy and handsome man … To stop fucking calling me stupid pet names!’’ I bite back at him, raising my chin and give him a good old raised eyebrow of attitude before sitting back to cradle my glass. Alexi laughs under his breath and stays exactly where he is. Not fazed by my anger but revelling in it instead.

‘’Let’s dance, we can continue this conversation out there.’’ He doesn’t give me a chance to refuse, just grabs me, in the way he does by my arm, and yanks me with him to stand, so I have zero control of my limbs.