The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 48

My tears drying up when my brain moves to curiosity instead, and the smirk I see tugging at his face tells me I am not going to like the answer.

‘’I replaced you. Well, added to you, so when you come back, Joanne … My new girl is your co-hostess. Santagato is taken with her and as I rebuffed him on her too he thinks I’m just a possessive fuck. You’re not in his sights anymore, especially with your absence and my screwing Joanne a little publicly in the VIP lounge. It means he just thinks I don’t share my girls at all.’’ Alexi seems completely deadpan now with a tiny smug look in his eye as I completely churn around inside, my heart wrenching. I literally feel sick as tears sting, but I blink them away and swallow them all down hard.

Hating him more, wounded with the thought that he has slept with someone since he touched me. I know it’s stupid, and he’s been screwing women all along, but I don’t know, I thought maybe I was under his skin enough that it had to count for something. I don’t want anyone else, not since him and I hate the fact he’s touched someone else even though he’s not mine. I didn’t think he could inflict more pain on me, and yet he proves me wrong all over again.

I want him to go away from me, not touch me or even attempt it. He’s dirty and tarred with the touch of another skank, and he can go fuck himself for all I care.

‘’Is she going to cohabit in the apartment too, like a cosy little threesome?’’ I snap at him finding my fire now I’m fuelled on heartbreak, and Alexi looks taken aback by my change in demeanour, my sass prickling out to face the shithead completely head on, and I clench my teeth with added venom. He just smirks at me with sardonic amusement.

‘’Now there’s a thought, but no … She’s currently sharing my bed for now and she’s got her own place to stay. Something you should think about looking for.’’

Now that is something that makes me give him a ‘’what the fuck’’ look of utter shock. I physically blanch and cannot conceal the questioning gawp at the man who refused to let me leave and is now turning me out.

‘‘Now I can move out? Now you have some other tramp tending to your sadistic needs.’’ I shove him back, getting back to my feet, anger brimming and being stupidly reckless, but my rage is burning through me at a rate of knots and I want to stab him with something, anything sharp I can find. He knows how to fuck with my head and my heart, and I literally despise him at this moment.

‘‘She’s a much better fuck than you ever were, and she happens to like getting banged from behind, while being cuffed to my bed.’’ He scowls through an evil smile. Wrenching my heart through my chest and stomping all over it so much that I reach out and I slap him hard across the face without thought. It literally feels like the world just stops turning as the realisation of what I just did reverbs through me and my stinging hand drops to my side. I just stop breathing and curse myself inwardly for this impulsive idiotic reaction to this man.

If my first slap that night in his apartment felt momentous then this just topped that in fury, strength and skill, as a darkening red hand appears on Alexi's face and I just pale completely. So much for keeping my head down and becoming a ‘‘Yes sir.’’

What the hell Camilla? It just feels like everything falls silent around us, and he breaks into the cruellest smile I have ever seen.

‘’Classy. I told you once that you should keep your hands to yourself. I may not hit you but doesn’t mean I won’t let someone else teach you a little respect.’’ Alexi sounds devilish. If you looked up evil in the dictionary there would be a picture of him next to the word instead of a description. I don’t react as I’m in two minds about whether he would let someone else hurt me in ways he refuses too, and seriously do not know the answer to that.

When it comes to him I have no idea. He thinks he can keep hurting me but I give up caring anymore. It’s all too much, too big and too consuming and I can’t keep doing this. I can’t fear everything about him forever. He’s going to do what he’s going to do regardless. I can’t just back down and take it like all the other women he fucks, it’s not in me to put my head down and just take it anymore. I took it all for the years that I was a prisoner, and I won’t go back to that for anyone, not even him. I won’t allow another monster to keep me shackled and obedient while putting me through the depths of hell and torment. I will go down fighting all the way.

‘‘Do your worst, I don’t care about anything you do to me anymore, bring it on and see if I give a shit.’’ I stand my ground, faced with evidence of my slap on his cheek, and yet he seems completely oblivious. It must have hurt like hell as my hand feels like it’s swelling to double the size and burning in excruciating pain.

Alexi stands a little taller, pushing off from the wall to tower over me in all his glory. His eyes locked on me in a silent battle and that face of his returning to unreadable. It’s like a stand-off and I can almost imagine the line in the dust between us.

‘’You haven’t even begun to see my worst, London.’’

I just glare right back at him, trembling on my bare, feet but refusing to back down and show it this time.

I hate that I don’t even doubt that statement.

I don’t know what to think about Alexi and his punishments anymore. Nothing has happened, and I am on edge every second waiting for it.

After he came to my room he just left, silently, confidently, calmly and looking smug as fuck. Knowing how much he got to me and revealing another tool in his arsenal.

Jealousy and heartache, he knows it too. I put my heart on my sleeve without meaning too and showed him another woman could burn me. Biggest idiot move, EVER.

Long after Alexi walked out, Mico came up and told me to pack for the next morning. He said that we were going back to the city and back to the club. It was a weird moment and I swear it was almost like he was checking on me and evaluating the damage when he walked in. I wondered if he thought his cousin had roughed me up, and the look of relief was evident when he found me sane and sat on my bed contemplating some bitch named Joanne who thinks she can take over my place.

Mico is the one throwing me my orders nowadays. It’s like Alexi can’t even bring himself to talk to me anymore and in a way, I feel relieved. He’s avoiding me, giving me the silent treatment, and pretty much acting like I am invisible.

It was the quietest plane trip and car journey back, but now we’re at the club and morning is brimming with new light. I can see he never even slept here last night. The tell-tale signs and made bed before the cleaners have come up here say it all, and my stomach is aching with the possibility he probably slept in any number of the boudoirs on the second floor with his new squeeze.

Part of me is confused why he hasn’t paraded her in here and fucked her openly in his room while I am made to endure it. That’s his style and I know he will have thought about using it. I guess he’s biding his time for something more epic, seeing as I didn’t just run from him, I also hit him too.

Alexi is simmering, that clever brain of his is working out something appropriate for the crime, and not for the first time, I regret not following through with my running away plan when I had the chance.

I admire myself in the mirror for one last time. I’m wearing a new dress that I bought in a boutique in the Hamptons, it's long past my knee and figure-hugging everywhere. Capped sleeves and modest neckline yet it's crazily sexy and makes me look killer. It is pale coloured cream faux suede with serious body contouring going on, and I finish it with a narrow black belt at my waist to accentuate my curves, black patent stilettos to look classy and make my legs look divine. It makes my slim frame more elongated and I look taller than my normally crappy height of five feet six.

My goal is to dress to impress, return to that persona I spent years perfecting and act like I no longer care or can be affected by him. I am the queen of hiding my feelings and acting like a cold bitch, and it’s time I got back on track and did just that. He won’t see me broken and wounded, he will see me manicured, sexy as hell and not giving a shit about him anymore.

I always loved dressing up and looking elegant, never favoured the trashier styles and revealing clothes if I didn’t have to. I prefer subtle hints of sexy that drive a man’s mind wild, as it gives you more edge than putting all the goods out on show for everyone to sample. My hair's down and sleek as I had my colour retouched at my upper-class getaway, in a salon I used to use there, so it’s on fire and looking radiantly gorgeous. Makeup flawless and I have painted my talons black to match my mood. I’m in no frame of mind to take Alexi on today, but I look like I am and it might give me some of my self-confidence back that he is slowly chipping away every single day.

I put on my favoured mask of brave, sassy and indifferent then head downstairs in search of breakfast and something to occupy my day. It’s almost noon, my body clock still in time with the bar closing at four so this is my early morning.

We keep food in the apartment. Alexi has gourmet meals stocked in there weekly, but I have no desire to wait around heating one up and the bar staff do a mean grilled cheese that I can’t resist. I just need different scenery than the inside of that dark space and interact with some normal non-sadistic humans for a little while.

It is times like this I see the drawback in never allowing myself to have friends or allies. Always alone, always having to occupy myself and left with my own inner thoughts, overthinking when I could be talking to another human or sharing my woes. It’s the first time in my life I actually feel a little pang for just one real friend, someone else to lighten the burdens I carry.

I wander down to the ground floor, bypassing the office where he will be if he is still here.