The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 74

‘’I just wanted you to see me, to talk to me,’’ I whisper, lost in my own head and the surreal haze that’s surrounding me now. I feel like this is a dream and if I could rewind and go back a few minutes then I would. I sound like a crazy person having a mental break, maybe I am. Booze and Alexi’s head games pushed me to a place I never thought I would ever go. He broke me.

‘‘You know maybe you should just pull the trigger if it makes you feel better. Maybe it’s the only way out of this.’’ He smirks again and I focus my tear blurred vision on his face, breaking in two. A face I came to love and hate at the same time and now a face that sends the fear of God into me.

I don’t know if he’s being serious or playing with my head as he has that mask of deadpan on his face, and I cannot read him from his calm demeanour or lack of emotions at this moment. I want him to shut up and stop talking because he’s only making me worse, and I literally cannot stop shaking all over.

‘’Are you going to kill me?’’ It’s out before I can stop it and I swear there is a flicker of something in his eye that looks a little like hesitation, so fleeting I cannot be sure. My heart stops and my stomach somersaults, knowing that could mean the answer is yes. I knew I would never walk away from this.

‘’It’s more fun to make you suffer for a lifetime, London. I might just tie you up and keep you as my plaything in my little black room of whips and chains, teach you to never point a gun my way again.’’ The words are his usual venomous hatred but the tone is missing. He sounds as empty as I feel and his words don’t hit me with the same fear and intimidation that they normally do. It confuses me, but I know by now that he is all acts, games and lies and I should never fall for a single thing he does or says.

He is smarter than me and more able to play mind games. Even though I am the one holding the gun, I know I will be the one who dies tonight. He will turn this around somehow, and I’m no match.

‘’I just wanted you to care about me.’’ It’s heartfelt and true, words from my soul, barely breathed they are so quiet, but he hears me and weirdly he looks away and then down at his feet. I don’t know what I see, a glimpse of a look of remorse for a fleeting second, a lull in his master plan on how to handle this maybe?

Maybe just stalling so he can think of how to handle me, and my arms are already drooping with the effort of holding up this unearthly metal object. It’s like a tonne weight in my hands and even my shoulders are vibrating with the effort. It’s icy cold in my pale hands and crying out at me to drop it.

I need to do something and soon before he can simply walk over and take it from me. I should just give it to him. I can’t though. It’s all that stands between me and the world of pain he can reign down on me.

I can’t take anymore and my mind is waning, my strength is gone and I won’t be able to survive what he could do to me. All of this pain and longing will never have a happy ending for me.

Girls like me don’t have heroes and happy ever afters. They have lives like mine that end in some sad tragic way and no one remembers their name. There is no happy ever after for me. There is no way out.

The emptiness and desolation are not just about Alexi. It’s about me and my existence and knowing it will never get any better. These past few months was the closest to any sort of realness to relationships I have ever felt in my life, and all it has caused me is pain. It has highlighted how far from the road to worthy I am or will ever be.

I’m hopeless, worthless and no one cares what happens to me really, even Mico will forget about me in time. I will become a burden to him as I have done to Alexi.

It’s all there laid out in front of me with the most obvious solution in bold letters and I know what I must do to get out of this. I know how to put an end to this war between us and free myself from any more.

‘’You’re right you know?’’ I smile through my tears at him, taking in that face that I both love and despise, taking in the man who can be both my protector and my tormentor. I love him and I hate him all at the same time, and even now when I know he could be the one who puts out my flame, I have some sort of inkling of feelings for him in the embers of my burnt out soul.

‘‘About what?’’ He looks back up at me, his eyes softer than I have ever seen them and for a moment I wonder what he is really thinking behind that mask of cool indifference. The anger is gone and instead of a complete lack of any sort of expression, Alexi just looks tired.

He looks how I feel, but I don’t trust what I see though, I can’t. He’s devious and I should never forget that.

‘’Maybe pulling the trigger is the only way out,’’ I answer emptily, truly meaning it. I got myself here and the only way out ends in a bullet leaving this chamber. We both know it and maybe that’s what he has resigned to knowing too. If he tries to come at me I will pull the trigger, so he knows it’s pointless to try.

I look at the gun in my hands, adjusting to its heaviness in a bid to lift it higher, and stare at the simplicity of this thing that has the power to end a life. It’s him or me. I have a choice on how this ends.

You stop pain by removing the cause, right?

‘’Do us both a favour and go ahead, what are you waiting for? A change in me? It will never happen. I am who I am.’’ Alexi doesn’t sound like he normally does and even though his words sound confident, there’s a tinge of something else that makes me hesitate and glance back at his face. His eyes locked on mine, and yet I don’t see anything other than Alexi and his cool indifference. I hesitate, try to grapple any sort of anything from that face and get nothing at all.

I never did learn how to read him. I never really knew him at all.

Blondie is sobbing and clinging to the door on the floor over by the bedroom, but I zone her out. If she has sense like any of the women who live in this world she will go in there and shut the door, so she sees nothing. Women in this world know to keep their mouths shut; she should save herself from what she is about to witness.

I feel calmer suddenly, as though by somehow taking control of my actions and what I plan to do it softens everything into a hazy surreal dream. My heart slows and my panic sizzles into a sad acceptance. I sniff back some tears and smile softly through the haze of mess my face is in.

He isn’t going to try and stop me, in fact, it’s like he wants it too, and it kills all the last ounce of doubt in me. He has always been one step ahead and always knows what I am thinking and feeling, so he has to know what is clicking away in my mind right now.

He doesn’t care, and he is right—stop delaying.

‘’I wasn’t lying you know? It was never a game for me. I do love you, Alexi, and all I ever wanted was for you to love me too and see past what everyone thinks I am. I never lied to you, I never betrayed you. I changed because of you. You made me care.’’ I feel like he needs to know, I need to say it to him and want him to know I mean it.

I didn’t think I was capable of loving anyone and before I do what I am about to do I want him to know it. As awful as it was to fall for someone like him, he at least showed me that I could, and was not as broken as I always thought I was. He taught me I could still feel and I want it out there between us before I end this.

He says nothing, just stares at me with those soulless eyes, watching my every move, and doesn’t break the intense gaze he has on me. Silence stretched between us, and he is just ... immobile.

I wish I knew what he was thinking, but it doesn’t matter anymore, my mind is made up and I know how to be free of him. I lift the gun steadily, holding it tighter, feel the weight pulling my hands down, but I hold it steady and firmly tighten my grip. Determined within my haze of fuzzy head to finally put an end to the misery he causes me.

‘‘Just one bullet, right? That’s all it takes, one moment and it’s all over.’’ I’m stalling, afraid of the other side, but determined not to sway on my decision. I want this to stop and I want to be free of my torment.

‘’That’s right, one pull of a trigger will change your life forever.’’ He sounds sarcastic, a dry statement that I guess is a throwback from what he did at thirteen, the start of a path change for him that clearly affected him more than he ever wanted me to know. A moment of truth.

‘’I’m sorry … Please forgive me.’’ A tear rolls down my cheek, genuine sadness for what I know is coming, and for a fleeting moment, I think he tenses to reach for me but then returns to standing stock still, letting the gun point right at his heart. Fearless and unemotional!

I wouldn’t expect anything less from him. A sad anticlimactic end to a world torrent of a ride. I smile at him slowly, genuinely with tears trickling down my face, my eyes locked as though somehow I can draw strength from those beautiful greys.

I’ll miss seeing them.

Despite all he is, I will miss him.

This is it …

The end to all my troubles and maybe now I can finally know what it is to be that dandelion seed, set free on the breeze and finding her way in the wind.

Soaring to a better place where he can never touch me again.

I turn the gun to my own head and without hesitation, I pull the trigger.

End of book one – book two follows on.