The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 84

‘You don’t look well and this place is hardly the Hilton.’ He nudges my shoulder with his and I smile softly, fully aware of how things are. Amazed by how quickly my insides are returning to normal and the effects of one smouldering Carrero in the corner are wearing off now I am over the worst of the shock. I’m still not repentant over throwing things at him; I’m just sorry I only hit him once. I’m still smarting, but it’s hard to stay enraged and high octane when your body is giving up on you.

I think I am in dazed shock at his presence though, it doesn’t really feel like he is here. This is a weird dream after months of sleeping.

‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ I respond quietly, fully aware that this is barely better than sleeping under a bridge right now and freeze when I catch Alexi’s feet moving towards me across the floor. I won’t show him that his proximity gets to me, so even when he walks over and sits on the arm of the chair at the other side of me, a few feet away, I try to ignore him completely.

Easier said than done when your body decides to go into over the top high alert the second he’s within five feet. I blank him out as though he isn’t there.

Alexi has fallen silent and seems to be staring at me as though something intensely alluring is on the side of my face. It’s distracting but I continue to look at the door in front of us as the man working on it opens it slightly and starts messing with the edge, Mico looks up too.

Alexi, I’m assuming, is trying to dig through my skull and extract information on who would dare bruise something he clearly still considers his possession and has no interest in anything much else right now except my head. Maybe he is just fantasising about tying me up and punishing me to his heart’s content. He’ll never fucking change.

His intense gaze on me is uncomfortable and I really cannot decipher the weird sombre vibe I am getting from him when he’s this close. Or his odd silence now we are no longer physically fighting.

Four months of him eating my brain every night and in one tiny little twenty-minute meeting with him again I remember every reason I left the hospital and never looked back.

He’s an arsehole.

I sigh as the tension hits peak level and turn to Mico in complete bewilderment.

‘I don’t want him here. I don’t need him here, so why is he here?’ I say it softly, completely exhausted and I don’t care that he is right beside me. I don’t want to talk to him or look, or smell, or feel him close to me anymore. I can barely breathe with him in my room. Alexi is the last person in the world I ever want to be around again.

This isn’t what I need.

‘He’s only here as long as I am. The door is almost done, and then he won’t be much longer on other things. Look, Camilla, I think you should let me put you in a hotel for tonight and I can come see you again in the morning; alone, to talk properly.’ He gives Alexi a look over my head, sort of serious and yet apologetic now my back is on him, and I shake my head in irritation at this show of command when really there is no hierarchy in this situation. This is between Mico and me!

It’s got fuck all to do with Alexi so he can stop seeking permission from him and let me deal with my own shit.

‘I don’t need a hotel. Look, I’m sorry if I seem ungrateful when you came down here to help me. I’m just … I just don’t want to do this. Not with him. I’m sorry but that ship sailed and we have nothing to say to one another.’

‘He came here to talk, make sure you were okay. Things have changed in your absence … if you just …’ Mico looks perplexed, but I don’t want to hear it.

‘Don’t Mico. I’m too tired for this.’ Mentally and emotionally.

‘What if he has something more to offer than this?’ He gestures around the room but I burst out laughing and stand up, no longer able to deal with the way my body is goose bumping all over with his proximity, or how hemmed in he has me feeling. I feel claustrophobic, restless and antsy. Alexi has me all out of whack and I need him to just leave.

‘Not unless it’s his head on a platter.’ I avoid looking his way, but I am more than aware his eyes are following me.

‘It’s negotiable.’ Alexi interjects with a level tone that tells me nothing of his seriousness, and this time I spin on his face angrily. Annoyed he is trying to make light of things in this way, and just eternally irritated by everything he does, in general. He knows how to stoke my embers back to fire anyway.

‘Are you trying to be funny?’ I snap, good old temper rising once more, and throw a pointed snarl his way. Sensitive to everything that comes out of that man’s mouth.

‘God forbid I would do that, right?’ He snarls right back at me, his own temper going off again when pushed by mine and now I see why this was such a dumb idea. Neither of us is capable of being in one room without wanting to rip each other’s faces off. Mico should never have brought him and I don’t care what offer he might have. This is proof we will never work out in any way.

‘I didn’t know you had a sense of humour or knew what a joke was? I am just amazed you even attempted something you clearly have no aptitude for.’ It’s sarcastic, cold and venomous. Back to juvenile and Mico slumps and buries his face in his hands with a long low groan.

‘Would you two give it a rest? I have a major headache coming on.’ He sounds defeated, giving up on us and Alexi gets up to tower over me once more. Imposing and intimidating, but I am not about to back down for him ever again. I bristle as he takes up a position right in front of me, clearly ready to go at me again. I stand taller and lift that bloody chin of mine!

‘I’m sorry; I learned my wit from you. Queen of sarcasm, and couldn’t help lowering myself to your level.’ He snarls right at me, turning slightly, so we are face-to-face once more and I have to grit my teeth instead of knee him in the balls like my brain is telling me to do. I have to simmer the salty bubbling inside of my stomach and keep the absolute fury off my face.

He just knows how to get right inside my head and twist, twist, twist.

Wanker!

‘You will never be on my level, Baby, but one thing is for sure … it’s not beneath you at all. I am so out of your league you’re practically non-existent from my viewpoint.’ I toss back my hair and give him my best Camilla sass move, raising brows and smirking evilly.

‘Yeah, this is such a classy look … Baby! I’m so gutted that I don’t meet your standards.’ He picks up a strand of my lank, mousy brown hair and tugs it, that smarmy look that makes me want to punch him in the throat and reminds me how crappy I actually look. I may feel like Camilla at this moment, but I don’t resemble her at all, and he just bruises my ego by pointing it out.

‘My class is more than skin deep. Unlike you that is. You have about as much depth as a puddle.’ I raise a sarky brow, biting on my own tongue to hide my venom and try to sound unaffected by him.

I swear Mico gives up on life. He sighs, groans and gets up and walks to my kitchen and starts looking for a kettle, or something to do while we have ourselves an immature squabble over here. I think he’s resigned himself to the fact this is the inevitable outcome, and he should just stay out of it.

‘Mature … as always, London.’ Alexi raises his brow right back and I cave immediately. Both with the snide remark and the use of that not cute, ever fucking irritating pet name he likes to use on me when he is being a prick. Temper that has been brimming inside all this time just explodes with that little superior fucking put down, and all my hatred and loathing is right back in his face.

‘Why don’t you do us all a favour and go fuck yourself??’ I scream at him, losing my cool and letting loose.

‘Why? When I can just fuck with you! It’s way more fun and not that hard,’ he spits back, an evil glimmer of that sadistic controlling prick who uses punishment as a method to intimidate, and I snap.

‘Go and choke, you complete fucking wanker!’ I squawk like a crazy.

‘I like the idea of choking … pretty sure you would make a good test subject.’ He just sounds sinister as fuck and I quake deep inside, no longer in control of my reactions, but it doesn’t deter me at all.

‘Try it and I will cut your fucking balls off with something blunt!’ I’m seething with rage, making threats and taking no heed of the voice of reason in my brain trying to calm me down.

‘Not this again.’ Mico interjects, pushing between us as tempers reach sky-high and my urge to start chucking shit at Alexi’s head starts all over again. He pushes us apart forcefully and gives Alexi an extra shoulder punch as though somehow, he is more at fault than me, and Alexi just continues to glare past him right at my eyes. I won’t back down either.

‘I’m done … get the fuck out of my apartment, you complete tosser.’ I yell in rage at him and throw my hands in the air, done with all of this and eager to finally put my head down somewhere soft and forget he ever existed once again. I am fast unravelling and the longer I stand here, the more exhausted I feel.

‘If that’s what you call this dump!’ Alexi snorts right back at me, tone full of sarcasm and arrogant prick face self-importance.

‘Well, you won’t mind fucking leaving it then, WILL YOU?!?!’

I don’t look back but storm off to my bedroom, so overly frustrated with his bullshit, and shut the door on both of them with a massive slam that makes the thin walls vibrate and a poorly hung picture falls off inside my room with a bump. Luckily it has no glass and I turn and pace around angrily, seething with the nerve of the god damn arsehole.

Not able to contain the way my body is shaking, both with adrenaline, anger and fever and all the mess going off inside of me as everything collides into one finally.

My body was holding being sick at bay while fuelled on whatever that was out there, but it’s well and truly worn off and I just feel wretched; waves of heat and cold, overwhelming nausea and runny nose. I am slowly falling apart.

I sit down on the end of my bed when weakness hits me low in the gut, and it’s only then I realise it’s less chaotic in here and my clothes are hanging on hangers on the bathroom door. Mico must have been busy while waiting for me. I never pegged him as someone capable of domestic and I don’t get why he would bother. Guess he was passing time as it took me ages to get over here; while Alexi was out looking for me. I push that thought away fast.

Right now, I don’t know how to feel.

Numb, shocked and tired, like my brain can’t cope with anymore tonight after the shit day I had, among other things. I feel like my brain is going to explode.

I really do not know if what I just walked into was an actual dream, or maybe a nightmare, and the surreal aura going off around me could be that I am really caught in a drug-induced terror and really none of it has happened at all.

Alexi is doing what he always does—fucking my head up brutally and it’s testimony as to why he should stay away from me … Forever.

There’s a gentle knock on my door and I stiffen, unsure which of them it will be, then logically realise Alexi the prick would just walk in because he thinks he’s king of the world and owns everywhere his bloody feet go. He wouldn’t bother knocking; especially not in something I call my own. He thinks he owns me and all that goes with it.

‘What is it?’ I call back gently, rasping because yelling only made my throat worse, and I am on the verge of stupid tears over a stupid man.

‘I need to go get something, but I’ll be back and … Alexi wants to talk to you Camilla, please, for me, hear him out.’ It’s Mico, sounding quietly gentle and stable and I feel guilty for sitting in here sulking at him. However, I also want to laugh at the most ridiculous thing Mico could have said to me.

‘I don’t want to talk to him. There is nothing in the world he could say that I would ever want to hear.’ I sound childish, petulant and it’s not Mico’s fault. He’s just stuck between me and his lord and master and trying to not be the bad guy. I don’t know why he is so suddenly pro Lexi and Cam but I don’t care. I just want them to both go away now. The last dealings I had with King Carrero was him trying to evict me from his life, so why would he even try to have a conversation with me now?

‘You might want to hear this given your current situation.’ Mico says louder and I just stare at the door in suspicion.

‘I doubt it … I’d rather eat shit and die than listen to anything Alexi might say to me.’ I know I am being childish. That man out there stole every ounce of my sanity and left me in a hospital to rot. He never checked if I was okay in the three days I was there. He never showed up, never enquired about me or anything. I was just disconnected and left to go out into the world alone. He never once stopped to wonder about the girl he slept with more than once and then pushed to an attempted suicide at his hands. He made me feel worthless.

In the four months I have been gone it’s like he never even existed, no word, no sign, no slight hint, and now suddenly, he wants me to come out because he has something to say. He’s a bully and a control freak and there’s nothing I want from him.

Hell, to the NO!

‘Camilla, please. Just listen to him, this is as much for you and me as it is for him. After he’s done talking he’s going to leave … he promised me. I’ll be back soon; the carpenter needs something to secure your windows.’

‘Mico, wait! Don’t leave me with him.’ It’s out like a frightened pathetic kid who thinks the bogey man is out there to get her and her only protector is legging it.

Who will stop him acting like a total loony if I piss him off again and he gets a proper hold of me?