The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 91

‘When you put it like that.’ I cross my arms as though I have every intention of standing here all day and he sighs, moving off the frame and pulls the door with him with a look of ‘Okay then.’

‘Knock when you want in. I’m busy.’ He makes a move to shut the door and I gawp in disbelief, angered at his arseholeness, and then lose my stubborn immediately as it gets dangerously close to being shut and lightning claps the sky overhead. A spark of intense light and head snapping crack above me that makes me yelp out. Heart attack imminent as rain follows in a sudden flash downpour.

‘Wait!’ I half squeak half yell it at him as I make a dash forward, forgetting all resistance and run for safety, ducking down as though I may be struck at a distance by that bolt of scary in the sky and getting sodden for my efforts. I hate that he made me fold, well the weather did, and as the door swings open slowly again to accommodate me getting in beside him this time, I see that smug face of the player I know and despise.

‘You’re a wanker,’ I retort at him, stomping up the stairs and waltz past him haughtily. Refusing to look him in the eye as I get in the door and shake the water from my thin jacket automatically. I hadn’t bargained on bad weather, so I am wearing the thinnest of summer jackets that’s taken the brunt of it.

‘So you keep telling me.’ He follows me into the dark club, dim after the bright daylight outside, and I skirt ahead trying to get my eyes to adjust before he gets too close. Stepping down the low stairs to the sunken floor of the centre of the bar, onto the plush carpeting which makes my feet sink into it deliciously. I look around, blinking as my eyes adjust to the dullness.

I notice immediately that things seem different somehow. I can’t quite put my finger on it at a glance, but there’s definitely enough of a change to make my hackles rise and my eyes start scouring walls, chairs and the bar to try and see what it is that’s making me pause. The initial overwhelming feeling at being back in my space, my first real home, is short-lived as gut instinct takes over and pushes me to start inspecting protectively. This was my palace and something is off.

So many conflicting emotions at being back here and it hits me with a soft pain in the chest just how much I missed this place. A sob catching in my throat at all that is around me, screaming at me to come home. I have to steady my trembling hands against my flat stomach, and for once, something other than Alexi affects me on every level. My club has more presence for me right now than he does, and I am distressed with a feeling that it’s somehow suffering and calling to me. I feel like the long-lost child who has finally come back into the arms of its mother. Well, not my mother, she was batshit crazy … Mother club.

The room is still dark and glossy with the same seating and general outlay, but the walls don’t seem right. The colour seems brighter in the lack of overhead lighting, and in fact, the lack of light makes me look up to see why it is so dim in here. There’s a weird fogginess to the room which kills the cosy atmosphere I spent hours creating.

‘What is that?’ I point up at the ugly globe light thing in the place of the crystal chandelier I hand-picked for this room as I cross the marble floor and fix my eyes to the distasteful intruder. It’s barely enough to see where you are walking, let alone light this room. It also looks ridiculous in this décor and minute on such a vast ceiling that demands grandeur and opulence. It’s like a scar on the dark paintwork.

‘We had a flood from the new sprinkler system, and had to change out some fixtures and fittings, repaint the walls. There was a lot of cosmetic damage that took a few weeks to put right again.’ Alexi offers in way of answer.

That’s it! The walls are a different shade, even in this light I can tell and that thing over my head is dreadful and out of place. The reason it feels like my club is different is because it’s a pale comparison to what I built. It’s been repaired, replicated, yet somehow not. They changed things, made it look thrown together and cheap and it smarts like a bugger. My heart wounded stupidly.

‘You picked that?’ I point up at it and Alexi looks up too, shrugging as he scans the fixture and looks back at me as though he doesn’t understand my obsession with a light fixture.

I was the one who poured over the finer details, not him. He never understood my OCD when it came to finding the right things to go in these rooms, or my inability to settle for a compromise in décor choices. He left me in charge for that very reason.

‘I left it all to Joanne. I wasn’t here.’ He answers in complete disinterest, unable to see what’s wrong with this picture. Annoying me immensely and setting my teeth on edge.

No wonder his stupid club is failing, if they ignore what makes it high class and appealing and replace things with inferior alternatives which kill the ambience.

I stop my pacing as something else catches my eye, halting in outrage impulsively, as Alexi walks right into the back of me with a thud that makes me yelp. Colliding ungracefully and hurting my arse and shoulder as his hard figure hits me with minor assault.

‘Sorry … Don’t stop suddenly.’ He snaps accusingly, throws me a shady look and moves to my side; I just turn on him, anger simmering from the depths of somewhere and square up to him furiously. Not caring about how close he is or that he did, in fact, move from behind me without being asked — I have more important issues to pick with him.

That bitch took down the club name from the fucking wall. The name I picked and had made into a large ornate gold-carved oval which used to have pride of place in the centre of the bar wall. It’s gone and some disgusting modern art of people fucking hangs in its place. It’s putrid!

‘Let me get this straight … you let that classless Walmart reject make décor decisions on your million-dollar night club because … you were busy? You let HER take control of important decisions which affect the look and feel of your high-class gentleman’s club? Then you have the nerve to act like it’s nothing!’ I almost spell it out at him, the venom evident in my voice, anger bubbling in my veins at high temperature levels and I can barely contain the shaking inside of me. He just blinks at me as though I have lost the plot.

This club was my sweat and soul and Alexi spent as much time as me pouring over details for the high-class finish he wanted. It took weeks of one-on-one conversation, magazines, design boards and endless shopping trips where I maxed out his credit cards.

He means to tell me that when it needed repairs, he let that trailer park tramp pick out this crap from a dollar mart catalogue, because he just didn’t have the time to care?

I think I may just flip my shit.

‘I was busy. I have more important things to do in my week than deal with this.’ He looks completely unfazed and indifferent. I blanch at his unacceptable answer and frown furiously. Heart beating hard as my temper soars and I try to take steady calming breaths to control the fiery pit threatening to consume me.

Oh my fucking God, he makes my blood boil.

‘What else has she ruined? What other crass choices has she made and thrown on MY fucking club? ’ I throw my hands on my hips, that fierce in me coming out because I am damn protective of this place, and the thought of that skanky bitch undoing all my hard work in one fell swoop has me eating broken glass. I hate that snivelling prat with a vengeance and she just gave me a reason to want her to choke. Now I’m raging and engulfed in pure venom. My eyes tearing everything apart manically and I inhale as a smell lingers around me that I noticed coming in, but didn’t analyse until now.

It smells damp and musty in here as though it’s gone unaired for months. I start sniffing through my blocked and bunged up nose, like a crazy person, and Alexi lifts a comical brow at me studying my behaviour.

‘Look, Cam, there was a flood and she took care of it. I haven’t stopped to ask what that entailed, just paid the bills and let her get on with it. Truth be told, this is the first time I have been here in months and really haven’t had time to evaluate it.’ Alexi sounds defensive, as though answering to me rather than explaining, and seems hesitant. I don’t care how odd he is being, I am livid with him. He was meant to look after this place. He has let it turn to ruins. This was OUR baby, our joint pet project.

‘You’re an idiot. I can’t believe you didn’t care enough to even keep tabs on this or bothered to make the decisions at all. What the fuck is wrong with you?’ I am so enraged I cannot even contain it and Alexi is acting like this is no big deal, like he just doesn’t get how much I loved this place. I adored, held close, was proud of and worshipped these walls. It was mine … it was ours … and now it stinks.

Where the fuck is my bloody Club logo?

That thing cost three grand and weighs about ten kilos. If that bitch has tossed it, I will break her fucking face.

I throw down my jacket and bag on the floor, roll my sleeves up to inspect, for myself, just how much she has abused my rooms. I storm off towards the bar to examine it more closely, gawping and blanching at the rows of cheap booze on the smeared glass shelves—Dusty, dirty, unloved and covered in spillages. I feel sick at the sight of it all.

I waltz to the end, flip up the hatch and walk behind the bar on a mission, rage fuelling me now and ignoring how sick and tired I was when I arrived. I run my finger along the front of the bottles, across surfaces and glassware and grit my teeth at the black and encrusted dusty finger I pull back. The dust which clings to my skin makes me simmer like a demon from hell.

‘Have you seen this? The place is fucking filthy!! What’s with this booze? What the hell are you serving this shit for? It’s cheap and nasty and would be the same as serving your clientele battery acid!’ I swipe up a bottle of middle-grade whisky and wave it in the air towards him, wielding it like a weapon and slam it down on the surface harshly when all he does is continue silently to watch me get myself worked up into a tornado of fury. Annoyingly vacant in a casual pose.

This is crap he would never even serve his staff, not even the lowest paid, let alone his prized clientele. It is cheap tat and looking around I can see most of the drinks have been replaced with mediocre quality booze and nothing looks clean at all. In fact, there are smears on every polished surface and the very floor I am standing on is stained and sticky below my feet. Tears bite my eyes and I swallow down a huge lump in my throat at the incompetence of the people I left behind to keep this place afloat. He should fire every fucking one of them!

He crosses his arms over his chest and stands immobile in the centre of the floor watching me, that face completely deadpan and I turn back to the rows of bottles in front of me getting madder with every label I can see.

‘If she isn’t keeping up the hygiene on the bar what’s the bet the rooms are a fucking disgrace, and what is that rank smell? Alexi, what the fuck have you let her do? Did everything I implemented get thrown out the door along with me?’ I snap at him, unable to keep the hysterical heartbreak out of my voice, and he at least has the sense to look down and sigh.

My blood is boiling as I pull out glasses which are smudged and still dirty with residue of lipstick too. I slam them on the marble top noticing the bloody thing is covered in gouges and scratches, and run my hand over it angrily to feel out what I maybe cannot see. Leaning down to look across the surface in the shittiest light ever and smack my palm on it when I see more along the top of the full length of it. One long scrape from three feet down all the way to the end as though something heavy was dragged along it.

‘Waste of Italian fucking marble. Look at this shit! You didn’t pay a crap load to let the staff treat it like a chopping board.’

I am on rant mode and Alexi is not saying a word anymore, just letting me get it out it seems.

I can’t contain it. Storming out and heading straight for the first of the rooms like a hellcat on fire and almost kick it open when it jams slightly. The door frame warped, no doubt from water damage she hasn’t seen fit to get replaced, and I am faced with a room that stinks of damp, sweat and sex that makes me gag. A wave of nauseating smell hits me in the face like opening a furnace door; I turn my head and almost puke. Putrid air and visible uncleanliness, dim lighting that adds a grubby hue to everything in here. I can see a dirty vibrator peeking out under the corner of the bed, which has stained with filthy sheets from weeks of sex and God knows what else, and that’s more than enough for me. Bile continues to rise in my throat at the sheer pain from seeing my hard work has turned to absolute shit. She is a dirty bitch who has let this place become infested with filth.

I turn on him in the worst mood I have ever been in my life. All rational thoughts and feelings have been left in the middle of the floor, and I am so close to bursting into tears that I cannot contain it anymore.

‘I can’t handle this … that’s disgusting. Have you smelled that room? I bet the rest are worse … How could you let it get like this? Why don’t you care?’

My voice breaks as one silent tear escapes and trickles down my face. The thought she could single-handily destroy something I took so much pride and joy in makes me feel sick to my stomach. It’s all I ever had in my life that made me feel worthy of being someone else. It’s where I put all my effort into doing something I could have pride in! I was more than a broken prostitute within these walls.

‘Cam … I wasn’t here, this is all news to me too. I didn’t know it was this bad.’ Alexi is on the defensive again, tone low as he looks around the room with a fresh eye and shakes his head as it comes to rest on a broken mirror on the far wall. He doesn’t look pleased and seems abnormally sombre and guilty. Finally, he is seeing what I am and having some sort of reaction, although it’s nowhere near as intense as mine. I want to curl up and bawl my eyes out.

One of the huge custom-made gold gilded mirrors, cracked right along its ten-foot centre, has been left hanging up there like that would ever be acceptable. Not only is it horrendous to see but if that glass fell out of that frame, it would kill somebody. I can only guess at how out of hand the nights in here have been getting if they smashed one of the mirrors mid-party. Joanne doesn’t give a toss about this place—evidently. She doesn’t get what it means at all, what it means to me.

It’s out of my mouth before I even have a chance to think it through, moved by how much this has hit me and not thinking straight. All I can see is the mess, the flaws, the bad choices, broken things and the filth, and I know that left to her she will never look after this place the way it deserves. My baby needs me.

‘I want my club back! Mine to do with as I please and you can take that sloppy wench and tie her up in your fucking room indefinitely for all I care. She touches my club again I will cut her fucking hands off.’ Tears start rolling, complete conviction inside of me as I try to pull myself together. Common sense in the back of my brain telling me to slow down and think about this … but it’s too late. I’ve seen it now and I can’t unsee it; this will haunt me for a lifetime if I abandon it now.