The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 121

I had no one else though, and despite everything she did to me, I would still clean her up when she was laid passed out on the floor and covered in sick. I would put her to bed and try to clean our shitty rooms in a bid to please her. I would beg for money and food to take care of us. Even after that day, I still used my own wiles and skill to make sure our house had heat and food, and I never let her starve. She didn’t provide for us, she just laid around wasted.

I watched her when she was out of her face on a high, and I bathed her when she hit the sweats, shits, shakes and convulsions of withdrawal. I did my duty, and slowly over the years, all I felt for her disappeared along with her health and it became a burden instead. She taught me how to resent.

I didn’t have a childhood, I didn’t know what it was like to know affection or love, so even now I find it hard to give or receive that elusive emotion in a healthy way. Mico and Jackson are slowly changing that.

Alexi was another story.

Alexi taught me I could feel, but he never showed me how to love. He showed me how to be weak and let another human destroy you when you lower your guard in any way. How much more you can rip a person apart when you use their heart and mind as the weapon and not their body. Alexi maybe made me fall in love with him, but he never showed me what it was to be loved—not really. I still don’t know what that feels like.

That night I convinced myself was more than sex, I now see was nothing. He was playing me, and I fell for it hook line and sinker. So desperate to just mean something to him while he broke my heart in two. I don’t know if he can really love, or if he’s just a dark soul with no empathy for what he does to anyone.

Glimpses of him with his family show someone who can care when blood is the tie, but I don’t know if that’s an ingrained rule in his moral code, set by his upbringing; to respect and keep family close. I never actually saw any real affection that would tell me Alexi has any depth to how he can feel, even for them. I saw him playing the part of brother, cousin and human, but then he turned around and beat a man half to death without hesitation.

He seems to care for Gino, yet he hit him and almost killed him in their teens—His own twin—The other half of him. If that doesn’t tell me that his ability to really love is questionable then I don’t know what is. I just have to accept that Alexi Carrero is broken on a very deep level and I never stood a chance with him.

I seem to be someone who is drawn to these broken abusers and try everything to gain some sort of emotion from them. So lonely and pining for someone to care deeply. Alexi, my mother—both had my heart and devotion and both kicked me across the room as though I was worthless.

I bypass the couches, head caught elsewhere, and go straight to the kitchenette to put the kettle on and make myself a cup of tea. Filling it and switching it on and then absentmindedly getting my cup ready. The cleaner who takes care of this place unpacked some groceries for us yesterday and I have a rummage to see what is here, but nothing really grabs my attention. I’m in the mood for some self-indulgent food, comfort eating, and Alexi, the king of healthy, has a disappointing weekly order of great organic and balanced meals in there, as per usual. The guy is a walking fitness regime.

I really need to call up the shop he orders from and jig the food lists. It’s not that they send us the same boring stuff week in and out; it’s a varied gourmet plan of meals and such. It’s just there’s no chocolate or cake, and never anything like crisps and biscuits. Although cookies and chips, as they call them here, are something I have never seen him eat. I cannot imagine him sitting on the couch to pig out on junk food while watching a movie. I don’t think he watches TV at all; I have never seen him do it. In fact, I have never seen him relax like a normal human in any way and I don’t even know what he does to relax, if at all … well apart from sex. I guess that for him is time for himself; an activity that chills him out. It has to be, it’s the only thing he does that puts a smile on his face.

I live here now, this is my apartment, and it’s time I took over the food he has sent here and the million and one bottles of water of every flavour instead of wine. I need wine right now, lots of it—red and expensive and in large quantities.

I make my tea, throw my damp hair back off my face and turn to go sit on the couch when something catches my eye on the central coffee table. A colourful rectangular package and a cupcake in a plastic see through box drawing me like a singing choir in a quiet room. I blink a couple of times, sure I’m imagining it, and approach with caution, convinced they are some sort of wishful thinking mirage.

The cupcake is chocolate, richly dark and almost twice the size of a normal one. It seems to have decorations stabbed into its surface, in blue, white, and red. I move closer, intrigued and can’t help the little giggle that erupts when I see from my new angle that they are actually little British flags and sprinkles to match; Horribly London themed in the most amusing way.

The package is a long, small rectangle, but the wrapping paper has bright red London buses all over it and there is no denying these are for me. I am the only Brit in Alexi’s club after all.

Problem being … who are they from?

Only one person in this building ever locks onto the London thing and makes my Englishness a point of disdain. I stare at the gifts for a long moment, torn over whether he would or wouldn’t, holding my breath as intrigue eats at me and it dawns on me … He is the only person I told that it was my birthday, so that limits my options on who these are from. My heart flutters and flips over multiple times as this settles in and I second guess the likelihood.

He wouldn’t have then told Mico or anyone else; considering he said he understood the whole ‘no birthday celebration’ thing. And well, he wouldn’t deem it worthy or important anyway. My birthday is a nothing day to him. I thought it was anyway … but then there are gifts.

These have to be from Alexi, although I don’t get why he would even bother, and I prod the packet suspiciously. Sure there has to be a devious reason behind them, and it’s probably some hurtful present to get at me. He doesn’t do gifts, from what I have seen, and this just confuses me immensely. There has to be some sort of ulterior back stabby, get at me insult in this.

My nerves peek up, stomach churning with unease, and my anxiety swirls in my suspicious brain as I ponder them for a long minute and finally relent. I open the cupcake first and it instantly smells divine. Dipping my finger into the icing and almost die with the explosion of pleasure in my mouth as I suck it off; Rich chocolate vanilla with a hint of pistachio that is melt in your mouth heaven. My tongue erupts with flavour fireworks.

I know where this is from … that butter icing is a familiar treat and completely unique to that one bakery. My favourite cupcake bar, four blocks away and I can’t believe he knew to even get me one from there, or that this is my long-standing regular flavour choice. The only person who knows about this weakness is Jackson, who takes me there a couple times a week for my sugar craving. So it has to be a coincidence. He obviously just got local for convenience and assumed all women love the triple chocolate and vanilla supreme with pistachio icing. He couldn’t know it’s what I order almost every time, or that I have been pleading with them to create supersized for ages. One cake is never enough and two are too much, this is somewhere in between and perfection personified.

It’s too good to gorge while distracted, so I push it aside while focusing on the other packet that has my curiosity going haywire. I pull the little parcel towards me, turning it cautiously and trying to figure out what it is. My brain is fully on this now, and I am so zoned on the distraction I realise I am feeling a little different. Sombre mood is on the up thanks to a cake, and even though I know this gift will probably sober me in some sort of pissed off way, I am enjoying the fact I now have cake. My insides are bubbly and cheerful and my heavy, achy thundercloud is looking a whole lot whiter and fluffy.

I carefully lift it and shake it to see if I can figure out what it is and get a soft noise of something moving around faintly, turning it over to inspect the overly neat and clearly professionally wrapped item. Quaint buses and tiny little Union Jacks glaring me in the face and I envision Alexi for a moment calling me ‘London’ and smile strangely, a swelling feeling in my chest.

Screw it.

I rip into it and throw caution to the wind, revealing a long black velvet rectangle that looks alarmingly like a jewellery box. Gasping in genuine surprise and I drop the paper on the table, taking a deep breath before clicking it open. I pause in shock as a very delicate chain bracelet stares back at me, shining in bright silver where it’s daintily nestled—two small charms on one end, and yet, overall, it’s simple and classy.

This has to be a mistake.

I turn over the little metal charms impulsively and that feeling of disbelief hits me in the stomach all over again. My insides somersaulting and emotion chokes me with a lump in the throat, eyes misting over.

One has a diamond set in the centre of a little metal heart shaped plate, it looks real anyway. I know my diamonds and I doubt Alexi is the type to buy a fake when he goes to the effort of buying a gift at all. It’s a small pretty charm that just sparkles when it moves.

The other charm is the one that gets me the most though and I pale as I stare at the tiny little metal circle, stamped with the image of a dandelion head that’s as clear as day. Embossed into the silver and filled in with a darker almost black inlay so it pops out beautifully.

Why would he choose this?

I never told him my sentiment about the dandelions, or how I used to think I could fly free on the wind as though I were one. It was a childish idea written in some long-lost journals from my childhood that I left behind in England. I never told anyone of the importance to the tattoo on my hip. My ramblings of a broken girl who tried to get that mess out of her head were abandoned under a floorboard in a derelict building I left behind. I never wanted to see those tatty notebooks again.

That’s when it hits me—my tattoo!

It’s hardly hidden on my hip.

Alexi has seen me naked more than once, he never questioned it even though he saw it; maybe, he just assumes I like them. I mean I have one tattooed on my body after all. I guess it’s just an assumption that a girl would have that because she is fond of them. He notices these things, obviously an easy gift for him that didn’t require much thought.

I sigh and swallow down the sense of anxiety and panic that seeing this gave me and return to complete confusion, mind scrambled and emotions torn as I sit here and stare at this piece of very pretty jewellery.

There’s no obvious message in this gift. No digs at me or anything untoward. It seems like a thoughtful present on the surface and I pick it out to examine it while trying to figure out why he would even bother.

Its dainty, pure silver stamped with a mark to prove it, and so very gorgeous; just my style. The box is from a well-known jewellery store, known for its one-off pieces and extortionate price tag. Alexi must have paid a packet for something I am passing off as veiled insults.

I always tend to pick silver jewellery for myself, as gold looks odd on me. Cool toned skin suits cool toned metals when it comes to wearing them against naked areas. He obviously noticed.

If I were to choose something for myself then it would be exactly this, even though I have a love-hate relationship with my dandelion tattoo, but then that’s hardly a surprise considering we share similar taste. We managed to put together this whole club without argument on any design aspect, so I guess we just have an eye for the same kind of things.

It’s beautiful and despite myself, I put it on my wrist.

If I can just forget who it came from then maybe I can appreciate how much I like it.

I should give it back to him and keep things as they are. Business like, with a lot of mistrust and distance.

I sit back and hold my arm up, watching it sit there delicately and exhale long and slowly, blowing out of my mouth as though I have no clue how to behave. I don’t know what to think and even though common sense says put it back in the box and leave it here, I like it more and more the longer I look at it. He certainly pulled the rug out from under me with this, and I can’t settle until I know why or what he hoped to achieve with it.

So much for birthdays being a day we can just bypass. He doesn’t celebrate his but buys me something for mine? This would have taken some effort on his part to get this and leave it here, since I spoke to him yesterday afternoon, and now explains how I remember the smell of his aftershave in the apartment. He obviously came up here himself to leave it.

Not really the Alexi I know at all. Sneaking in, leaving this and leaving me be as I asked.

Just when I think I have a handle on what a douche bag he is, he does something to knock me over and set my brain on another messed up path to confusion. I can’t help but think this is a gameplay at trying to get back in my favour. I’m too resistant and the kiss at the club showed him I am no longer easy to seduce.

Isn’t this what he does? … Pulls back and comes in gently with a new arsenal when things are not playing his way; hitting me from an innocent angle to soften me up before he strikes?

I don’t know anymore.

I pick up the cake and take a bite, distracted, still glued to my wrist in thought, and yet I just can’t seem to take it off.

Fuck it.

I like it, and he obviously spent money on it, so whatever his intentions were, I am keeping it. It only becomes something to use against me if I let him, and it’s no different to maxing his credit card on a shopping spree. Let him spend money on me if he thinks it’s going to get him somewhere—it won’t. I know him better than he thinks, and I am done looking for hints of good in him.

Once bitten twice shy. Or in my case, I have been mauled to death by him and have no intention of letting him get a sniff near me again.