The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 152

Alexi tilts his head as my lips meet a tad aggressively and cups my jaw with his hand to pull me snugly and comfortably as he ducks lower. Pushing his fingers into the underside of my hair, clamping me to him possessively and taking immediate control. Not that I’m surprised or complaining. I have a serious weakness for this man dominating me the second kissing or sex is involved. Weirdly, as in life, I hate it when he exerts his authority over me at any other time. He’s my alpha male though, and in this, I don’t want his submission; I want him to devour me. He’s his most impressive when he is in control in this way. He makes me feel desirable and addictive when he overpowers me sexually.

He kisses me softly at first and then opens his lips to tease mine with them and traces my tongue with his. Sensations swirling, making me dizzy and giddy all at once. Waves of flutters rushing from my head to my toes and my body responds quickly.

Alexi kisses me tenderly rather than passionately, keeping it to a simmer rather than a scorching hot make-out session but it still gets me breathless and heated to my core. Heart bouncing in my chest as his other hand slides around my waist and pulls my body to him so my curves mould to his hard lines. A perfect match. A body to make girls go weak and the confidence to use it.

He pulls me up to meet his height a little more, so I’m almost stretched out and then more, because I have flats on which leave me a lot smaller than him. He continues tracing my tongue and kissing me into oblivion until the vibration in his pocket courses between us and I jump in fright. Struggling to catch my breath and instantly turning red at how quickly I submerged myself in him.

He chuckles when he releases me, just enough to pull his cell phone out and looks at the screen.

“Call for some food, phone is on the wall. I need to take this, it’s Mico.” He leans in and kisses me chastely on the lips, an oddly natural moment that seems too fluid and then lets me go to wander off and answer his cell. Still within earshot but not so I’m staring at him while he converses.

I take a minute to catch my breath, steady my pounding heartbeat and get some life back in my weak limbs. His kiss just ruins me.

I turn and flick open the first menu on the pile and browse the selection while trying to get my hormones and heart under control. Acting outwardly like I’m not as affected as I am. Breathless and tingling all over from his attention and still trying to get a handle on my erratic mood. My heads all over the place. Standing here taking a moment to gather myself and wondering what the hell I’m doing.

I pretty much just told him I’m in on this. I’m willing to see where it goes. I kissed him after telling myself I would play him to see him snap and remind myself what an arse he is. It’s hard to remind myself of his bad if I’m rooting for the good and secretly hoping this is what he says it is.

I feel like an idiot for caving in the first hour of Alexi trying to be the nice guy, and I need to remind myself how much of a devious manipulator he can be when he wants something.

Except … all he wants is me, so where does that go?

Manipulating me to get me to love him back … it hardly sounds like a bad thing when I put it that way.

I push it aside and try to focus on the task at hand and the here and now. Food, always good for distracting me from life for a while. Giving my head time to catch up with the programme.

I stare at the menu for a long minute, really pondering if he truly wants something between us, and all this is real. If this is who he can be for me. Failing at putting it out of my head and stopping myself from turning and watching him as he talks to Mico. I can still hear him; he sounds upbeat and happy and unusually good-humoured with his cousin.

Maybe, just maybe …

Am I being weak and stupid and falling for his BS all over again?

I glance over my shoulder, despite myself, as he paces around talking and he catches my eye as he turns, throwing me a sexy smile and a loaded look. My heart skips a beat and I look away fast, not sure I like the fact he has always been in control of my body’s reactions and now infiltrating my mind and soul in so many ways.

I scan the menu quickly to make a show of not being rattled, pick out a pork and mushroom dish I like and lift the handset. I already know Alexi’s order, seeing as he has circled items on this paper, and I guess they are his regular orders. Only someone with a habitual order would circle his menus when he comes here, and it surprises me that someone as spontaneous as him has such rigid eating habits. Then maybe not. He likes control and safety; he loathes the unknown and not controlling outcomes, so I guess ordering the same dish isn’t a surprise at all. I really am learning about him.

I phone through the order and they tell me it will be thirty minutes. I hang up and turn to see he is still on his phone and sat on the bottom step of his metal staircase, kicking off his boots and getting comfy. Lost in conversation with his right-hand man and I look around for something to do while he’s busy. I can hear the change of tone to serious and know they have moved to business. Always connected to his world in some way. Always commanding, even from afar. It’s how he is, and I don’t mind it when it’s not aimed at me. It’s reassuring to hear how fluidly he can blend from this to that persona in a way.

He wouldn’t be Alexi otherwise.

I pull out cutlery from the drawers and set up the trunk in the room for food, with plates and stray candles I found in beside the bowls in his cupboard. They are not the romantic scene setting type, but more of a ‘power out and in need of light’ stash that most kitchens have. I set them up on saucers and get the space looking a little rustic cosy. He may not have a romantic bone in his body, but I know what I like, and it’s a candlelit take-out with a sexy Italian, making small talk. There is nothing wrong in setting a pretty table. I’m all about the details and ambience, it’s what I’m good at.

I walk over and flip through his CD collection, picking out a smoochy slow album from a band in my teens. Surprised he would even own it and stick it on his stereo. This whole apartment is clearly a throwback from his teens as I don’t think people own CDs anymore. Or even stereos to play them on. It has an old back to the nineties feel and I adore it. I never had much of a teenage part of my life, so this is quaint and cute.

Alexi finally gets off the phone, saying goodbye while sounding upbeat and jovial and leaves it sitting on the stairs before wandering over to me. I know Mico is in the know about what’s happening with us and seems to be keeping himself scant and neutral. Letting things develop without playing interference.

“I’m guessing you ordered my usual?” He smirks and I nod at him, knowing he means the circled food, and go to sit down on the floor by the trunk, preferring that to a seat, right in front of his faux fire on the glass screen in the surround. It’s completely fake but it has a warming effect and he comes to sit down opposite me on the floor too. He pulls over his family album and flicks through it while swigging on his now warm beer, eyes down and nothing readable as he does so. I take a sip of my wine and watch him, aware that I put a table between us because I no longer trust myself. I need to stop falling into him at every opportunity and slow down. We came here to see how things could go, and at this rate, I will be naked and climbing on top of him before dawn, reminding myself just how good he is in bed.

No sex. It has to be that way.

“What are your other siblings like?” I enquire genuinely, shaking the Alexi porn out of my head, wondering if he and Gino are a one-off or if their weird dark side runs among them all. Gino is no angel, but he has his Alexi moments too, just not as extreme. He’s the tamer, more socially acceptable version.

Boring, in other words.

“Nothing like me. My two younger sisters are shy and reserved but my baby brother is a bit wilder. He’s only ten though, so nothing major.”

“Wow. I imagined they would all be adults. I can’t imagine you with a kid brother. That’s weird. Do you like kids?” I ask cautiously, swallowing hard and wondering if it’s something he sees in his future one day, knowing it’s not a reality for me or even something I want. Kids put the fear of God into me. He has not mentioned what he sees in terms of children in his future, so I guess that means he sees none.

“I neither like nor dislike children. I have a lot of them in my family, so I’m used to them when they’re around. I never really thought about it. I guess I tolerate them.” He shrugs it off and slides the album to the floor, coming to rest his elbows on the table and gazes at me. Confirming my belief that he has no great desire to be a dad and I let it go contentedly.

“Nice touch.” He nods at the candles and I blush and look at the fire instead, wondering why I added the element of romance. My plan was to suss him out and here I am egging myself into something more with him at super speed. I realise I’ve set this room up for seduction, even if it was not my intention.

“Well, you need pointers,” I answer dryly, downplaying it all and it gets me that age-old smirk. I used to hate that cocky smile of his, but it’s growing on me. It’s hard to stay hating a man who’s capable of being this cute. And he can be, when he is not scowling or saying mean things.

“The movie tonight is ‘The Godfather’, we don’t need to go watch it if you don’t want to.” Alexi butts in and it draws a giggle out of me.

Of all the films to be playing, it had to be that one. Ironic.

“Very appropriate. I haven’t seen it though, so I’m game if you are?” No longer pissed about being his prisoner and not working tonight. It’s sunk in and that kiss killed any sort of refusal. I catch him watching me in that weird casual pose that seems a little too human for him, and he shrugs with both shoulders.

“Sure, it’s one of my favourite movies of all time.” He taps the table and picks up his beer again, the weird awkwardness growing between us now as we sit here making small talk.

I’ve never dated anyone in my life and right now, I definitely do not feel like I’m in the company of Alexi Carrero. I don’t know how to behave with this version of him and I pick at my nails, fidgeting because I’m so out of my depth. This isn’t a controlled seduction to manipulate a man. This means something and it has the power to wound me.

What if he finds me boring and this ends up being strained and quiet, now we have all the heavy stuff out of the way? Nothing to say to each other beyond that.

“Why are you nervous? I won’t do anything to you.” He observes smoothly, sliding his bottle to one side and reaches across to catch my hand and pull it back to the centre of the table. I let him, watching the movement, relieved he is still a keen observer and can read me without me having to verbalise. He turns it so my palm is upwards and runs his fingers gently across mine to flatten them out, using his other hand to draw small patterns across my palm. It tickles and has an immediate soothing effect while also hitting me with immense tingles and dampening the sense of trepidation. He has a way of reaching inside of me in surprisingly tender ways for a man who used to instil fear. For a side he doesn’t use often, he seems pretty comfy in the role.

“I feel like I don’t know you. This is all very strange and unsettling. I guess I’m just trying to figure you out and how I should behave.” I point out, trying to sound unaffected. My voice is soft and breathy as the intensity of what he’s doing overtakes me. These little touches, they’re killing me. I’m losing all fight and he probably knows it.

“I’m still the same man; I just have more to me than first appears. Much like you.” Alexi watches me purposefully and I shiver under his scrutiny, looking away to gaze at the fire once more.

“I guess,” I answer quietly and shrug subtly. Unsure what else to say. He knows too much, and I regret that, even If I had no control over it. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me, instead of what he thought I was before.

“I do see you differently, you know. Have done since that night. Going to London, reading those books, seeing where you came from and the …” He trails off and it causes me to glance his way, hating that sometimes our brains flow to the same thoughts; it’s sort of spooky. It’s like my thinking appears out loud and he somehow sees it. There was a certain something in his tone that sends off a little inkling of suspicion and I watch him a little more intently.

“What were you going to say?” I push for an answer and the stroking on my hand stops, confirming he is holding back as he pauses for a moment. He looks uneasy, his eyes dipping to look at my fingers instead of me and I know for sure there is something he isn’t saying. Whatever ‘the’ was.

“Nothing.” Evasive, closing up and deadpan expression moving in. Alexi is shutting down to hide. I sigh at the appearance of his evasive manoeuvre.

“Don’t do that. You promised me honesty. You do not get to pick and choose what to be honest about! I think the Rick confession topped the shock so anything else isn’t worth hiding.” I yank my hand away from him and catch his eye as he comes up to look at me again. Hesitation written all over him as my fire burns bright with irritation once more. Angered that he says he will be transparent and then backtracks.

“Not tonight. You told me I should never talk of London again, so I won’t.” The stern in his tone combats mine but I’ve never been one to back down where Alexi is concerned. Even if that makes me a fool sometimes.

“Well, I take it back. I feel like you’re hiding something, and now I won’t let it rest until you tell me. So, spit it out, New York.” My guts coil up and my good old rattled nerves go straight back to being taught and riled. I can’t let it go now. I need to know.

“I don’t want to ruin this, Cam. Leave it alone. Please.”

“No. Tell me. Finish that sentence, Lexi. I want to know. I don’t like it when you’re cagey and hold back. It has me thinking the worst and I start over analysing everything.”

Think about all the shit and horrid crap that has me running for the hills.

Alexi sighs heavily, frowning as he again looks at the table and this time his own hands while the flex of his jawline tells me he is turning something over in his mind. A flicker of those pale greys, that subtle clench of his jaw and my insides sink.

I’m like a dog with a bone now, so sure he’s hiding something from me. And now he has put it there in my suspicious mind, I need to know. He will drive me insane with it otherwise.

The tension is thicker than dense fog and Alexi is visually uneasy. He sighs again, a sign he knows he has no choice and then seems to relent, clenching his hand and rubbing his palm with his thumb that signals it’s stressing him. It pushes my nerves to tighten and my stomach knots.

Maybe it is worse than killing Rick. Maybe I don’t want to know, and I should have left it alone. I’m always too quick to underestimate what he’s capable of, and now, staring at him and pushing for something I will probably regret hearing, my nerves are heightened once more.

Alexi frowns, taps the table again, rubs a hand across the back of his neck and braces himself for a confession. He fixes his gaze on the flat surface instead of me and seems to ready himself for a bad reaction.

Inhale, exhale, a weird flicker of a frown and then finally he lifts his eyes to mine and looks apologetic and wary that I may be about to flip out.

Dragging it out is killing me.

This is not going to be good.

Shit.

I had to push for this, didn’t I!

“Pictures, videos … of you. That scum kept a catalogue of both on every girl he ever …” Alexi cannot formulate the words, so repulsed by what he knows went on in Rick’s world and I shudder at the memories, slapped with what I was not expecting him to say.

I was wrong. It is as bad. Maybe worse.

My blood runs cold, much like finding out he had my journals and my eyes fly to his, gluing to them in wide-eyed horror. Fear, that he didn’t just know of the existence of those things, but he watched them or looked in the folders and piles of disgusting media I knew Rick kept. It’s one thing to read about those vile acts and another entirely to see it visually.

I feel sick to my stomach, instantly paling and hit with a dizzy spell that has me clutching the table edge to steady myself.

Why would he tell me this? I was stupid to ask, to push.

I remember well, the hysteria and mess every time that man laid hands on me. He loved nothing more than to document how brutally he used his victims and most of those pictures show me bloody and broken. Various states of delusion as my brain tried to detach from the horrendous acts befalling me and save me mentally. Sometimes I would float on the ceiling, looking down on my lifeless body and watch him ravage me until I bled. It’s a miracle my body is not more twisted and scarred and dysfunctional than it is.

Rick liked to document his perversions on film, in stills, and motion, for some sort of satisfying ego boost. He was a sick fuck who kept a filing cabinet of girls’ names and folders and thousands of pictures he would make us help develop and store for him. That was how twisted he was. He did it to us, filmed it and then made us help him turn them into viewable items for his collection.

I don’t doubt there were hundreds of me, tied up, naked and broken in all kinds of disgusting poses with marks of his torture and debauchery on me. He would film his ‘adventures’, his newest ‘kinks’ with his little girls and save them for self-pleasure when he was alone, or to sell to his ring of perverted clients who got off on seeing kids ruined. Sometimes he would make me kneel in front of him and blow him off while he watched them on a screen the size of his wall. A projector, reliving the things he would do to us. I was not the only child he defiled. I was one of many of the poor unfortunate souls who strayed into his path. Stories like mine, with mothers who were wasted junkies and only saw children as a tool for getting high.

“Please tell me you didn’t keep those too?” My hands and voice shake, barely audible as I try to get it out, shock giving way to a full-blown panic attack as I gasp for air and force myself to stay calm. Alexi shakes his head.

His rage as intense as my pain as he too relives what he saw, and I know he must have seen enough to react this way. Maybe he didn’t watch them all or flick through every image, but he saw more than he wanted to. That would change any decent human’s opinion of the girls in that room of memories. That would leave a mark, even on someone like Alexi.

He may be a monster on many levels, but he is not a paedophile or a violent abuser of women. The things Rick kept; they would scar anyone who saw them. I lived it, and yet the images I was forced to help file still traumatised me. I cannot even imagine what Alexi must think as I sit and die all over again, knowing that he knows things no one else could know about me. Things I never even wrote down.

“Everything I found in that place connected to you, I burned. I wiped you out of that hellhole; every trace as though you were never there, and then I wiped him off the face of the earth for putting you there. I intended to just kill him until that point, but those pictures, those films … I’m not a nice person when I don’t have reason to be and seeing even a tiny amount of what he did, Cam, I made him wish he was never born, and then some. I’m not sorry I made his last days hell. It was nothing compared to what he did.” Alexi looks fiercely dangerous for a moment, that cold tone that used to send the fear of God into me, yet now, sat here, it brings me comfort. That sadistic look and dangerous manner, they are all that’s keeping me from crumbling on the floor and sobbing my heart out.

A tear rolls down my cheek involuntarily. Knowing he saw more than I ever put in my journals. The abuse, being used, there was so much that I could have filled a dozen more books with, had I written about every time in detail. Alexi knows everything there is to know about what set me on the path to who I am now. It’s horrifying.

“That’s why you changed when I came back, isn’t it? You and Mico, you both treated me differently.” I stare at my fingers, brain engaging as it all clicks into place and now, I see all the little hints from the past few weeks. They both treated me like I was more fragile, more broken than they ever did before. Kid gloves and attention to the things they knew were real scars. It’s why Alexi wouldn’t stand behind me without apology. He knew it was all real and he was trying to make amends. He didn’t just read what could be a story from an over dramatic girl. He saw with his own eyes. It would affect you so much more than a book would.

He saw why I used to freak out, in the videos when Rick would stand behind me, and most of the time, he would gag me to shut me up because panic attacks were not something I could control. He liked it. The fear, the hysteria he brought out in me. Sometimes I would vomit and choke because the gag wouldn’t let me expel it properly. He liked that too. It’s why he kept doing it from behind, tying me down, holding me in place by any means and savouring the terror he was inflicting. It was another level to his perversions that got him off.

“One of the reasons. The other was facing the fact that no matter what I did, or how much I pushed you away … I was in love with you. That you did nothing to warrant how I treated you. And I treated you in a way I’m not proud of. I went too far. Blinded by a belief you only wanted to use me and hating the fact you were outmanoeuvring me so effortlessly. I was powerless when it came to you and I took it out on you in the worst ways.”

Worse than even he could have imagined. He didn’t know though. I can forgive him for not knowing any of this until it was too late. I see that now. He had no comprehension of the damage.

Alexi is watching me closely; I can feel those eyes boring into the top of my skull and yet I cannot bring myself to look back at him. My heart is aching, and my body is yearning. I feel exposed and naked—ashamed. I feel like he has ripped the rug out from under me and I’m sitting here with nothing else to hide from him.

You can’t change what is done though, and the only way forward is to let it go. I’m not there anymore and what he saw is a long done and dusted ordeal from years ago. What Alexi did should be shelved with it all as something to forget. I’m not there, we’re not there anymore and much like the shock of his having my journals, the shock of knowing this will pass too. The pain of his cruelty will follow. I can’t undo it and crying over it will fix nothing.

Alexi killed the son of a bitch and destroyed all that tied me to him. In doing so he redeemed himself a little. He did me a favour and exactly what he set out to do. He removed a monster from my shadows and burned all the nightmares that held me to him. I’m just reeling with the shock of it and if I breathe, I can move on, it’s not the worst. I’m no angel, some of what I endured was karma.

It is what it is, and I have to accept my part of the blame in everything and forget it.

“I have done plenty in my lifetime to warrant the treatment. Sophie will testify to that.” I mumble it quietly, knowing I’m no innocent, and maybe I didn’t deserve Alexi’s punishments, but I have done things that warranted far harsher repercussions. I’m not a good person either. Maybe Alexi was my Karma, and now my sins are balanced I can finally move on in life.

“You and me both. Faced with my equal, it’s no wonder I couldn’t look beyond to find any trust. I measured you by my standard and assumed you were doing to me what I intended to do to anyone I had use for.”

“More alike than we care to admit. Both guilty of things we should never be proud of.”

There’s silence between us as we both ponder that statement and the heaviness of the truth weighs upon us. We are two people cut from the same cloth. I understand him sometimes because I know what world he exists in and what it expects of him to continue to dominate it; he knows why I did all that I did. Born of necessity and given no choice but to survive. He sees everything that happened in a new light since my past was laid out in front of him. That’s what changed how he treated me. He re-evaluated everything and took away the manipulation and deceit, the lies and games, and realised he was playing a one-sided war with a girl who just wanted to find safety in the darkness. I guess I couldn’t really find a man who would understand more than he does.

Alexi moves the candle on the table, turns it and fidgets with the saucer I stuck it on, looking for a way to change the subject.

“I know you hate that I know things about your past, but you would never have told me any other way. I’m glad I got to see them. That I learned about you. Even though it upsets you, I would never have really understood if I hadn’t read them. I needed to know you, Cam, needed to understand you. It changed everything in my head and brought us to this moment.” Alexi is still tense and poised but his words soften and the way he looks at me only adds another layer of shame. Lifting my chin to glance his way and see only a gentleness that wasn’t a familiar sight on that face before last night but one I’m fast becoming accustomed to.

“Instead of a gold-digging whore, you now see some broken abused kid who should abhor sex and men, right? Someone to protect. Feel sorry for. A victim to treat like fragile glass?” It comes out accusingly, that need to hide my vulnerability with anger, a verbal outlet, to lash out when I’m being exposed, but he gets up and comes around the table instead of reacting. He reaches for me and pulls me with him, up to my feet, backs us up so he has room to get back to his space and pulls me onto his lap once more, in one easy fluid movement I don’t have the energy to resist. This time on the floor and cradles me as close as he can get me in the hollow of where he has his legs pulled in, so my butt sits snugly on the rug between them.

“No, I don’t. I see a strong survivor and fighter. A courageous woman, someone I underestimated and misunderstood. If anything, it’s made me fall harder for you because I realised that despite all you have lived through, with mistrust and fear of men, you tried to let me get close to you. That I didn’t just reject a love confession, I destroyed something special and rare. You’re exceptional and worth a hundred of any other women I ever met.”

I shake my head, disagreeing with the sentiment. Stirred by the words but disconnected to their validity.

“I’m nobody. I did what I needed to survive and that’s all, nothing any other girl like me wouldn’t have done in the same position. I’m not special or ‘exceptional’ I’m just … nothing. I’m not worth anything, not even close.” So much self-deprecation in the face of my bruised emotions, fuelled with his words that bring out only a heavy hollow pain that makes me want to cry. He frowns at me steadily, tilting my face to him with a finger under my chin and wipes my cheek with his thumb to remove the trace of my tear.

“You really have a major self-esteem issue, it’s not the first time I have heard you say that. Do you really think I would lose my mind for an average girl? A nothing? A weak opponent? You fucked me up; you dragged me through hell and back, Cam. I would say it takes an exceptional woman to break through my steel exterior and find a way to tear me down. Many have tried and failed.”

Alexi’s determined tone and sombre face just gain another head shake. He has this all wrong.

“I didn’t do anything. You just assumed I did. I was honest with a man for the first time in my life and tried to be something more while losing myself to him and his games.” I point out bluntly, raising a brow at him as I lock my eyes on his and he has the grace to look guilty. He looks away first, at the table then at my hands in my lap before picking one up and entangling our fingers together snugly.

“I’m sorry. More than I can ever express.”