The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 156

He tells me things like this, he told me about things even before, so I have no doubts.

I walk in, this time keeping my eyes off my sulky bastard of a man and slide the tray down in the centre of the seating on one of the low tables. I have to avoid looking his way and get with the programme that we can barely stand each other. Jackson slides his beside mine neatly, an eerie silence of men staring at us, and as I go to follow him out, I’m halted by that snappy tone.

“Pour it … get your head out of your ass, Walters.” A harsh cutting tone that signals I’m not done here. Alexi sounds pissed still, and I spin to catch him glaring at me as though I have committed the ultimate sin by expecting them to pour their own. They expect servitude of women in his world, even I know that. What I didn’t expect was him to still be in the throes of prick mode and singling me out again.

Why the fuck did he make me come up here if he was going to be like this? He could have got any of the staff to run after his arse and serve his buddies. This all feels a little too personal.

And when does he ever call me Walters? Never, not in the whole time I have known him. It’s always Cam or London.

I glare right back, this time upset replaced with an ignited fury that he should talk down to me like a piece of shit in front of these men. I don’t care who they are. He has no right to treat me so badly when I run this fucking club and make it what it is. I’m not just one of the low wage staff downstairs. I own part of the fucking building! I earned my respect.

Santagato sits back and gets comfy, lounging like a fat cat who owns the joint and I can almost feel his eyes boring into me, enjoying my humility. Smug and getting off to a woman being put in her place. A woman he was denied not so long ago and nausea swirls in my stomach, my skin crawling as his eyes eat me up like fresh meat. Hating him with a passion for enjoying this.

“How awful of me to forget my place.” I grind out the last word, oozing disdain with every syllable, throwing Alexi a dagger of a sneer and pull the tray towards me to put the cups out. I grit my teeth to stop myself slamming them on the polished surface and rein in the bubbling lava threatening to explode out of me.

WANKER, ARSEHOLE, TOSSER, PRICK, ARSEHOLE!

All of the above and then some.

Alexi ignores me and talks right over the top of me like I’m nothing. Not everything, not his everything … just the worthless nothing he said I wasn’t.

Actions speak louder than words Alexi. Don’t you know that?

“Can’t get the help nowadays.” He smirks and Santagato lets out a dirty grating laugh. Like nails on a chalkboard and I shudder inwardly. Another layer of my skin threatening to peel from my bones as cringe overtakes me. I really despise Santagato with a passion only my hatred of Alexi rivalled; maybe he can have it back.

“Well, if you have to choose between efficient or fuckable, I guess it’s hard to tick both boxes. I can see her assets are probably best carried out on her knees.” He snorts dirtily and my whole body stiffens as I try not to react. I start inwardly reciting a mantra to myself.

You know this is how this world works—ignore and breath.

Don’t react.

Don’t reply with a catty remark.

For the love of God, just keep your mouth SHUT.

I can’t even bring myself to look at Alexi and all the blood drains from my face as his voice cuts in.

“I’ve had better. She is good at keeping the papers in order though.”

I swear I feel like I might be sick, listening to him like this. The way he just dismissed sex with me in such a degrading manner. It’s too much. I just can’t.

The same cold bastard he has been for months and even though I know it’s not real, it’s so hard to separate. How can I believe he is capable of more when it’s so easy for him to revert to kind? How can I have faith in someone who is capable of still being this way after telling me he loved me?

It’s unnecessarily cruel. It’s cold and hurtful and it’s what I should have expected from a man who used my past to destroy me. He isn’t any different. He is exactly who he has always been.

I pour a few mugs full of black coffee carefully, keeping myself in check to show nothing outwardly. My mask moving in to shield me from prying eyes and I make very practised deliberate movements to hide how my inner self trembles and breaks, ready to sob her day away. I slide them in front of the men sitting, stomach tight and throat closing, pushing the sugar bowl and creamer jug to them, only too glad that I can escape now I’m done. I turn to push one at Alexi knowing he takes his black with no sweeteners at all.

“Do you take anything? Sugar, creamer? Arsenic?” I mutter the last word under my breath at him but it’s obvious by the tiny, angry flicker in his jawline that he heard it, and I get a cold glare thrust at me from under furrowed dark brows. Those pale eyes stirring with a hint of a storm, and I sense a foreboding that makes me want to run.

“Go be a good girl and find something to polish downstairs. Maybe tidy up your makeup while you are at it, I can’t stand looking at sloppy women.” Alexi growls at me, pointing out that my liner is probably smudging from unquenched tears on the way up here and earns himself a seething, hateful glare. The air bristling between us with a static that makes the hair on my skin stand on end. In this second, I loathe him.

I lift my chin, swoosh my hair back with sass and turn on my heel without a further response, I don’t wait a moment longer. Ready to storm off on stilettos and screw him to hell and back—I hate him.

Fuck that wanker, I will never let him touch me again.

“That ass … I would love to fuck her black and blue and still get hard for a second round.” Santagato’s filthy mouth follows me out the door and I inwardly cringe once more, skin crawling and aware of the fact Alexi has not once warned him off this time. His lewd comments go unchecked and no show of possessive ownership at all.

Alexi the bastard wouldn’t let Santagato near me, but the person in that room said nothing about his sexual remarks. In fact, he fucking encouraged it. I hesitate for a moment and wonder if this version of him would let him touch me and I have no clear answer. I’m confused, heartbroken and angrier than hell. No clue what the hell happened to him in such a short space of time and just wishing I never came down at all.

I slam the door as I storm out, fire and tears battling to be dominant and I head straight for the lift. Jackson close at my heel and he seems to sense he shouldn’t say anything this time or get too close. An icy silence emanating from me that speaks volumes. Jackson sheepishly gives me my venting space and I refuse to let myself crumble for someone who doesn’t deserve my tears.

Fuck you, Alexi Carrero. I should have known this is who you would be.

I look up from my seat at the bar where I’m sorting through receipts as the group of men walk past. Alexi deep in conversation with Santagato amid them and I try my best to blank them completely. Still pissed as hell and overly prickly from earlier. He pauses as they come level and looks at me coldly, pulling my eyes to his with just the power of that stare and I curse myself for the tingles that spread across my body like wildfire. Averting my gaze just as quickly and trying to zone him out.

“Walters?” He almost barks it, prickish tone and bossy shithead demeanour fully engaged and I slowly lift my head deliberately to hide the fact I’m hating on him and he is not exactly helping the situation.

“What, Mr Carrero.” I ooze hostile charm and sarcasm as I glare right at his smug bastard face and his eyebrow twitches slightly. Think he has finally realised I’m so livid I’m beyond furious and maybe he is a little too convincing.

It’s not a game for me. It’s not an act. I’m genuinely wounded and right now I could easily stab him in the face with my pen.

“Inform my guest for the club tonight that I won’t be here. I have plans, won’t be back before dawn and will rearrange during the week.” Doesn’t skip a beat, just a smooth command with no hint of anything in it. Another reason to up my level of anger at him.

I know he has no specific guest for tonight, so this is code for ‘baby I’m dumping you and fucking off with my Mafia sidekicks for sex and drugs and wanker antics somewhere else tonight. Don’t wait up’.

“I’ll get right on that.” I droll, bitch and frost so intense even Jackson looks at me with a questioning glance, and then at Alexi and walks off. Knowing he should keep out of the firing line and not able to react.

I just stare Alexi down, pull my gaze back to my paperwork as if I don’t give a rat’s ass and try to go back to pretending that he is dead to me. I will freeze the arsehole out and see how much he likes it. Let him dangle at the other side of this and see how it feels to be treated as unimportant.

I don’t bother looking up again when I hear the footsteps progress towards the main door and try not to get hit with that wave of pure disappointment as he leaves with them. No real attempt to smooth things over, even if they were close by and just fucks off and leaves anyway.

Does he not have a clue that when your woman is contemplating packing her bags and heading for the hills because of your arsehole behaviour, then the last thing you should do is leave her to go cavort with men she fucking hates!

It’s not even 2 p.m. and Alexi is obviously planning on making an entire half day of whatever they are doing. I don’t even want to know.

As far as I’m concerned, Alexi can go fuck himself.

You don’t treat people that way, for any reason. You don’t try to make amends for the past by turning right back into the same arsehole who made me hate you in the first place and think I will be fine with it.

Because I’m not, in any shape or form, and he has underestimated the importance of my hostile mood. I don’t care if he doesn’t come back for a week. I don’t want to see him after this.

I go back to my papers, scattered across the marble bar in a haphazard mess, determined to just put him out of my head and my heart and forget everything he said to me in the last two days.

Dismissing it all because really, how can I feel anything warm and fluffy when he’s shown he can still be an evil sadist who doesn’t give two shits about my feelings.

He has me seething, restless and utterly desolate inside. As though a cold front moved in and killed all my internal organs so that even crying is impossible. My tears have frozen like jagged little icicles inside me to inflict even more pain.

Just bloody dandy and my plans and hopes that today would be a great day are defunct. Killed my mood, brought down the sun and just ruined everything. Like a typical boorish pig-headed son of a bitch whose internal compass points only at his own egotistical needs and thinks nothing beyond that.

I won’t let him get to me like this. I will bury my head in my work, pass the time with tasks before the club opens tonight and then go to bed and ignore him when he shows face. No doubt drenched in the smell of cheap perfume, tacky whores and booze. I don’t doubt he will continue to play the part of a Mafia boss and enjoy lap dancers, whores and free fucks if they are offered. I mean, look how quickly he changed to accommodate his buddy and his disgusting remarks about me.

If he thinks he can cosy up to me after this, he will soon learn that he had only one chance and he blew it. I won’t let him pull me around and mess with me like he did before. I meant it when I said I would up and leave so he could never find me again. I will not let him hurt me.

About a half hour after he left, while I’m still smarting and slapping papers around willy-nilly, frustrating myself with an inability to concentrate, my phone lights up on the bar and Alexi’s name flashes on screen. No doubt calling to explain his shitty behaviour, flicking my go to hell switch, and I just red button him and mutter a ‘fuck off’ under my breath. Impulsively hostile and not ready to hear any lame excuses or half-assed attempts at smoothing it over.

Like he could anyway.

I push it away, no ounce of remorse at hanging up on him and try to focus back on the paperwork I have been badly attempting for the last hour. I grit my teeth when it immediately lights up again with that arsehole’s name. He’s persistent anyway but if he wants stubborn, then that’s what he will get. I’m sure I have a will to match his and I won’t back down no matter how he is on the phone. He can’t sweeten me up for anything.

I pull it over to pick it up and press answer before snapping down the line at him, no hint of anything except rage. I want him to know right off that I’m so mad my blood’s boiling.

“What the fuck is it?” I half yell at him, fuelled on bruised feelings and major nose out of joint syndrome. Temper frayed and taking no shit. Come in hot and ‘let him have it’ mentality. He started a fight when there was no fight to be had, so he can suffer the consequences.

“What kind of way is that to answer the fucking phone to me?” he snaps right back, angered by my reaction, really not being the smartest in how he should handle me. The appropriate response should sound nothing like this, and I lose my shit at him.

“Oh, I thought this was how we were playing nice nowadays. Isn’t this lesson one from the Alexi school of charming beloveds? I mean, I thought that’s what upstairs was. Public displays of affection.” The sarcasm is so thick it’s practically dripping off my tongue and the long silent pause only adds to the crackling tension between us.

“Use your head, Cam, and stop being pissy. I’ll be back after midnight. We will talk then. I don’t have long before I have to go back inside.” Alexi’s tone softens a little, but it’s the whole no apology and annoyed attitude that really gets to me on every level, making my skin bristle. Insides lurching and that molten lava that dwells inside pours out effortlessly over my battered exterior.

“I’ll be asleep. I have a headache and to be honest, you’ll just make it worse. Go fuck yourself!” I hang up on him before he can reply and slam it face down on the surface, not caring if I crack the screen because that prick pays for it anyway. It was one of his stipulations of working here, so he could always get hold of me whenever he deemed me worthy. I get a few seconds of smugness, tapping my nails on the bar for being brave enough to cut the call, before groaning out loud when it immediately vibrates again. I flip it, scowl at his name then instantly red button him and switch the damn contraption off. Not about to get into a heated match over the phone and I have work to do. He can stew and go vent his annoyance at Santagato. I have no fucks to give.

“Go to hell, you obnoxious, prick faced, arsehole of a man.”

I yell at it, loudly, erupting in sheer frustration then look around when a muffled cough catches my attention. Suddenly aware of my surroundings and the fact I’m not alone as I’m sitting in the club’s bar surrounded by hustle and bustle.

Jackson, my ever-present looming shadow shifts uncomfortably in the corner where he is sitting, reading a paper and pretends he isn’t eavesdropping. It was obviously him who alerted me to my lack of solitude, and I redden as I absorb that little titbit of information.

I glance around the bar and realise a lot of my staff are milling around doing last-minute prep and organising, trying not to look my way and Joanne is eyeballing me from the main lounge where she is polishing champagne flutes. Probably fantasising about my death or something equally pleasant, judging by the pinch-faced expression on that bitch’s ugly face. Constipated or startled, I can’t decide. Either way, it’s not attractive and I dismiss her with a snooty frown. I still hate that cow.

I duck my head and try to ignore them all, cursing Alexi out and hating on him even more. Annoyed that I just flouted my temper in front of my staff because of him and adding it to my tick list of reasons to never want to talk to him again. I turn back to my papers and sigh when I realise, I have done nothing but make a mess with my accounts; I scrunch up my paper to start over. This is all I have done for the last hour or so because of him. Unable to focus or think straight and screwing up my maths stupendously. It’s going to take all day at this rate to just balance the accounts for the week.

“Hey … umm, she’s not, no. I think she went for a lie down with a headache.” Jackson’s voice filters to me softly, waving across the echoey room and I glance back over my shoulder at him. His face reddening, a sure sign he is telling a lie. He is the shittiest liar ever with people he knows. He throws me a shady look and a half smile, and I realise Alexi has called him instead of me. That’s why he is squirming. I tense as I listen, poised like a cat, straining to hear even though I shouldn’t give a toss about what he is saying.

“Sure boss, I’ll tell her to call you when she err … umm wakes up.” Hopeless at it, so completely hopeless it’s borderline adorable. He really is just a big goofy puppy.

I can hear the unease in his tone, the strained way he is choosing words, and he is squirming uncontrollably as though his seat just got to extreme heat levels. Nervous fidgeting from a guy who works in yet is useless with dishonesty. Irony at its finest.

Alexi may be his cousin, but he looks up to him as the almighty power in his family and it strikes my heart softly that he would lie for me. That is probably something he has never done before, judging by how badly he’s doing it.

Jackson my sweet protector drawing a line in the sand between Alexi and I and choosing the right side. It gives me a warm gooey feeling that slightly dulls all the chaos coursing through me. A moment to ponder the fact that maybe trust is something I have for Jackson at least, my friend.

He’s a good man, and that deserves an extra-long trip for sorbet later.