The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 161

I stand for the longest time in the kitchen area of the lower floor, knowing I’m delaying the inevitable. Alexi upstairs barging around like a crazed panther and looking to take it out on the person who just publicly disobeyed and humiliated him. I can almost visualise him in all his vicious glory. Caged, wild and ferocious while his family try to contain the eruption.

We were to be a secret … I have made that impossible now.

I feel like I can’t breathe, lungs constricted and wrapped in chains. My body is heavy, running cold with the profound acceptance that this will only end badly for me, and I can’t stop shivering. I’m so jittery. Avoiding him is delaying what I deserve but facing him is a fate worse than death.

I need air; I need space; I need solitude. My head is spinning a million miles an hour and the pain from his ‘date’ revelation is numbing out as logic and sense filter through to give me a massive shake. Regret replaces anger for what I just did; apprehension replaces the satisfaction of purging my club of his past conquests. My brain has stopped her impulsive hate attack on the man who wronged me and is now in the ‘maybe I overreacted’ frame of thinking.

I’m an idiot sometimes. Too fiery and kick out without thinking at all. Actions from reactions and little to no thought about what truth is staring me in the face.

I did overreact … her response solidified what he said upstairs. ‘It wasn’t a date, it was business’ in other words, paid to accompany him and act like an adoring mistress. He doesn’t pay for company or sex; he doesn’t need to. So, she understood she was playing a role and it was going nowhere. He separated it by making it clear it was a business arrangement and nothing else. Took any hopes or misunderstandings out of it so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea. Something he would never do for a screw.

Her attitude said it all. His attitude said it all. He was mad because I questioned his truths. He isn’t the type to lie to me about cheating. He would just say it how it was. That’s who he is. He was angry because I accused him when he knew he was being honest.

And of course, he wouldn’t see it as a detail he had to tell me about. She served a similar purpose to the extra men he takes with him, even if they’re not needed. It’s all about appearances and letting his enemies see only what he wants them to see or know what he intends, and yesterday was all about keeping me secret and safe. She was just a number to his party and not anything of importance.

He didn’t lie.

He put on a show to hide the fact there is a woman he cares for.

Me.

And now because of me being a complete idiot, he will have to work ten times as hard to protect me as big-mouthed pissed whores run amok and tell the world how Alexi Carrero’s hostess threw a jealous fit and sacked his past conquests. It’s just painting a huge red arrow over my goddamn head. Women who already move in dangerous circles and their gossip could be overheard by the wrong people. Rumours spread like wildfire when it’s something like this.

Absolutely fucking great, Camilla. Gold star for brightest brain in the building!

I feel sick with the realisation that I acted like a complete mental case consumed with jealousy and pain because I’m insecure and untrusting and carry a million issues relating to that man. I didn’t stop to let it filter or think it through and now … well, we are at war and he is probably storming around, trapped by Mico, and venting like crazy about all the heinous things he wants to do to me. Which of course, Alexi will try so hard to control.

I don’t think there is enough booze in the world to calm that kind of chaos right now. And yet another little detail I should have picked up on. He was self-medicating right there in front of me to try and keep his cool with me. I was attacking him, and he was trying not to overreact. That’s why he was propped at the bar and downing shots one after the other like a thirsty alky. Self-calming that quick to aggression personality of his because he didn’t want to fight with me or make things worse.

Stupid girl.

I need to leave him to calm down and let his own sense of logic come into play.

Which it will, eventually.

Maybe.

Alexi left me after Miami for a week, for this reason. To evaluate, think it through and calm himself back to human. He will take time to do the same here, although hopefully not a week. To recognise that it was a knee-jerk response from an over-emotional woman who has been burned by him many times. I’m praying that smart head will push the bad temper aside if I give him a little breathing space and I never have to find out if punishing me is still a possibility. Alexi calms down eventually, I’ve seen it. He can be reasonable when handled the right way.

God, I know this. I know how to approach him.

He gave it to me in black and white, that night at his little bolthole. An aggressive, combative approach gets the same in return. He can’t help it. He reacts to fire with fire, even though he loves me. He recognises this and even told me that gently is how to deal with him. He was giving me the key to avoiding this kind of shit between us. He can’t change all that he is, and he knows this, so he gave me a way to combat his worst and accept him. If I had asked him sanely, and listened, we would probably still be upstairs making out on his desk.

In those moments I was putty in his hands and no thoughts of mistrust were invading to stop what he was doing. I was all his.

I head back into the main bar which is now back to being organised and polished with the departure of girls done and dusted and try to shake it all away with a head toss. Legs weak, hands trembling and a huge lump in my throat which might be my heart trying to vomit itself out of my body. I feel nauseous, antsy and I’m twisting the bracelet on my wrist trying to remember that he can be someone else. It’s proof of that; proof he can be sweet and caring and not a psycho. Someone considerate and thoughtful, and if I let him cool off, we can fix this.

I won’t argue anymore. I’ll be good. I’ll stop jumping and sticking my foot in my mouth if he just lets this slide this time. I’ll be obedient without question ever again.

I can’t face anything he is capable of doing to me, it truly will be the end. Even if I know I caused it.

Everyone is working faster and quieter than usual, probably for fear of losing their own positions and no one glances my way as I walk through and head to the main entrance impulsively. My natural poise with chin up and a confident stroll, like I have no cares. Mask intact while my insides are crumbling to ashes. I have to keep swallowing the excessive saliva down from my stomach as it tries to bring up my entire gooey lining. I’m just fraught and scared and hurting because, above all, this stupid thing might be the end of what never really got started. I know myself well enough. If he does anything to me then I’ll run, regardless of blame and being deeply in love with him. I won’t stay. My self-preservation won’t let me.

I just need a little air and open space to get my shit together, my bravado back and think about how to handle him. I’m sure with some quiet, I can figure something out.

I don’t even second guess my destination, it’s like a longing, a need for sky and oxygen and calming thoughts. Headspace in an area free of restraint and impending doom.

I push past the two girls leaning there in front of the main door, using a nearby pillar as a rest. Dressed in red underwear and satin robes over fake boobs and sculpted bodies. I think it’s our pole dancers for the show tonight and try my best to ignore their eyes following me as I get to the door behind them. Not really taking them in at all.

I’m desperate for fresh air and push myself outside to stand on the front steps of the building, pulling the heavy wooden door shut behind me. Sun assaulting me instantly, even though it’s a crisp frosty day with a smell in the air of threatening rain. I blink and shade my face for a second as my eyes adjust and inhale the air as deeply as I can. More in a bid to feel less frantic, than to breathe.

It’s blinding after the darker confines of the bar and I stumble forward before my eyes have really settled into the brighter surroundings.

“You okay, Miss Walters?” The familiar voice of the head of security comes through and I nod my head in his direction. Trying not to engage in case he asks me to go back inside. Blinking as I see more men standing out here, doing God knows what. Normally all security is inside but I guess due to the frenzy of cleaning, some of them are out here smoking a cigarette and enjoying the air. Taking advantage of daytime freedom before the club opens tonight.

I never really thought about the fact that most of them work constantly and never seem to go home or have a day off. It’s a way of life for some of them and they work longer than twelve-hour shifts. Mico never seems to do anything else except shadow Alexi, even into the night, I know he obviously has time with his fiancée and time for a home, it just never seems that way. He is always with him.

Saying that, however, Jackson is AWOL today, apparently, it’s his wife’s birthday and Alexi gave him the day off. It’s weird to imagine Jackson with a normal everyday life and family outside of these walls. Or that Alexi deems something like that as a reason to be home. Guess he has always shown heart to his family.

It also means I cannot stand here, but the thought of going back in sends me into an internal meltdown. They are imposing on my people free zone and I’m tetchy, itchy with the need for solitude and sun.

I need headspace. Desperately.

I move down the steps, away from the men and they go back to conversing about a football match once I’m out of the way. Not paying attention to my whereabouts, in fact, one of the girls inside opens and closes the door, throwing out a cigarette end and I catch head security glance back with a satisfied nod. He thinks it’s me going back inside I guess and hasn’t spotted me sliding away to be shielded by the stair wall. He goes back to chatting and I’m forgotten so easily.

No one reporting me to upstairs for going wandering.

I wander a little further onto the cracked concrete pavement and walk in small circles for a while, hidden from view by the tall half-standing wall that used to be some sort of barrier. It’s high enough to act as a shade for me. I pace absentmindedly to try to calm my erratic swishing insides and breathless angst until the air penetrates my clothes and cools me down to a mild shiver. One eye on the group of men for no real reason and satisfied they haven’t acknowledged me over here at all.

It’s not overly freezing today, and my dress is made of wool, so it’s warm enough not to go in for a jacket. I keep moving until I’m around fifteen feet from them, gazing out into the street and the traffic coming and going at the far end of the long lane ahead. The club nestles in a side alley not far from the main road, so even though it’s noisy out here, the immediate area in front of me is car-free. It can be peaceful if you walk far enough from milling security groups

I stare up the darkened building and its foreboding presence and shiver at the thought of him in there, on the upper floors, pacing crazily. I wonder if he can see me from the tinted-out office level, if that is where he is, and jump at a sudden invasion to my thoughts.

My phone vibrates in my dress pocket, startling me out of myself and I automatically pull it out, blanching at Alexi’s name and slide it right back in without answering. My heart skips, stomach lurches and restarts its rhumba of a crazy beat with that nauseating cold flush running through me once more. I glance back at the main door hesitantly, as if expecting it to burst open and him to appear. Not so sure anymore that he isn’t watching, and my panic moves up a notch.

So not ready for a showdown or public humiliation at his hands. His impending presence affecting me like hands around my throat squeezing tightly and I gasp to throw it off, scurrying in the opposite direction to the club door like a scared rabbit. Instinctively running away; so like me.

I power walk a little further to use a nearby wall as cover should he appear and hope to God he doesn’t. Cowering behind it for a moment to check that he isn’t about to burst out in all his sadistic glory and come chasing me down the path.

I’m not afraid of Alexi in the way I once was, but I’m scared of what he is capable of when he is seething mad. And I know that right now, he will be on level one hundred of a nuclear episode and probably worse because his cousin is standing in his way.

I haven’t tested the boundaries like I once did, and I don’t know if my newly found relationship with him, and the changes of my heart, means I’m less capable of withstanding the same treatment as before. Or if he could still do it to me. I don’t want to find out. It was hard enough the first time, but after all of this, I think it would kill me for him to come at me in the same cold and cruel manner. Doing those things now would destroy me in many more ways. Seeing his kindness, his ability to love, would only make it so much more of a betrayal this time.

My phone starts again and this time I pull it out and stare at it, body trembling and knowing the longer I ignore him, the worse he will be. I hover over the call button, chewing on my bottom lip, but I just cannot accept it. My nerves get the better of me and I stare until it stops, after about twenty rings.

I breathe a heavy sigh of relief when it finally stops, and I shudder and hang my head in defeat. I will have to face him at some point. I just don’t know how right now.

I need time. He needs a lot of time.

I jump out of my skin when my phone beeps loudly and almost squeak in fright at the unexpectedness of it. Proof of how on edge he has me, and I glance at the text as it pops up on my home screen. What’s left of my fight melts into my shoes.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU??!!!

It’s him again and, needless to say, he’s not simmering as I hoped, but obviously working himself into a demonic fury that could melt steel. On the warpath and raking the club to find me. Which means I’m not going in there for anything, not even a million dollars.

Not when he is like this.

I’m not that stupid.

My feet decide for me, turning on my heel and heading away from the club to put some space between us, where he won’t think to look. I will call him back but not until I’m out of sight and far enough away that he won’t be able to come and drag me indoors without looking for me. Lots of space is a good thing. Behind a building, out of his view and reach, until we talk it out—a lot.

I might talk him down from the ledge before seeing him and give myself a fighting chance at surviving this. No one knows more than me how filthy a temper he can have, and how much aggression pulsates through that cold body when he is riled like this. I spent enough time with him to know you don’t go facing this version of him by choice. You have to caress and smooth down the fire before you attempt to get close. We are very alike in that way.

He is mad at me for multiple things at this moment; I need to treat him like a venomous snake someone has trodden on. Very, very, carefully, soothing words, great distance and a lot of nerve.

I walk another few feet before my phone vibrates again, but as I can still see the club from here, I hold off, duck my head and walk a hell of a lot faster. It’s panic walking and I’m very aware my steps match the speed of my erratic heartbeat.

If he can’t immediately see me, then I’ll feel better. Safety in distance and all that.

Walking, walking, walking—in stupidly high shoes until I get past a few alleyways and find an opening leading onto the main road further down. A couple of blocks should do it and then I will answer.

He isn’t giving up. My phone gaining missed call after missed call and I have had to mute the ringer to stop myself jumping every time it goes off. I get another text after another string of calls.

“I have walked this building twice, where the fuck are you hiding?”

Alexi obviously doesn’t think I would venture outside, given the fact he told me I should never do it and another wave of cold fear runs down my spine. Like I suddenly just slapped myself in the face with that fact and remembered all the reasons I was never ever to go anywhere without security.

I literally freeze in the middle of the pavement and make an absurd ‘arghh’ sound out loud.

In all of this, I completely forgot about the fact he said I should never leave the club alone, and I just gave him yet another layer of disobedience to go volcanic over. Because all the rest was not enough, and I clearly have a death wish today.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This is all me. Rash decisions without thought that always leads to me being in hot water and worse shit. Story of my goddamn life.

I stand very still, dead in my tracks and turn around with a ‘fuck’ falter of my heartbeat. Eyes wide, as blood drains from every inch of me and I realise how far I have actually walked, being completely oblivious to my surroundings while caught inside my own head. I wasn’t even looking around me like I normally would, so preoccupied and obsessing over Lexi. I have wandered out to the other end of our very long street where roads cross and traffic is flying past the end and down by me every few seconds.

I really am trying to push him to the max today, aren’t I?

Jesus Christ.

Dawning on me that this is possibly the worst idea and only going to add rage to the pot, I decide heading back is a much more sensible option before I answer. Maybe hide in the basement and lock the door, add a few crates behind it and maybe anything heavy, like the safe, to barricade me in and deny all attempts at leaving the building.

If I can’t get in the front door unseen, then I can leg it to the side entrance at the gate, dodging the men outside if I can. If I’m in the car park and omit the fact I wandered off, then maybe he might not kill me.

God, he is going to kill me.

This wasn’t just disobedience; I have put myself in danger and in his eyes that’s unforgivable. He spends his life busting his arse to protect me. He will flip and make the club scene seem marginal if he finds out I came walking out here.

Goddammit. I’m completely idiotic. I’m such a wanker.

I only take a few steps homeward bound, pulling my head out of my arse to pay attention to the street when something catches the corner of my eye. Yanking all my dulled senses back onto high alert and homing in on something in my peripheral vision. Knocking me out of Alexi agony and into ‘pay attention to your surroundings’ mode.

A black car, long and sleek, moving very slowly at a walking pace, and I don’t know why but it draws all my focus as something stirs in my gut. Trepidation and unease and a heightened awareness of how far away from the club I have strayed on foot. It’s two minutes in a car, but for me, it’s a six-minute run at the very least in stilettos. Oblivious, the whole time, to whether someone was following me, or if I’m just overly suspicious because Alexi will be volcanic about this. Maybe it’s a coincidence.

I lift my chin and walk on, pretending I haven’t clocked it, internally praying it’s nothing but a car looking to park. As the car slides past me and pulls in, butting its nose up on the pavement in front of me, my eyes instantly travel to the man on this side getting out and grinning at me. No attempt to do anything except face me. Eyes pinning me with a look that leaves no misunderstanding.

A butch rugged sort of man, short and stocky with a snarl and a skinhead. He’s dressed head to toe in standard Mafia uniform and I know he is not a Carrero. He’s all wrong, far too white supremacist and looking at me like a starved dog who just came across his dinner.

I turn quickly to make a run for it, head screaming, even if the direction is further from Alexi, and gasp as I realise another male is walking up behind me, and shudder to a standstill in fright. He’s a bookend as far as attire is concerned to his obvious partner. They must have been following me after all and waited until I was out of the Carrero danger zone before risking getting close.

That inner panic rearing her hysterical head, my body runs cold and prickly with the sudden shock of what I have walked into. Heart hammering through my chest and my body fires into high alert. My brain scrambling for a plan.

“Be a good girl now, Miss Walters, and don’t cause a scene.” He grins, all toothy and snarly, sadistic hints in that ugly eye and my stomach drops to my feet.

Shit.