The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 179

The casino is pretty much the same story all over. Dated and worn but has so much potential for a buyer with enough cash to inject into the place. It’s busy the entire hour we are here, with never-ending pings and tinkling noises from the slot machines, and the croupiers on the casino floor have people at every table. The addiction is severe in Vegas and the shattered dreams and empty pockets of many a soul is to be had. It’s a sign though that it’s a money maker, with a ready-made customer base who won’t go anywhere, anytime soon.

The manager tells us that the owner is simply not interested in his casino anymore and injected his cash into his new nineteen-year-old bride and their mansion in the Bahamas. He’s not looking to pay out money to update the décor and wants a fast sale to the highest bidder to retire in peace and live out his days with his child bride. So, a perfect opportunity for a master of making cash like Alexi. He has the funds to pour into it and the drive to make it work.

I mentally high five the old man’s gold-digging wife though. Clearly set her eyes on a goal and will end up a very rich widow if she knows how to screw him into an early grave. I always thought it was the route I would one day take, but I guess I lucked out and found myself a billionaire whose money is the least important thing to me. The man himself, with none of it, would be enough. I would follow Alexi if he was broke and homeless.

Talking of which, he hasn’t let go of my hand the entire time we have been here, making me feel better somehow. My calming rock who seems to sense that it’s only his touch that is keeping me from rolling back into that fragile mess I was in the car. I think he might be right. I still feel a tad shaky in terms of mental stability on the whole waking up hitched thing, but I’m trying not to think about it at all.

Removing the shards of panic and hysteria a little at a time as he keeps me lassoed to him no matter where we go. The only time he did let me go was when I went to the ladies’ room to fix my god-awful reflection. Cursed at his lie, the one telling me I looked beautiful. Clearly, the shithead just wanted me to get out of the car and I looked like someone had poured the contents of my makeup bag down my face. Luckily, I always carry a patch up kit in my bag and he had the sense to bring it with him while abducting me from our hotel room. Not that looking normal once more changed baldy’s attitude towards me in any way.

It’s obvious that being labelled wife is a huge shift in how men of his world treat women like me though. They are staying respectful and wary of how to respond when I chirp in with my two cent’s worth. Listening when I talk and kissing my arse as much as they are kissing his. Seems they have a fear that annoying me will get them some sort of backhanded wallop in the face. Maybe a throat punch.

I’m now seeing what it is my clever man was trying to show me when we arrived. Putting me in the centre, bringing focus to my needs. He always was a man of action over words.

That by his side, bearing his name, I’m treated in a whole different manner by all those around me. It doesn’t just give me protection from wannabe Mafia whores with a penchant towards abductions and murder; it forces respect where I no longer have to take any shit from any man in his domain anymore. Well, from anyone. Alexi is literally the only man alive who won’t get shot in the head for pissing me off now that I’m deemed worthy of a title. It’s weird.

Alexi was pointing out that my importance just skyrocketed and suddenly made me a valuable figure in the room. I’m not a broken street rat or whore anymore. My past wiped clean with one little matrimonial ceremony.

I don’t need to take crap from anyone, as long as I’m his wife. Something new for my brain to pull apart and think about when I get back to the hotel and try to face my crippling fears once again. The benefits of being owned.

I had to see it for myself, and as I walk around amused with the complete change in how I’m being treated by mere men, I lose a little more of that internal tight, claustrophobic insanity that was spiralling around me in the car. Realising that I have a power I never expected.

I’m doing my best as Camilla. Sexy, purring kitty with long claws and my manner is once again becoming natural as we walk around surveying our new abode. Relaxing into the role that is second nature and forgetting that earlier I was a sobbing mess in his lap and he was my gentle consoler. She can exist when she is alone with him, I see that now. Out here we have roles to play.

He’s now all Mafia mode, tall, straight, cool. Silent mostly, but those eyes see everything. The best part is, he doesn’t have to pretend about us anymore, no matter who is here. I’m not a worthless mistress he has to hide like a shameful, dirty secret for fear of being used against him. I’m something worthy, for the first time in my life. If they touch me now, he will start world war three.

I’m walking around linked to him, basking in his attention even though it’s subtle. Alexi plays this as he always does. Deadpan with that face that doesn’t tell you a damn thing about what’s going on behind those eyes, although my gift in reading him is filtering back, now I’m calm. He asks very specific questions at random times and more than once gets our red-faced tour guide squirming with replies. Quick, smart and observant.

I can tell the so-called security men are also intimidated by him as they go above and beyond to run after his arse the entire walk around. They watch him like an eagle but keep their distance and practically recoil when he turns his gaze on any of them. It’s sad to watch, albeit amusing.

I kind of like that he has this insane gift of instilling fear in men without even trying. It’s definitely rekindling the horn factor in my underwear, even if my head is still a huge messy pile of poop. I feel like I’m walking around in a floaty dream and nothing is real anymore. An alternate universe and nothing is touching me emotionally.

Weirdly disconnected now. Maybe it’s emotional exhaustion combined with major booze recovery.

The penthouse floors are not overly inspiring when we get there. Not if it’s to be our future love nest, and I can see where we will rip down walls and have the floor plan rearranged. The whole place reeks of an owner on his last legs of life, and it hasn’t been updated in about twenty years or more.

Old dark wood, lots of seventies panelling and musty greens and golds in the décor. It has an air of a gentleman’s smoking club and not ‘us’ at all. I actually miss Alexi’s apartment and long to go back and curl up on the bed with him and Lync. That damn mutt. Craving to go home to something familiar and safe.

The longer we are in Vegas the more I miss New York, but I don’t think it’s the city. I think it’s all that has happened lately; I need a little quiet, normal, and time hiding away in his house to get my bearings.

We wander, we inspect, we both look bored before he drags me with him to the door and makes it clear we are done, and he wants to go. He has seen enough.

Alexi leaves them with a smile, a nod, and tells them his lawyers will contact Mr Addleson’s representative to proceed with an offer befitting what he has seen. He doesn’t hint either way what that will be or give any insight as to whether he was impressed by the place. Usual for him. Locked away behind those eyes that devour souls left in his wake. He could either loathe it or love it and they have no clue at all.

In the car, he pretty much says, ‘It will be ours’. And that little mischievous look tells me he probably already decided that long before he saw it. That clever mind knows down to the dime what he will pay, and I don’t doubt he will get it for what he wants to spend. He is very persuasive that way.

I mean, he convinced me in less than a week to trust, love and live with him; here we are, walking around hand in hand deciding on a future together when my first instinct was a refusal and to run. He has skills, this one. I always underestimate him.

It won’t be cheap, this little future ‘Camlexi’ home, and the revamp alone is sickening to think about. I don’t like to pry into Alexi’s financial business but even I know it will be a huge risk investing in the place if he offers too much. It worries me that he’s biting off more than he can chew.

I hate to admit though, that deep down the whole thing is exciting, doubts aside. The thought of one day getting to walk around the updated Casino and live upstairs when Lexi no longer has to play kingpin of New York. Something away from the crime world and debauchery of the sex club. Something moderately respectable where I won’t have to lie about what I do for a living.

It got my heart racing and my pulse rattling as I eyed up rooms and fittings galore on the way back downstairs; I tried to envision what my touch could do to the place. All other niggles and thoughts and fears locked down tight while looking beyond our current dilemma to a future where he still belongs with me.

To have a place like that as a retirement plan sounds like my idea of heaven.

Alexi doesn’t say much to me on the drive back to the hotel; I’m curled up against him with my head on his shoulder trying to nap. Still needing a connection to him. Afraid the overwhelming feelings and thoughts will strangle me half to death if I stop having bodily contact and allow my mind to wander. So, I stay close, remind myself of his touch, and focus on everything but how I felt when I woke up this morning. Pushing it aside with all my might.

He’s on his phone, anyway, talking through details with Mico while I try to block out how shitty I feel, physically. Nausea, headache, just generally yuck. Numb and bleurgh is the only way to sum it up. Eyes heavy and brain trying so hard to power down and zone out. I need to sleep.

My hangover hit its worst point of the day after I ate that club sandwich. Food made me feel ill, and I had to act my arse off for the rest of the hour to seem like I was on top form. Now I can lie here and just die, suffering like crazy. I all but held vomit in my throat the whole time and drank about three bottles of water to keep it down.

Back in the room, led by Alexi carrying the shoes I threw off in the car, he lets me go to pad to the bedroom, brushing his hand over my arse and giving me an adoring smile as we finally part ways. He throws my shoes down and immediately goes to the couch to retrieve his laptop bag. I watch him as I head to bed. Tired and eager to lie down. I know he’ll be focused on the casino and his brain will be brimming with everything he asked about, for a while. I leave him to do what he must do. Email, call, speak to his lawyers, and do Alexi things.

We need to talk, but for now, I need a bed, aspirin, and a dark room, more than I need to talk about where we go from here, in terms of marriage.

I have to get some of that under control on my own and really evaluate today.

I was scared that he had a possessive hold on me in the form of a legal document calling me his, but the entire morning he was exactly who I have come to love and depend on. No change, no lording over me. Instead, he tried to show me the positives this one simple thing can have on my existence beyond what it is between us. It offers me an opportunity to no longer be cast down and trampled on in his world while still surviving within its boundaries.

It’s a way to get that happy life and still be connected to the darkness he needs to thrive within. He is giving me the protection I never knew was possible. If I can come to terms with the reasons why I don’t want it, then maybe I can live with it.

I have a lot to think about in terms of what this actually means, beyond becoming a prisoner in my own hellish mind.

“Wakey, Wakey, sleepyhead.” Alexi brushes his fingers across my face and rouses me from a glorious sleep with that sexy huskiness of his voice and hot familiar touch of his skin, star-shaped in this huge king-size bed, my body weightless and cosy. Brain reset and finally free of both headache and heavy fatigue that was making everything foggy.

He is lying beside me, propped on one arm casually so he leans over my face, admiring me, and bends in to kiss me lightly as my eyes flutter open and adjust to the gloom of the room. Igniting those butterflies inside of me that brings on a happy, bubbly internal kind of merry. It’s darker than when I fell asleep and I can tell it’s probably evening already.

“Hey,” I reply drowsily, stretching out like a Cheshire cat, content and yawning the tiredness away. Revelling in his affections that are becoming so necessary the longer I’m with him. I like his little touches and kisses more than I ever thought I could, take something from them I never knew existed in life. They are like air to my lungs, sanity to my scatty brain and I never imagined he could be the way he has become in the past weeks towards me. It makes me fall for him so much harder than I thought was possible.

“It’s late and we need to make plans.” He leans in again and delivers another lingering kiss on my lips, rubbing noses, moulding mouths, this time a little seductive light tongue action, his fingers lightly tracing my face and down my throat, igniting tingles as he does so. I giggle at his amorous approach to a half-asleep woman, sliding my hand up and around that strong neck to pull him closer when he breaks away. Loving the temporary lull in my self-inflicted mind mess and focusing on being seduced by a sexy man. It piques my libido and I’m not against waking up to some bed action if he is game.

“Why? I thought the plan was I sleep, and you do whatever you do. Be kingpin while I be lazy mistress.” I yawn again, impulsively reaching up with my other hand to stroke fingers across the five o’clock shadow appearing at his jawline. I run my nails gently around that square sculpted shape, admiring the face that makes me horny before he catches them in his and pulls my attention back to his eyes by kissing my fingertips.

“We have done all we need to do here, and I have to go see my father. I figured if we caught a late flight tonight and headed straight to The Hamptons from JFK, we could kill two birds with one stone. Vegas is not exactly doing me any favours where you are concerned and maybe my house, near my family will be a good place to spend a night before heading back to Manhattan. Time out somewhere relaxing.” Alexi fixes me with a gaze that seems a little unsure. A storm brewing in the mist of his eye colour and I can tell stress is laying just under the surface. He’s holding it in and waiting for a sign as to how I’m feeling.

I blink at him stupendously, my brain on slow mo. So many questions from such a loaded statement as I try to wake up properly.

“Leave tonight? Instead of tomorrow night?” I clear my throat and rub my eyes, confused by the change.

“Yeah. I need to tell my father face to face about us before it gets back to him via my big mouthed brother. I owe it to him to tell him first and there are a few things I need to discuss with him in general.” Alexi looks instantly ashen, furrowed brow, squared off jaw, and that tiny little flicker showing he’s clenching it. His words have my confidence wavering just a tad and I realise it’s because ‘things’ concerning ‘us’ means our shotgun wedding which I burst into tears over. Alexi has no idea how to navigate what I feel as we still haven’t talk about it properly, and I’m afraid to open that can of worms in my brain already. I just want to relax in the absence of hysteria for a little while longer. Pretend it’s not real, bury my head and act like nothing is different. For now, anyway.

“Right.” I sound less enthused about it than I mean to, and he instantly looks away across the room for a moment. Dropping my fingers and pulling far enough away that my hand around his neck slides free from its own weight. That heavy inhale and the way he sags slightly, tells me that this bothers him as much as it does me. He recoils to hide his reaction, but I can read it anyway. I wounded him, and I inwardly curse myself out for it. Guilt eating into my stomach in an awful wrenching manner.

“Give me a month. Just one, and if after those four weeks you still feel this way, we will get divorced and go back to just as it was. Quiet, quick and easy. All that matters to me is that I get to be with you, even if that takes marriage off the table forever.” He still doesn’t look back at me, a tinge of hostility building in the air around him as he gets to his feet and makes it clear we aren’t going to cosy up in bed. I can feel it coming down on me in heavily.

Alexi has his own orbit sometimes and right now it’s stormy weather with meteor showers brewing in the dark gathering clouds. Maybe he thought after I slept it would be a different story, and I just slapped him back down and stabbed him in the heart simultaneously. Waking me up cheerfully was premature and I think he just cottoned onto that. Nothing has really changed.

I can’t help how I feel though. Even if I now have a huge aching weight pressing on my chest, and my throat has constricted like I’m having some sort of nut-related allergic reaction. Mood nosediving into the depths of hell.

His solution is a surprise, as it’s not what I was expecting at all. Mr Control Freak and uber bossy ‘my way or hit the highway’ would never compromise to this level. I know it’s not what he wants, I can tell by the tone and his manner, but he is willing to do this to keep me happy.

I’m blown away that he’s offered me a way out and it’s not lost on me the magnitude of what this means. Alexi will do anything to make me happy, even if it hurts him in the process. It’s huge and the lump in my throat grows larger, almost choking me as warring emotions hit me in the stomach like a subtle punch. Another reason to feel like an even shittier person. I wish I could just be happy and want this as much as he seems to. But I can’t stop all that spiralling terror in the back of mind.

“Why a month?” It’s the only dumb thing that comes out of my mouth, even though it doesn’t really matter. Deflection from how vulnerable I suddenly feel. Trying to pull him away from brewing thunder and hailstones while skirting the real issue at hand. Ungrateful callous bitch who punishes a man that only tries to protect her, putting my happiness over his needs. It’s humbling and creates massive pressure in my hollow chest that threatens to make me cry again.

“Because I can use the fact you are my wife to once and for all deal with our issues in the city. One month is enough time to let it all settle down and let people know that you are. Protected as family, and it should cull a lot of threats in one go. Carreros are untouchable if they don’t want the wrath of my family raining down on them. If we divorce, no one will be told, and you will still have the same protection. We use it to solve a problem and take the emotion out of it.” His clipped low tone, the absence of his touch and the avoidance of his eye on me says it all. He moves away from the bed, looking around for something and I get antsy, anxiety growing like a large ball in my inner body. I can feel him pulling away and closing down into familiar emotionless Alexi Mafia Boss Carrero.

I stare at him silently, feeling the pain in his factual, emotionless words and know that, in a way, I’m rejecting him. The reason for my fear isn’t enough to shield his heart from what I’m doing to him.

Stirring up my internal tension and nausea just talking about this again only cements the fact I may never stop feeling this way. I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to. I don’t fully understand it, even after all the logical pep talks I gave myself at the Casino. I can’t seem to separate it from the past and somehow being trapped.

“One month. I’ll try. If on this date next month, I still feel like this, then I want us to divorce and never talk about it again. It can carry on as before and we just never mention marriage ever again, for as long as I live.” It’s harder to spit those words out than I thought it would be, and I almost choke on the effort. Like swallowing thick peanut butter, but I need the reassurance of a get out plan. A month is like a temporary trial, and as long as I know it comes to an end, then I can get through it. Freedom is shining again, like a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a compromise of sorts.

I feel like an utter bitch even saying that to him though, and the way he clenches his jaw, squaring it off and avoiding my eyes, tells me he is taking it worse than he is letting me see.

“Deal.” He turns back to the bed, holds out his hand in a mock shake and I take it gently. Hating the way he’s making this formal and business-like suddenly. His eyes cast on my hand rather than my face, and I ache for the sparkle, which has instantly dulled in them, to come back. This version of him seems like a wounded boy holding it all in and showing his tough ‘nothing can hurt me’ persona. He’s never looked so young as he does now, and I come so close to tears it physically hurts my heart. I almost take it all back, but the words catch in my throat and choke me from saying what I mean.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It’s just …” I have no words to explain. Just a longing so severe to take that look off his face and make him thaw back to the tenderness of minutes ago.

“I get it. I do. I don’t have to like it though.” He lets go and pulls away from the bed, hand releasing my grip quickly as though I have burned him. Rotating his shoulder to ease a knot out, avoiding eye contact by turning away slightly. A cold tone and distance in his expression I should have expected, but it still makes me break. Even though I know he wouldn’t turn on me as he did in the past, that inner fear of his sadistic side hasn’t quite died yet. I know what he is capable of when shielding himself from pain, and I just gave him every reason to feel a lot of it.

I suffered at his hands before because he knew I had the power to wound him in places no one could get to. I understand why he did the things he did to me. Alexi has walls higher and thicker than mine and scars that run as deep. Armour-plated, heavily armed and rigged with booby traps for anyone who gets in. He gave me the golden key to bypass it all, and yet here I am, using it to stab him in the heart.

I’m a wretched, horrible human.

He just wants love. Like I do. That place in a person to call home and feel accepted in all our jaded glory. Flaws and all.

“Get packed. I got us a flight at after dinner, so we should eat first and then head to the airport. Gino and Alessandra are coming with us.” He sounds clipped and devoid of any real obvious emotion which only makes my stomach sink further. I know him too well. The less he shows the more he is feeling. I have hurt him and he’s taking it like the devil he can be.

Locking it down and presenting an ‘I don’t give a shit’ deadpan face to the world. Issuing orders and expecting obedience. I sigh lightly, deflating further. Knowing this will change how he is with me while he processes it a little.

I nod mutely, knowing any further refusals would not be wise right now. I need to learn to read him and act accordingly if I’m ever going to survive the storm that is Alexi Carrero. Give him space when he’s brewing, leave him be when I have acted like an idiotic selfish shithead and broken his heart. Even if I didn’t mean to.

He walks off, leaving me sitting in bed watching the empty space he departed from and pondering everything sadly. Left hollow, achy, heavy and tearful.

I never thought when I woke up this morning that I’d end the day as a wife. That while struggling to process it, I’d be hurting Alexi in ways I couldn’t fathom. I really wish I could be like any normal woman and feel happiness and joy at the fact we did this, but I can’t. Where there should be joy there’s fear of the unknown and a chokehold so tight it threatens to end me.

I’ve had a lifetime of being used, owned, bruised and controlled by men. Marriage to me is a prison much like being bound to a cross. I become his property, lose my identity and have to answer to a husband for any decision I want to make.

I fought my whole life to choose my own path in life and be free of the bonds of servitude and abuse.

It’s suffocating, and there’s that constant fear in the back of my mind that he’ll be exactly like his cousins were at dinner, now he can lord over me as ‘husband’. There are men who see that as a title to become domineering, controlling arseholes and I already know he has those tendencies in huge proportions naturally. I’m weak when it comes to having faith and trust in him, and even when my eyes and heart try to show me something hopeful, I get too afraid to believe in it. Life has never given me anything but pain. The times I felt hope, clawed myself out of shit, it dragged me back down, stamped all over me and laughed in my face. Experience has taught me that you should always be suspicious and follow your gut. Anything else gets you crushed.

My gut says this will change everything for me, for the worse.

I shudder at the thought and push it down as far as I can.

Even though logic is telling me I may be wrong, and today only proved Alexi is still the same towards me as he has been since he told me he loved me, maybe even softer as each day ticks by. I just can’t trust him yet. I haven’t seen enough of who he will be with me to think about throwing away all that I am, and all that life has taught me about men.

You don’t just throw yourself into the lion’s den without first sussing out the lay of the land and arming yourself.

I can’t live my life being an obedient, invisible nothing, living in the shadow of my man. I don’t have it in me to step in line and become subservient. I see women in this world at dinners and events all the time; silent, feeble women living under the thumb of their criminal overlord master and cowering at every angry glance. Very few women in this world are treated with love or cherished, in any way. They know their place, and the world of men in the Mafia and criminal dealings are some of the most backward, sexist and archaic men on the planet. Alexi may seem different in some ways right now, in the honeymoon phase which I know will end, but the Alexi I met almost a year and a half ago was very much one of the boys.

Can he really have changed all that much just because he fell in love with me? When the novelty wears off and I’m just another part of his day, will he still be so accommodating, and dare I say it, sweet?

What happens when everyday life settles in and he tires of his new toy? Do I get shelved like all the other women who married men like this? To live out their days pretending not to know about the hookers and the mistresses that are rife in their clubs and bars? To become church going, bake sale, pillar of the community, wifely women who do no wrong and never speak out of turn about their husbands and their jobs. Pretending to be happy while drinking myself to sleep every night alone when he stops coming home? Knowing the smell of cheap perfume, he will come wearing, when he crawls home drunk and disinterested in fucking me anymore.

That is all I’ve seen of men like Alexi for as long as I can remember. I was on the other side. I was the whore who serviced the husbands and listened to their whining and bitching about their ‘ball and chains’ their ‘frigid little women’, and how miserable married life is behind the white dress and fake congratulations.

And that adds another layer to my apprehensions.

I was the woman they carried out their secret fetishes and cruelties on because their women were not worthy.

Is that what we will become?

Alexi can’t tie me up and strap me down to fulfil his needs, so what will become of his kinks and desires now he’s lassoed himself to me?

And me, what will I do when he decides I have no place in the club anymore because it’s not befitting his wife to work there? Housewife? Pampered lady of leisure?

How will I hold myself together when I suspect he’s having sex with other women and pushing me aside like these men have done for decades? When I’m expected to be silent, obedient, and know my place. All while he’s ripping me apart from inside out all over again.

Marriage ruins everything.

I would rather go find his gun and finish my half-assed attempt of months ago.

I won’t live that way.