The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance)

I turn in the uncomfortable, hard bed pulling the sheets up over the itchy hospital gown and try not to wince with every single pain that runs through my body. Even with the number of drugs they have pumped into me, it’s no picnic having broken ribs and a body that looks like it lost a fight with a train. I’m in agony and barely able to take a breath without the aching, burning shuddering waves, of a good old-fashioned beating.

Tyler and his men are animals and I hate to think where I would be if Sophie had left me to them; what was inevitably my last night on Earth if they had their way. The girl didn’t owe me a damn thing, but she saved my bacon, and now I will be eternally grateful to her even if we never see one another again.

I’m woozy, waking with the throbbing of pain after a fitful few hours dozing in and out of sleep. I feel like I have been here days already, even though I know the reality is, it’s only been half a day.

Sophie is probably long gone with her boyfriend and my name banished for all eternity for getting her caught up in my mess. Owing drug dealers a lot of money and not having the means to pay for it, is not something everyday girls want to deal with. Getting kidnapped off the street by thugs and threatened with imminent death will be a second to that.

I am just lucky she had a rich boyfriend who is related to New York’s biggest gangster; Alexi Carrero, and now, I guess I owe him my debt.

A shadow in the corner of my room startles me out of the last ounces of sleep as I jump in fright, my heart racing and plummeting into instant trembles, to see what looks like a man standing by my window near the door. It’s hard to make out properly with one eye swollen shut and the other barely able to focus in the darkness. The moonlit sky outside is illuminating him from behind so that to me, all I get is a sinister silhouette of a very large male, who is more than a little intimidating.

Standing tall and broad, taking up the small space with an aura of authority, and yet he is so very eerily still, staring at me silently; it’s almost like he’s a statue.

‘‘I didn’t mean to startle you, Miss Walters.’’ The smooth tone of a man in complete control, husky with a hint of an accent that isn’t quite New York. Foreign maybe, and so slight it’s only there in the odd little word, almost smothered out by a more upper-class City dialect. It’s as though he’s spent years here but maybe wasn’t born here.

Accents are kind of my thing, seeing as my own very upper crust London one stands out a mile when surrounded by tough New Yorkers. I made sure over the years that it never faded, and I avoided taking on American slang to avoid it.

me for

time when you are recovered.’’ He moves away from the window, and I catch more of him in the light, confirming exactly

you would ever forget

towers by the end of my bed and turns to me for a moment, stealth like a panther, so fluid and graceful in his movements. My breath halting in my lungs as my body shivers apprehensively; he just oozes danger and command so effortlessly that I can almost feel it in the room around me. This is a man I know I should be very afraid of, and I am.

back into my sheets involuntarily as he moves a tad closer, my heart elevates and my breath hitches in nervousness. My whole body turns clammy.

spending my first hour here throwing up blood and phlegm while they tried to assess the damage to my body. It’s not exactly my crowning moment and you really do not want to be in this

calm, almost like he’s amused, but not being able to see his face is making this whole thing utterly terrifying. He has the air of sinister alright, that vibe of someone who will put a bullet

me this nervous in life; I came from the streets, I lived through hell and have met my fair share of cruel and evil men, but this one is like meeting the devil himself. He is doing nothing purposely or outwardly to make me afraid

need to state it or make it clear in any obvious way, it’s just there, like an aura and anyone who meets them does

those men—who wear command like a shroud about

aching throat, even though I should be grateful I am not at the bottom of the river right now, and for having him swoop in and save me from certain death at Tyler’s hands. I owe him fifty grand because of that stupid whore taking off with everything I had, trusting the wrong mousy little bitch and letting myself get distracted,

in this world knows that he’s the New York go to man

It couldn't get any worse than that. He is not someone who needs to beat women half to death to chase up a drug debt; he is someone who will just drop you in the ocean, wearing metal boots, for not paying up in time and not

am a family favour, Alexi’s

a living, and currently has nothing but the dirty clothes they took from me to her name? I have no value to a millionaire crook that

care about, and I will honour that affection by taking you on. Don’t get me wrong, Miss Walters, you will pay