The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance)

‘Can you just not?’ I snap at Lorraine, the other waitress in this hellhole, and shove her out of the way with my arse as she lounges in the hatch in my way for the millionth time today.

I am already tense and irritated by my day and having her fat ugly face hanging around me is making me even more so.

‘What’s eating you, sugar?’ She drolls lazily, that fake New York twang she tries to mimic, even though she is from Texas and eye rolls at me. Her frizzy, over processed nest of almost white hair over pudgy fake tanned and badly applied makeup is giving her an air of late fifties, rather than the forty-two she told me she is. I swear she’s on the verge of getting a fork in her eye today, and I am not in the mood to be dealing with a menopausal old hag with a laziness disorder. She needs to tuck her disgusting spotty food baby away as it overhangs, giving her a muffin top on the trousers she has on today, and I wonder why I am the only one who gets stuck with the shitty pink waitress dress.

I hate working here most days, but in the last forty minutes, I think that turned to extreme loathing.

I have the first traces of a mega cold, banging sore head, swollen glands and if one more sleazy construction worker feels my arse when I am serving him lunch, I may actually scream. Flu doesn’t make for a witty and happy, overworked slop server.

Four months, five days, seven hours and twenty-three minutes since I walked out of that hospital with only three suitcases and a hat box and here I am.

Living the fucking dream!

That is if your dream is to be a shittily paid, overworked grease servant in a grubby back alley diner that stinks every day of fried food. Manhandled by sweaty mucky men and barked at by your Hitler of a boss as he also eye rapes you and can’t seem to dig his eyeballs out of your cleavage on a daily. I don’t think it’s a mistake he supplied me with uniforms that are two sizes too small and I can barely move without a button popping over my bust.

I am working to pay for a crappy one bed shithole across town in the dump dive better known as the lower west side, or the meat packing district. Hardly a safe environment for a young woman alone, but it’s all I can afford if I want to stay in the city.

I just kept telling myself I wasn’t ready to

I’m different somehow.

many ways, and the thought of going back to canoodling with dark-hearted, suited men in the world of drugs and sex, terrifies me. I’ve lost my confidence and my ambition is shaky. My heart is fragile and bruised and I don’t think I would have the ability to swoon and charm men in a bid to get the upper hand anymore. He showed me that there are men who are more terrifying and effective than being sexually assaulted. It’s a

from being touched

have enough money to live this out for a while, putting away what I can to make a real start somewhere else. I’m just biding my time and

sex with me, I haven’t a lot else to work with. I know my youth and beauty won’t stay with me forever, so I need a better plan

when you’re trying to avoid men and avoid attention. The only things I have ever

manoeuvre around her with a glare, avoid any more chit-chat with a woman I can barely stand looking at, let alone breathe the same air. She’s a clumpy and grubby pain in my ass, always chewing on chicken legs and lax when it comes to doing her job and hygiene. She has favour with the boss though, as she lets him put his hand down her pants every time his wife is out at the wholesale. And then their weekly fuck session when

in, listening to today’s game, and I guess they just scored. Unfortunately, his elbow catches my tray and

assaults me simultaneously and soaks through in the most disgusting way. Clothes moulding to my body as it all slides down me with vile aplomb. My body shivers and recoils

Dickhead!!

one of those crappy ‘all bad things happen to me’, kind of days. His voice has the same effect as nails on a chalkboard and I have

The middle-aged customer mutters at me and I bite my tongue to stop myself cussing back at him with a vengeance as I start to peel plates from my tits and wiggle the crockery to fall back on the tray, which is still in my hands. I count to ten inwardly and keep reminding myself how much I need this job, ignoring Joe and his aggressive rant about my incompetence. He’s banging around in the kitchen, hollering abuse

at life and hating that I now have to clean this shit up off the chequered black and white tiled floor, and still serve this utter arsehole with more food that Joe will no doubt dock me for. He doesn’t care whose

aimed my way. I keep my eyes on my task, bite my bottom lip