The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance)

I slide down and do something I have done since I was old enough to bathe myself. I keep going until I fully submerge under the water, hold my breath, close my eyes and blot everything of the world away to hear only the high-pressure thrum of being underwater.

I can ignore my knees getting cold as they stick out to accommodate my laid down position as the respite from the world is always worth it. Even in an uncomfortable half sized tub that scrapes my bum with its cracked enamel.

I taught myself to hold my breath for up to two minutes as a child, even though I have never learned to swim. I used to count the seconds out and make myself do it for longer and longer. It was my escape, my secret underworld which cleansed my soul of all the sins put upon me while hiding me from the reality of my life. I used to wonder if it would be as peaceful to drown and finally be free of all that tormented me.

I can manage half that time now, seeing as I no longer do it ritually or often enough anymore. Only when I feel highly stressed and need escapism.

I relent after a minute and push myself up, wiping the water away as I inhale the cold musty air, and come back to focus on what is real. The disgusting grimy surroundings. I have to just accept this is my life now.

Tomorrow is another gruelling long shift, another monotonous Thursday when we stay open late. Fridays are no better as I work six days a week and have no respite until Monday, my one day off. I work weekends, not that I have a life to have other plans that require the odd break to use in my own time. I am carrying on that age-old tradition of no friends, no one getting close and therefore … no need for weekends.

I also feel wretched. This damn cold has been building for a few days and it’s wiping me out. My eyes are puffy; I’m constantly sniffing, feeling thirsty and have an itchy sore throat. These past months I just keep catching one thing after another as though I never fully recover before I am floored again. I seem to be sick all the time.

I know it’s because my immune system is shot, and I am hardly living in healthy surroundings; it all adds up to just being constantly under the weather. Just another layer to drag me down and make me feel like maybe it’s time I upped and left and found somewhere better to step up to.

This place is a prison that I have chosen to dwell inside of and I no longer know why anymore. Why I am doing this to myself when I have a few grand under the floor to just start someplace else.

I sit up in panic as a coughing fit hits me suddenly and almost drown myself in the process as I slide about helplessly, grabbing for a towel and wiping my face free of water. It wracks through me, burning my lungs painfully, and I end up with a runny nose and watery eyes cursing myself that I don’t even get to enjoy a soak in the tub anymore. Not that this tub is worthy. It’s well matched to my shithole surroundings. Tiny, chipped and flaky and has temperamental water flow when I manage to get it to work at all. Water that even on a good day, is always a weird shade of yellow or brown.

I get out quickly and clumsily, feeling frustrated and just not in the frame of mind to wrestle with my own patience and stay in the bath. Not even spending time washing myself or my hair, but the mood is gone and I dry myself fast.

This place is too cold and dusty to walk around naked, so I throw on the pyjamas I keep hanging in here, only place to use as a wardrobe seeing as the one in my room has rat shit and roaches inside it, crawling about and making my skin crawl. My clothes are kept in bags on the couch for more than just my need to leave, it’s also for fear that I may get critters in them and I’ve been bitten by many strange bugs here already.

I really need to up my living conditions.

to sort my shit

it if my nose keeps running, and climb into it. Not that it’s much of a welcoming place with a hard mattress and rough bedding that I got on sale in a hurry when I

work. I spend my time here on this bed just sleeping my life away, or reading. I don’t even own a TV or anything which makes a noise and might attract people to investigate the new tenant’s belongings. Nothing of comfort that would just waste my money either and I only have books because people leave them in the diner constantly. Joe throws them

on the cover, not my cup of tea, but better than staring outside my dirty windows until sunset and wishing myself

my only source of

eating enough to really gain weight. I know I am not taking care

home in a bid to shift this bug, knowing it’s dumb but I want it to knock me out for the night. It should work like a sedative, and maybe I won’t wake tonight with nightmares and terrors if my body is drugged

there are more sinister

in alarm at god knows what and blinking in the darkness of my room as I open my eyes to pitch black. My heart’s pounding crazily and the sweats hit me fast as I come to, in disorientation. Groggy from the effects of the meds I took hours ago as I slide it off and try to get my bearings.

bedside table as I feel around with shaking hands. I roll to my side

heard and strain so very hard to listen over the sound of my shallow breathing and erratic pounding rhythm

my head as adrenaline courses through my body. I know I am not imagining things; I am sensitive to things like

as though something is being shifted or moved around on my threadbare floor through the door, and I sit up to strain towards it as stealthily as I can muster. My bedroom door is closed, which it makes it hard to hear anything at all but it’s unmistakable as it comes a little clearer and closer. I push my bedclothes back and sit very still, poised in a sitting position; completely petrified with a million things racing through my mind that I try to

Footsteps!

every time they venture nearer my room, the floorboards make a dull aching thud underfoot, where they

are people inside my

one knows who

quickly and silently as I can as trembles take hold in the cold air. Holding my breath, nerves on an

third floor was raped by an intruder last month, he took nothing of value and the attack seemed to be purely sexual. I am not about to go down without

to it, but it’s still something I

as low as I can to slide it out slowly without making a single

like this before and I know I need to keep my wits about me until I