The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance)

I like this place; it gives you that instant calm feeling of being somewhere safe and welcoming. A bit like being in his arms. I shake that thought from my head before my brain follows the being in his arms to something a little more X-rated and remind myself, I’m supposed to be dissecting this man and figuring him out.

“That depends on how much I’m allowed to know,” I ask with a slight brow raise and a half smile. My seductress side smoothly flowing now I feel more at ease. I too am drawing serene from our calm abode.

“Whatever you want. I meant it when I said I would earn your trust. If that means being an open book and telling you whatever you want to know, then here we are.” He gestures around him, watching me carefully.

“You could have done that at the club, why bring me here?”

Because Alexi is a devious shit who likes to set a scene and manipulate a response. I have seen him do it for his own ends a hundred times. It’s what he does, and he does it so well.

“This is my little corner away from reality. A sanctuary, I guess. I get to leave Alexi Carrero at the door and just be Lex. A teen kid who came to the city to figure his life out. I figured it would be the best place to start altering the person I have shown you up until now. I brought you to the one place where barely anyone else gets to come, for that reason; no prying ears either.”

No one else except whoever got this place visitor worthy today. I’m onto him.

“So even though you grew up and bought a swanky apartment, you still have this place … as a bolthole of sorts?”

I’ll play along, see where it takes us. I start to wonder if this is all staged, and this belongs to one of his minions and not him at all, but his obvious ease is contradicting that. I get the impression he knows this place intimately, has lived here, and even though it doesn’t initially reek of Alexi Carrero, there is something of him in the atmosphere. I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.

“Yeah. I bought it after I started working for my father and just couldn’t let it go. I have a lot of memories here, a lot of me that was left behind when I changed the path I took.”

It’s also in the same area he once took me to lunch, so the geography adds up. He told me that day he once lived near there. I didn’t forget that tiny titbit.

I exhale heavily, knowing the only way I will get the full story is to go back to the start. Like me, his story is not clear cut or as simple as I thought it was, and I guess to know the man, you need to know the journey. I want to know how he came to be King Carrero if his father opposed it. I want to know how someone who could lovingly create this home, became someone who could tie me up and rip my sanity to shreds. The two don’t match up.

“I don’t know what to ask about how you got here. I’m guessing your mother played a part and I know you shot someone at 13. I want to know your history. How you got to be what you are now if you started here and your father turned you away from being like him?”

Seems like a reasonable request, given he offered.

Alexi considers me for a long minute before getting up and walking over to his bookcase. There’s a stereo and a row of CDs and he turns it on putting one in before turning back to me, lifting the remote and turning it down low. Maroon five starts soothing me with familiar notes, playing around us unobtrusively and I smile on the inside. I’ve heard him play their songs at the club when he’s in the office. This is definitely Alexi’s pad. His music tastes are very rigid, and this is a song he plays a lot.

He bends down as I watch him from my sitting position as he slides out a black leather photo album from the shelf below before walking back; he hands it to me and returns to his seat confidently. That smooth swagger that reminds me of who he is.

I watch him closely, unsure what to do until he nods at it and gives me permission to open.

“My family album, one of them, courtesy of Gino. Figured you might want a visual of the people in my past.”

I let out a little ‘huh’ under my breath, smiling as I screw up my face. Surprised that he even owns these kinds of things and look down to do as I’m told. I want to see what ‘family’ for him is. I want to see the bitch that Gino blames for his cold heart and chosen life path.

and children, family pictures, holiday shots. The usual for any family in an album. A lot of strangers and some

with that little frowny face, he was an incredibly cute kid. A little dark and sinister even then, but adorable and even harder to separate from Gino without tattoos and badass tailoring. They are creepily identical. There is a lot of him and his

the tall, powerful man I met at the club. So much like his son in looks but with more wrinkles, grey hair

three other children and a woman who is certainly not a Carrero. They did not take after her if she is who I think she is. She looks drawn and bitchy, to say the least. Attractive, long dark blonde hair, which is probably dyed, and brown eyes, but

hate to admit, he has. Alexi has more of her in him than I think he wants to admit. It’s not in the looks, it’s in the manner. The way she’s poised, and even though one hand is on her child’s shoulder, a girl, there is an impersonal detachment in it. She is groomed and precise and seems like an addition to the picture, not really one of the family. She gives me the heebie-jeebies.

right?” I tap her face and motion him to look where I’m pointing,

That’s her.” He doesn’t

seems a little sterile. Even in a

and drinks a good portion of his wine, averting his eyes to his stereo and I flick back down to the cold woman’s face. Not convinced that it’s the only reason she looks like an anally retentive arsehole. Alexi seems deflated with me picking out her

did with my siblings. I have four. I was always a problematic kid, and she didn’t know how to deal with me. It affected our whole relationship and I pretty much spent my childhood on the outside of my own family. The black sheep, making everything difficult.” He adds as he stares at his fire and bookcase, avoiding my eye, and that little tug of heartache appears low inside of me. Empathy for that poor little boy who just wanted her

Gino said?” I know I’m admitting to eavesdropping by asking this, but I’ve always wanted to know the full story of Alexi and his

I’ve listened in when I shouldn’t and carries

stuff and the agitation is all over him already. That evasive behaviour of his. The first thing he always does is avoidance is to

purpose, even if I planned on bringing it out. I want to know, but I

the means to call Jackson to come save me before I

and should balance the scales a little.” He walks back, beer in hand, but doesn’t sit. Just wanders to the stereo and flicks through his collection of

my journals heats my face, my stomach dropping at the fact he knows all about me and I glance away. Instant gut wrench and I push the painful feelings away quickly. Back to the photo on my lap and scowl at the bitch staring back at me. I don’t like her, even without seeing more, there is something in her that reminds me of my own mother. That lack of warmth in her eyes and the way she is holding herself aloft like she hates everyone in the fucking world. I shudder, pulling myself away to shake

my wine in one hand. Remembering he knows everything really sours my mood, reminding me of why I’m here. I have so much riding on this, and no clue where

of the point of this. Changing how you see me; being able to trust me.” He smiles my way when I look up and catch his eye before he returns to

back between us, straining the atmosphere, and I can tell he’s not as comfortable with this as he is making out. He doesn’t share personal things so this must be taking a huge amount of effort on his

in two

shyly. No clue how this began and not knowing the questions to ask. My version of his life is wrong, so

sense the nervous tension in him still. He’s still as a statue, a little too calm which usually means he’s working twice as hard to be so. This bothers him. Offering this so he won’t have to be grilled like a POW by me. It’s obvious he doesn’t like divulging his past and he probably isn’t too comfy

plan.” I smile too, except mine is genuine, glad I won’t have to coax a story or ask things that might upset him. If he’s in control of the intel he gives, maybe we can

in his seat, a little straighter and at an angle where he can look

me worse and more likely to be a little shit. I was aggressive, defiant and stubborn as hell. Every mother’s dream kid, huh?” Alexi sort of half smiles, half frowns. A self-deprecating statement that hints that he never really grew out of it.

balled up inside me, dissipates a little. The tense atmosphere around us eases slightly, and as I cradle my wine and take a sip, I can see him loosen up visually too. Those shoulders not so square and rigid as he finds a more comfortable slouch. I guess my

to me. I guess it was a case of good twin, bad twin, and as we were my mother’s first offspring, she didn’t know how to deal with me. So, she pushed me out, praised him and decided that ignoring the bad behaviour was how to punish me. Gino was the golden boy, and I was the kid she apologised for wherever we went. It wasn’t deliberate, I didn’t know how to be any different. I wasn’t actively trying to be bad; I just couldn’t stop it. I grew up knowing I was the one she didn’t really like, barely loved, and I guess it got to me a lot more than I admitted to myself.” Even though his words are level

My poor baby.

just unfathomable to me.” I blurt out, my heart already aching for a little kid who was shunned for being the naughty one. I guess also having a mother who was cruel I can relate to him in that way. See the abuse, even if his mother never delivered punches and blows as mine did. She fucked him up just the same. Denied him the basics

her fault I was the way I was. It wasn’t until I was around nine they finally figured out I have ADHD, and back then I had something called ODD, or Conduct disorder … which pretty much means I had a reason for being a bad kid; my shrink told me parental rejection exacerbated the

laugh, a shrug and a shake of his head as he tries to pass it all off as meaningless. I sit in stunned silence and try to absorb this fully. I never thought