‘‘I’m not about to give you my sob story Carrero, it isn’t some hidden scar needing to be talked about. I
am great at moving on in life and forgetting shit that happens to me and you are not much of a shoulder
to cry on. Not that I need you to be.’’ I move away to get space from him, unnerved by the way his
presence is making me feel claustrophobic suddenly. My body still tingling when he gets too near and
having a hard time keeping the flutters at bay, even if I do think he is Satan. I swear it has to be his
aftershave or something that makes me react this way without effort on his part, sometimes it happens
without him even touching me and I hate that cannot get a handle on it. The devil's allure or something.
‘’Your history beyond appearing in New York a few years back is sketchy at best. My man couldn’t even
find anything at all about you before that. How come you haven’t been deported back for lack of a visa?
Do we have a secret husband somewhere enabling your stay?’’ He looks blank and it’s hard to tell if
this questioning is intrigue or something more and I just shrug.
‘’I’m American. I was born here and taken to England by my mother when I was two. I don’t need a visa
because I’m a US citizen with dual nationality. My father lives in Texas. Dead for all I care.’’ I walk to the
couch and sit down, carefully pulling my legs out of sight under me and pull a cushion on my lap to
cover some of what’s on show. I’m more than aware he doesn’t go for my full-on seduction act and
after tonight I’m not in the mood to play it anyway. I feel like I just need a break from the outward
persona and just time to sit and let my pain relief work. Time off from being a toy for men to push
around.
I just want to feel secure for a little while and not meet any demands or pushy questions while I get
some respite. It’s rare in my life to ever just get a moment to feel still.
‘‘You don’t have a relationship with him then? Is he why you came back here?’’ Alexi is probing still,
eyes doing a great job of not perving on the parts of me he can see, and I shrug again. Knowing when I
avoid answering he turns into a controlling prick, but I don’t really want to have this heart-to-heart with
him. If I get it out quickly, without emotion he might just drop it altogether, feed his curiosity enough to
never have him pry again. He wants information and that’s all.
‘‘Yes and no. I showed up thinking I might have someone to call family, and he threatened to shoot me
if I didn’t get off his property. He called me a harlot and the devil incarnate; fucking alcoholic bible
basher. He inspired the red hair though with his sweet words of Jezebel and Lucifer’s bride. Have to
thank him for that and setting me on my new path in life.’’ I say it without feeling but deep down it stirs
an ember of spite and pain that I try to ignore. When it came to the lottery of parents I bypassed luck
with both and ended up with the barrel scrapes of the gene pool.
I’m glad I grew up looking like my grandmother, from what I saw of her pictures anyway. She was long
gone before I appeared so didn’t give me any reason to despise her the way I do my biological parents.
Alexi comes back and sits opposite me on the L shaped couch, giving me plenty of space, hunched
forward as he holds his glass in his two hands and swirls it slowly. His eyes downcast on his liquid
refreshment as though he is deep in thought.
‘‘Nice guy. And your mother?’’
Really? Alexi is a nosey bastard.
He likes to know everything about everyone and anything. It’s tiring, and I am not naïve. I know he
collects information to store in that fast brain of his that he can use at another time. Usually to get in
your head or under your skin; I have seen him do it with ease.
‘’Dead. She was a heroin addict, and she died at my feet when I was fifteen.’’ Actually, on the floor a
few feet away, but who’s picking apart the details. Stupid bitch did it to herself and I watched her die
with no sense of remorse at all.
Another little tingle of bitterness about a past I have no space for hits me low in the gut and I swallow it
away with the memory. People just use you and discard you anyway, it’s easier to cut off all emotional
ties and go it alone. Her death gave me some sort of freedom in a way. One less controlling bastard to
use me as a punching bag.
‘’Jesus!’’ Alexi, for the first time ever, has an actual facial expression that I recognise. He looks
momentarily sympathetic, a little surprised and I try to ignore it. Same as the moment of gentle, it
throws me and I look anywhere but at him. His mask is slipping and I wonder if it’s because he has
been around me for weeks now and is starting to relax, or if it is because he is tired and home and lets
it slide occasionally.
‘‘I don’t care. She wasn’t worth much as family. I’m better off without those sorts of ties to people, they
just hinder you and drag you down.’’
Story of my life!
‘‘Not all families do that … Mine are close. All of us, even the ones who stay out of this side of the
business. My twin and my cousins are my closest friends and I trust no one outside of my bloodline, I
care about them and I work very hard to protect all of them, so I can’t imagine what being alone must
have been like and losing your mother so young.’’ Alexi sits back propping his feet on the table and I
notice he has no shoes on, only black socks and it’s weirdly informal somehow. As is the frank and
open way he’s telling me things I never expected him to share with me. I wonder if he’s softening
towards me a little after all and it’s prompted this couch sharing thing he has going on. It's surreal and a
little disarming.
‘’Believe me, losing her was the best thing that could have happened to me and leaving that wretched
country was the second.
I learned I had to rely on myself and myself alone. People don’t give a shit about you, only what you
can do for them. Present company included, but it’s okay because I know that’s the reality of life, and I
am fine with it. I know where I stand with you and what is expected of me.’‘ It’s why I feel safe here with
him. He laid down the rules and the boundaries, and he has stuck to them. He cohabits and yet doesn’t
touch me. I don’t ever recall a man in my entire existence who treated me as anything other than a
fuck. Sharing space meant my body was theirs to touch in any way they saw fit, and yet he has had me
here for weeks and nothing has happened.
Alexi looks pensive for a moment and sighs.
‘’Tonight wasn’t meant to happen that way—I apologise. I should have had more control of the situation
and followed him sooner. I didn’t think he would have the balls to try and pull a stunt like that; he knows
me well enough to be thankful his dick is still attached right now. I realised when I walked into the
men’s and he wasn’t there … Contrary to what you might think of our arrangement I take care of my
own, even if all you are to me is a business asset.’’ It is odd how the man in such few words can both
make me feel better and worse in one go.
I need to stop caring about anything he says or does because it’s just exhausting, and I shouldn’t put
any hopes on being more than a possession. Even if it’s not a sexual one.
‘’Clearly.’’ I gesture around my abode, knowing fine well he didn’t have to give me somewhere to live
when he took me on, and he’s paid me generously on top of that since I got here. I don’t have any
needs that aren’t being met, except one.
It still bites though that he did remind me that all I am to him is a business acquisition, it somehow
smarts a little more than it should. Leaving an achy lump in my gut that won’t shift.
‘’I know I’m not an easy guy to talk to, but if you need me to listen I will.’’ Another moment of something
else sparking through and I realise I don’t like these soft Alexi hints. That’s what’s throwing me off. I
prefer the cold bastard who lets you know exactly where you stand and doesn’t care if you hate him for
it. He doesn’t give a shit and I like the fact I know it and can just not give a shit either.
This right here though, hints of caring or something … it’s making me uneasy and I start to get up to
leave before this turns into a weird tear fest of touchy-feely. I don’t fancy sitting in a sharing circle and
letting out our deepest, darkest feelings. I feel antsy and suspicious and I know I am running because
quite frankly, this kind of shit scares me witless. I don’t like people prying or getting too cosy and cuddly
with me, it makes me nervous and mistrustful. I am not one for all that ‘‘Kumbaya’’ round a campfire
nonsense.
‘‘I don’t need a shrink or an ear to bend. I need sleep and some concealer to get through the day.
Goodnight Carrero, or good morning, whatever.’’ The best thing will be to go to bed and cut this
conversation right now. Leave him to his gin.
‘‘London?’’ He stops me as I wriggle off the couch without flashing him any more than I have to. He
doesn’t bother to avert his eyes though and I hate that fucking name. Irritation rising fast in my
stomach. He uses it sporadically—I think probably just to annoy me and I turn on him moodily.
‘‘What?’’
‘’You can trust me … to an extent.’’
He just looks strange. Like he is going for sincere but something does not quite sit right with me.
HA FUCKING HA!
I don’t know if that’s a joke or just irony. He’s the last person in the world I would trust with anything.
Even I am not that dumb to believe Mr Player's smooth tongue; he works and coerces people every
day and this right here is just another game to him.
I click as I realise the soft hints are really manipulated drop attacks and suddenly it is all coming into
focus with amazing clarity. He’s trying to get in and under my wall and I can’t believe I was so stupid I
didn’t see it until this very moment, but now it’s crystal clear in one little sentence. He just played me for
information he couldn’t dig up by himself and I walked into it like a goddamn amateur. He said it
himself. His man couldn’t dig up info on me before coming to the USA and Carrero is a nosey fuck who
needs to know everything about everything.
That sneaky Arsehole.
You get one Carrero … Not again.
I feel so stupid that I almost fell for it. In fact, I DID fall for it.
Arsehole.
Utter Prick.
Carrero is a devious snake, and he probably gives no more shits about tonight than he does about
some random girl on the street going through the same ordeal. It’s all just a gameplay and another
level of how he operates. He wanted my little sad backstory and now he has it, and I am left furious that
he would pull the gentle hero card while I am in a fragile state.
If that’s the way you want to play, then two can play at the nice game. I’m going to be so goddamn
adoring and puppy-eyed you are going to think I genuinely like you. See what I can extract from that
stiff exterior and learn about you.
If he thinks I am going to roll over and be manipulated by him then he has another thing coming.
Let the war begin.
Wanker!
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