I shake my head, stomach turning over as I put it back in my bag and hesitate, even though my heart is
saying to leave it well alone. Something inside of me is fighting it and I’m not letting it go as I tilt my
head back to let out an exaggerated sigh into the eerie surroundings. My inner stubborn is grabbing at
my soul and begging me to end my own agony and reach out to someone I know will help me.
‘Just do it! … It can’t be worse than this.’ I say it out loud to myself, telling myself off, shaking some
sense into me.
I know before I pull that card out that I have already made my mind up. I’m weakening, my health, my
heart, my fight. It’s all been shaky since the day I left that hospital and I have barely been holding on for
months. I am so tired of struggling to fight every day, and the thought of someone else taking control for
just five little minutes is like a life savour in the stormy sea. Just five minutes of not struggling to survive
is all I need. My weary soul demands it.
My phone is staring me in the face, reminding me that after four percent I will have no more phone until
I go home. It’s enough to make a call. It’s almost like fate is telling me that it is now or never and I dial
the number from the back of the card marked ‘Cell’ with no more hesitation, even though my heart is
pounding through my chest. I wipe my free hand on my leg to remove the clamminess and I’m
surprised to find my sweats are already severely damp. I won’t last out here for hours if I get sodden
this fast.
As it rings, I begin to shake, mouth drying and knots inside my gut flip over and turn inside out. My
chest gets very tight and I try to focus on the trees swaying in the gentle wind.
It’s not that I’m afraid of Mico being cruel and telling me to leave him alone; I don’t think he will.
I’m scared of having any connection to that fucking man, and Mico is well embroiled in the Carrero
kingdom. Where there is one there is always the other, and they are too hard to separate.
God, this is so dumb.
I lose my resolve, fluttering heart giving up and I fumble, about to pull the phone away and kill the call
as sense gets the better of me but a sound hits hard.
‘Hello? Who is this?’ The voice startles me; so husky, familiar, heart-warming, and he answers so
quickly. It’s as though someone up there knew I was going to lose my courage and hang up.
I realise he won’t know who this is unless I actually answer him. I ditched my phone from Alexi when I
left the hospital, this is a throw away cheap phone, and he won’t have a clue who is calling him. I am
just so overjoyed to hear his voice, it has my throat all clogged up with emotion, and the feeling of
severe loneliness for the first time in months abates a little.
I swallow down the bout of nerves dredging up inside of me and clear my throat to find my voice.
‘Mico, hey.’ I sound pathetic, voice small and shaky and lose my courage completely. He sounds
exactly the same; unemotional, strong voiced with that little Carrero depth in the tone. It makes my
heart hurt to hear it. Both because it’s Mico and because it reminds me of another voice I never want to
hear again.
Every part of me is trembling as I close out the world and focus on that beacon of familiarity.
‘Camilla is that you?’ He sounds surprised, his tone changes and then the phone seems to get muffled
for a second as he either moves or switches ears. I guess he is surprised after four months to be
hearing from me.
‘Yes. I’m sorry to call you so out of the blue, it’s just …’ My voice breaks, both with tears that are hot on
my cheeks at hearing a genuine friendly voice on the other end, and with the effort of talking as my
sickness takes over. I’m losing my voice, cracking and painful to talk and my nose is practically a
running tap, dripping, so I have to keep wiping it on my sleeve.
Damn this bloody New York weather.
‘What is it? What’s wrong? You sound upset … Are you hurt? Do you need help?’ Mico sounds like
Mico, genuinely concerned, mildly panicked and so decent it almost breaks me in two. I forgot what it
felt like to have someone give a shit about me and I burst into tears, stupidly emotional. No one is ever
nice to me and it sends me over my last tiny edge.
It feels like a lifetime since I saw him and knew what safe felt like. Just knowing another person out
there somewhere is connected to me in a genuine way is painful, in a good way. I’m so tired of being by
myself and watching my back all the time. He reminds me what it was like to have a home. Even one
with Alexi.
‘I got robbed. My apartment did, I mean. I just need help to secure it so I can go back and get myself
together.’ My voice is barely audible as it breaks again, and I try hoarsely to talk. It’s obvious I am either
sick or completely exhausted. I’m both.
‘I just need you to help me get my door shut and locked, that’s all. I’m sorry to ask this of you but I
didn’t know who else to call.’ Tears are blinding me as I struggle to get the last lacklustre words out of
me.
‘Don’t think that way, I told you if you needed help to call me. Now give me your address, I’m coming
right now. Camilla, are you sick? You don’t sound so good, in fact, you sound awful.’ Mico, gorgeous,
caring, safe Mico. He sounds like a haven of hope, and I am suddenly so relieved I called him. I don’t
know why I was so afraid. He will help me, of course he will. He was always my saviour.
‘It’s nothing, just a flu bug. I just need to be able to lie down at home. I’ll text you the address before my
phone dies on me.’ My voice fails, croaking to nothingness by the end of my sentence as sirens blare
nearby on the road past the park.
‘Are you outside?’ He sounds stern and bossy, a little Alexi for a moment and it sobers me right up.
That connection is never far away and I nod silently, searching for some strength to give him.
‘It was safer than where I was.’ It slices to speak this time and I hold my throat as I squeak down the
phone. I need some water, some warmth.
‘Jesus Christ. Text me now, I’m getting in my car. Hang up and get back to where I can meet you. I’ll be
there ASAP.’ He’s in a commanding tone. The voice he uses to deal with his staff and it gives me
reassurance that he will do what he can for me.
‘Okay. I’m a good walk from it now so I will head back,’ I whisper and hang up without hesitation to
save battery, not sure whether to feel relieved or just in despair that I had to ask for help, but glad that
it’s coming.
If I wasn’t sick maybe I would be stronger tonight, but I’m just so tired. I have been this way for so long
that I forget what anything else even feels like anymore. Foggy head and morose mood is my constant
companion.
I text him the address and then get up and pull my bags with me, dog walker is still lingering in the
grass area, and he eyes me warily from his distance, obviously having heard my conversation.
Something in that wandering gaze gives me shivers and I waste no time making a move to get out of
here.
I get back to my apartment fifty-five minutes after calling him, weary from lugging my bags and just
plain unwell. I tried to walk fast but my legs could not handle the effort and as my battery died on my
phone, I couldn’t even alert him to the fact I was moving slowly. I have a low fever which I know will
spike to knock me on my back soon enough and just need to get in and lie down as soon as earthly
possible.
I pause by the black four-by-four in the street, parked on the edge of the pavement, and look around
because it is so out of place in this downtrodden area, among the crappy cars held together by duct
tape. It’s too modern and spanking new to be from this neighbourhood, so I guess Mico is already here
and upstairs, which gives me a boost of calm. I guess he will be more than likely freaking out that I
have passed out somewhere in a ditch … considering how crappy I sounded on the phone. Not being
able to get in touch has probably made him a bit bad-tempered and I progress into the building wearily.
I drag myself upstairs pulling my body by the bannisters, somehow relieved to know he’s up there
already and I am not walking into the apartment alone, settles my nerves. I hope he didn’t encounter
the two wannabe house breakers when he got here, as no doubt he would have kicked them both out
with broken faces. Mico is much like Alexi in that you do not fuck with him and as he’s built the same as
his cousin, he has no issue enforcing his dominance. It’s why I guess he is Alexi’s second in command
and very efficient at it. He can be just as terrifying and cold.
I come face to face with some strange man at my outer door, unscrewing something in the hinge area,
and stop in surprise that he already has someone here doing this, and isn’t just going to help me fix it
ourselves. I guess I should have known a Carrero would bring in a professional pronto, and it just
makes me feel a little lighter immediately. I guess that’s one trait he shares with Dick Head Devil that I
never hated. They take control and sort things out with minimal effort or fuss. They make you feel like
you are being taken care of, even when playing bastards to your face.
It always confused me about Alexi. How he could care enough to protect me while fucking me up in the
head, but then I could never tell how much real, and how much was designed to mess me up.
‘Can I get past you?’ I look him up and down, casually dressed but the bag of professional tools tells
me he is either a carpenter or a locksmith. He smiles and moves out of my way, opening the door like a
gentleman for me to enter. He has a fatherly air about him, mid-forties, kind-faced and just a repeat of
most greying haired middle-aged dads in this city.
I pull my bags with me, dropping them inside my door as my eyes scan the room, and spot Mico in the
small kitchen area putting cutlery back in the drawer and clearing up. The room already looks less
chaotic and I swear my heart melts for a moment at both the sight of my friend who fills me with an
insane bursting bubble of warmth and the fact he is trying to put to rights some of the chaos for me.
It just brings tears to my eyes, immediately overwhelmed with the sight of him, that I push away
stupidly and give myself a shake. It’s not the time to fall apart.
Stop being so soft, Camilla!
‘Mico?’
I startle him, and he spins around, a look engulfing his face that goes from joyously happy to see me, to
complete horror in a nanosecond. His eyes scan me in poised shock, as though he isn’t sure how to
react.
I forgot I looked like I lost a fight with a truck, the swelling and bruising are pretty numb from the cold
and as long as I don’t touch my face, I can almost forget it’s even there.
‘Jesus Christ, Camilla.’
Mico’s response is completely overshadowed by a harsh-toned snappy statement that comes at me
from behind, making me jump, my body bristling instantly in stupefied reaction as my reunion with a
friend is abruptly interrupted.
‘Where the hell were you?’ It’s a harsh accusatory deep tone that makes my skin instantly tingle in
response.
I didn’t know I could have a full physical bodily reaction to one sentence, but I do; a very negative one!
Which boils my blood on sound alone and stiffens every single muscle in my body. I would know that
voice any day of the week.
Turning to see soulless grey eyes piercing mine as he stalks aggressively into the room from the same
door I just walked through and I swear I start snarling at the man. There’s an instant ignition of an
electric voltage between us as sparks fill the musty air.
The last sight I ever expected to see, and the last man on Earth I ever wanted to. I don’t know who the
fuck he thinks he is and I never invited him in!
Alexi looks enraged at my battered appearance and stalks towards me in jeans and a leather jacket
zipped up to his throat. His eyes, in that tanned and toned face, devouring the mess of me, but it only
serves to make him madder for some reason. I step back, making it clear he gets no closer, with an
angry snarl pasted on and he stops awkwardly … four feet apart as we just stare at one another. So
much tension in the air that I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or kick him in the head.
I have never had a full-on violent urge to physically force something sharp into someone’s eyeballs
before now, but if I was holding anything worthy of doing the job I would have done it already. Just
being here makes me hate him with a vengeance I didn’t know I was capable of, and I am barely
holding in the overwhelming crazy anger bubbling like a molten lava pit inside of me.
He smells of outside, aftershave and him and although everything seems like it did way back when I
last saw him, he seems different to me somehow. He looks exactly as he did—irritatingly good looking,
all dark hair, tall and foreboding—muscular, well-groomed and smoother than fucking smooth.
Expensive clothes, those peeks of sinister tattoos at his neck and hands, empty almost colourless eyes
and an expression that tells you nothing at all. It’s like the past months have never happened and I
have walked back into the room that night to find him the exact same way. Except … I don’t feel like I
did. I am not scared of him anymore.
I guess I have no more shits to give about him, and only sheer contempt stands between us. My anger
and defensive hatred spikes from nowhere, shocked to the core at his sudden appearance and really
not expecting it at all. Like a wild cat backed into a corner by her most loathed predator, I turn on him
viciously.
‘What the hell has it got to do with you, and why are you even here?’ I bite at him; that old fire in me
bristling into fury and reigniting a spewing volcano in my belly I haven’t been able to muster in a while.
Pulling my hood down and coat off and chucking it across the room at the couch in a rage as my
temperature continues to rise, in a bid to expel the sudden burst of new-found energy his arrival has
given me.
‘I have been driving around these fucking streets for the past half hour looking for you! It was only
because I saw a small figure come in here that I parked up to check if it was you! Where the fuck were
you?’ He just snaps right back at me, that husky raspy tone of a pissed man. Lord and bloody
commandeering fucking Carrero. He never changes.
He ignites that fury inside of me that kindles so very effortlessly in his presence, and from down deep in
my toes I find Camilla curled up in her recoiled position. That Madame herself gets her arse off the floor
and faces up to meet the one man she will never back down to again. Only Alexi could raise her dead
rotting carcass inside of me.
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