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.