I’m in the club sitting at one of the booths and looking through all the papers I have been sorting all day on the table in front of me, when Alexi reappears. He’s been gone for hours, most of the day, and I have been on tenterhooks waiting for his reappearance. Knowing he left in a rage and worried about the backlash I know is coming from making him furious.
I am doing my best to ignore Joanne … she’s fluffing around. Coming up and down to update me on the calls she’s making and how many of our clientele have renewed membership. She’s been at it all afternoon and just pissing me off endlessly. Her face just irritates me and the knowledge she has had sex with Alexi makes me despise the very air she breathes. I just cannot get over the grudge against her that she was used to both hurt and replace me, and then ruined my club.
Alexi looks over at me as he walks in, like a homing pigeon, and I swear the air sizzles between us instantly. He has an unreadable expression but I can still tell he’s pissed from the tight set of his face and his rigid posture. My heart sinks down to my toes and my stomach churns over in angst.
I guess I’m going to find out if punishing me is a boundary he will adhere to after this. I know he likes to simmer and think up heinous ways to make me suffer for annoying him, and this will be a true test of whether our relationship ends today. I feel sick with the thought I might be about to throw it all away, again. I won’t stay if he crosses that line again.
Never again!
He’s dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, over trainers now, gym clothes gone and even though he looks casual and almost human, that air of psycho is cloaking him. He carries that danger around with him so effortlessly.
Mico appears behind him, dressed casually too, similar outfit and I wonder if he was at the training session with him. It’s rare to see those two dressed out of the Mafia uniform on any given day and never at the same time. Mico smiles my way and I wave back softly, a hint of one on my lips that I am not really feeling when all I can focus on is the heavy thud of my heart.
I’m tense, bristling with nerves and my insides are doing a good impersonation of a washing machine, now he’s here. Alexi glares and turns his back on me and heads to the bar as though dismissing me somehow, and I hate that it causes a little spike of pain in my stomach. The room instantly feels smaller and suffocating.
The staff are polishing glasses and restocking the imported booze that arrived today, speciality brands for specific members, and milling around aimlessly.
‘Give me an ice water,’ Alexi commands, loud enough that I can hear him from here as the tender jumps to action and I bury my face back in my file. Pretending I’m fine and not fully aware of him and his every movement.
Joanne appears almost like a bad smell and immediately hones on our returning Lothario, making a bee line for him instead of me, with the papers in her hand. I can practically smell her desperation to get some attention from him.
She gets to his side as he slides onto a bar stool and beams at him adoringly. Sticking her tits out and pasting on a demure pouty look as she sidles alongside him sickeningly.
I roll my eyes and try not to watch, stomach tying itself in knots and not comfortable witnessing this little encounter. I hated watching him with her before and now it’s unbearable, not knowing what she has been to him for the past few months.
‘Alexi, hey … I have the new final list of all the members who are staying with us in the overhaul. It’s looking busy.’ She sounds perky and upbeat and is close enough to sit on his lap. Despite myself I can’t help glancing up over my folder to look, aching with internal pain and yet unable to pull away.
Alexi picks up his glass of water and takes a drink carefully, eyes on the bar and not her, a long slow pause before he turns her way coolly.
‘And?’ It’s the sarcastic cold tone that used to be reserved for me every time I dared to intrude on him, and she falters a little. Her smile drops and cheeks flush with a hit of embarrassment, and she tries again.
‘I thought you might want to know or see which ones are still on the list. They are your clients after all.’ She waves the paper as though for him to take, smile looking more manic than genuine now, and he just narrows a colder gaze on her; Locking that deathly chill of his on his prey.
‘Your boss is right over there. She’s the one you tell this to. And my name is Mr Carrero.’ He leans in, saying it so calmly, coldly, precisely, that tone that still gives me goosebumps and points at me without looking my way. I sit very stiffly, poised and listening intently.
‘Right! I … umm.’ Joanne is nervous, melting into her own shitty shoes and looking like a kitten about to break. Fumbling with the paper and yet it gives me a weird feeling.
Seeing him still so cold and cut off and able to intimidate a woman without remorse is confusing me all the more. He is not this way with me now, even when I am annoying him.
‘Why are you still standing here?’ Alexi is still staring her down and she fails to answer with any real words, just a stuttering mess of incoherent garble comes out; Nerves getting to her as she buckles under the intimidation of Carrero. She never stood a chance with someone like him, and it makes me feel smug to know it. Although I didn’t fare any better last time around.
‘Go away. You’re annoying me.’ He raises a brow at her, that look that could level any woman to ashes and it dawns on me that he hasn’t changed at all, in any way, shape or form.
Seeing it used on someone else is like having my eyes opened, more so to the fact that Alexi has changed towards me alone.
It’s still there, that cold indifference and not giving a shit about hurting some mere female, even one he has slept with and used. Joanne is crumbling at his feet and gets away from him fast, eyes welling up with moisture and her skin staining hues of red, leaving him to turn back to his water without a second look. Mico’s non-reaction beside him makes me look about the room in question.
The staff, Mico, even Jackson hovering by the tables nearby, no one bats an eyelid at how he just treated her. Even though it was brutal and appalling—Just like they never did when he treated me that way either. Kingpin treating an insignificant minion in any way he saw fit … Typically nasty and cruel.
Alexi hasn’t reformed or changed and this behaviour isn’t a surprise to them because it’s normal for him. And always has been. They are used to it.
I blink at his back and think about this for a moment.
He’s not changed in any way, except towards me.
As I hear Mico laugh and look up again I can see Alexi smiling genuinely towards him, amused over something and completely unconcerned about what just took place. His relaxed features and dimples on full show, oblivious to my watching him. Mico says something and Alexi nods, shoves him in the shoulder playfully and then taps the bar with his thumbs in a really weirdly casual gesture as though playing an invisible drum, pulling his feet up to the rung of the seat so he can hunch forward and lean on the bar like any normal guy. He looks so far removed from Mafia Boss right now.
Joanne has done one, bolted back upstairs in humility instead of bringing the file to me, thankfully, and I just cannot tear my eyes or mind away from him.