The Carrero Contract - Amending Agreements (Book 8 of the Carrero Series)

By L.T. Marshall

CAMILLA WALTERS finds herself on the outside of ALEXI CARRERO's world after he sets her loose. Following a dramatic end to their roller coaster relationship and is trying to start over again.

She's healing, wounded and low, but with determination to get back on her feet as fast as she can.
Fate takes a turn one awful night, and leads her straight back to the door of the people she swore never to rely on again, pulling her back into the world she had run away from.

The Carrero world and the man who broke her.

Like magnets drawn to one another it is obvious their story is not over yet.

Will Camilla ever be able to forget the past and what he did to make her hate him? Can she ever trust Alexi Carrero?

Contains some mature, adult content, and language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.T. Marshall
• Release date: May 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215883624

L.T. Marshall

Books to date -The Carrero Effect (book 1)The Carrero Influence (book 2)The Carrero Solution (book 3 )The Carrero Heart - Beginning (book 4)The Carrero Heart - The Journey (book 5)The Carrero Heart - The Journey (book 6)The Carrero Contract - Selling your Soul (book 7)The Carrero Contract- Amending Agreements (book 8)The Carrero Contract - Finding Freedom (book 9)Jake's View - Bonus bookArrick's View - Bonus bookJust RoseDestined To Be His WifeTil Death Do Us PartAwakening - Rejected Mate (book 1)Awakening - Following Fate (book 2)Born and raised in Scotland, Leanne has lived in both the central belt and the highlands.A mum to two children, she has been with her fiancée for twelve years and currently resides in West Lothian.A mum, artist, and business owner, she also has an online store under the name Liana Marcel.You can find her across social media as either her author name or artist name, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.She has been writing romance since her teens and had an early stint in journalism back in high school.She has many books under her belt going through the editing process right now.Follow her blog for Character updates, giveaways, and more, or sign up for her mailing list.

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Copyright © 2017 L.T. Marshall

New edition copyright © 2018 L.T. Marshall

Published by Pict Publishing

ISBN: 9781719841979

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or living or dead persons is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

Cover copyright © Pict Publishing/L.T. Marshall

Front cover image copyright ©Adobe/ Aleksandr Doodko

Back cover image copyright © Adobe/Korionov

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The Carrero Series

Jake & Emma

The Carrero Effect ~ The Promotion

The Carrero Influence ~ Redefining Rules

The Carrero Solution ~ Starting Over

Arrick & Sophie

The Carrero Heart ~ Beginning

The Carrero Heart ~ The Journey

The Carrero Heart ~ Happy Ever Afters

Alexi & Camilla

The Carrero Contract ~ Selling Your Soul

Bonus Books

Jake’s View

Arrick’s View

Carrero Magazine

3 issues so far.

Other books by L.T. Marshall

Just Rose

Til Death Do Us Part

Destined To Be His Wife

Awakening 1 & 2

Acknowledgements

Well, I normally have a long drawn out lot of stuff to write

here, but as I am on book 7, I feel we can bypass for this.

Sarah Marie

Meghan

Rachel

Amanda

Jackie

Grace

Suzie

Lisa

Gem

You all know what you did …

Peace out, ma homies.

This one's for me—gotta love a bad boy.

Chapter 1

Light flickers painfully through the gap in my lashes as I try to open my eyes. I am entirely disorientated and aware of the noise and chaos around me, but it all seems so very far away. Strangely calm and floating inside a weird, weightless bubble of blurred reality, with sounds muted and distant.

I reach out to touch my head, disembodied with a heavy limb, aching so badly all over. I feel like my skull has been split wide open and throbs gnawingly, but a warm hand stops me mid-air. Bringing me to a focus.

‘Hush now there, Darlin’, relax. Momma Jo got you. You take it easy young lady and let me check your stats like a good girl. Don’t you move, ya’ hear. I won’t be a tick.’ A southern woman’s caring honey-laden voice washes over me and stills my movements soothingly. I flinch when her feathery touch awakens my arm, as though somehow it hadn’t been part of me until that second, and my limb tingles as I drift in and out of this strange fuzzy haze. Disembodied in my strange foggy world.

I have no idea where I am or what is going on. I can’t see properly, a sleepy blurring mist of movement as I try to focus and get the sensation that I am lying on a bed. I cannot be sure if that’s what is happening, although I know I am lying flat and uncomfortable. I can make out forms, maybe people moving in front of me, yet I have no clue what I am looking at. Everything is disconnected, so far away, and heaviness holds me prisoner, in my strange state.

The harsh, blinding brightness clicks off with a loud noise beside my left ear, amplified and echoey. It makes me cringe again, and that voice comes back in a gentle wave.

‘Is that better, honey? The lamp is a bit bright, and you should rest. It’s after two a.m.’

I am trying so hard to blink and open my eyes fully. They feel like they are glued shut and only as tiny slits with no ability to see much. I can’t even make out the face hovering over me despite its closeness, and the new shadows and darkness from what I presume is her switching off the lights for me make it harder to see what’s going on.

A larger form further back appears, standing out in a white top and dark bottoms, seeming more prominent than the blue haze of the woman nearer me, and I can tell it’s male. It has a large eerie presence that draws my consciousness towards it like a magnet. It’s as though my mind seeks refuge in whatever it is.

‘Is she aware of what’s going on?’ The voice seems so familiar to me, husky, masculine and warm, but I can’t keep my eyes open as I try to hone in on the shape. I can’t pinpoint why it’s so familiar to me. Fatigue is swimming in as it takes over, and I try to hold onto the reality in which my brain is badly connecting. I am so confused and trying hard to grasp any understanding of how I got here.

‘She’s still in and out. It was a nasty, big old bump to her head, and with all that liquor we had to flush outta her system, she’s struggling to make sense of things right now. She’ll be alright. Just let her sleep it off in the best place for her, Mr Carrero.’

My brain perks up at the name, brain connecting, clawing for voice recognition. It could be Mico, or it could be Alexi. Maybe it could be Gino, for all I can fathom right now. I don’t know. Nothing makes sense, or even why they would be here with me in this crazy place. I am so out of whack, floating on a weird, strange cloud, yet my body won’t respond. I am trying so hard to see; eyelids heavier now and no longer under my control, as they blank everything out. Fighting to keep them open marginally.

‘Does she know I’m here?’ The voice is so far off and low it’s almost inaudible. Deep, sensual, male, Carrero, but indistinguishable as to whether it’s Alexi or his cousin when it’s this far off and surrounded by beeps, clips, whirs, and noise, making everything blend into one.

‘Well, she has one mighty concussion and a hangover from hell, so it’s hard to tell. Now hush up and let the girl sleep. She will open them pretty blues again soon enough and wish she hadn’t downed that boat full of alcohol to do away with whatever this little thing was trying to drown.’ She laughs merrily. A throaty and deep bellyache of a laugh, but there is something kind about it, and it’s the last thing I hear as I fall back into weightless darkness at an alarming speed. Trying to cling on desperately with a limbless body as I will myself not to fall down the rabbit’s hole. I struggle to stay in my conscious state and grip onto flickers of noise and movement instead.

I don’t want to fall into oblivion. I want to get up and figure out what the hell is going on. How I even got here and what’s happened to me.

I have no idea at all. My memory is hazy and filled with odd images, flashes of dark, light, nonsense and breaks in thoughts. I blink hard again as I try to get them open again and realise, lifting my hand to touch my face, that I have something over my nose and mouth. Feeling out the air tube under my nostrils, blowing a gentle breeze across my clammy skin, the distraction is enough to bring me back to the present once more.

I must be in a hospital, but I have no idea how I got here or why. The last thing I can pull together in my mind is being drunk and trying to get into Alexi’s apartment. How drunk and stupid I was. All I can visualise is waiting for him on his floor and drinking so much more booze than my body could handle. No wonder I feel headless; maybe I am still wasted.

I wonder if I passed out?

I feel wretched, trying to sit up, straining to move with soft grunts, internally fighting to throw off the blanket of darkness holding me down. Sighing and giving up with the heaviness of my body right now as another wave of fatigue hits me hard and threatens to pull me under. Still not attached, I try to clear my throat to speak out as a last-ditch attempt to make them aware I am with them in the room. I hate feeling like I am a floating entity and invisible somehow.

Lifting my hands to rub my eyes open and clear the cotton wool surrounding my brain clumsily as heavy fingers twitch and slump on my cheek, lacking grace. Nothing is coordinated. Nothing is real or lucid; I could be high on drugs for all I know.

‘Don’t try and get up. Just sleep. Shhhhhh.’ It’s that voice again, gentle, soothing, caring, and I know it can’t be Alexi. He would never sound this way when it came to me—the woman he loathes. The woman he takes pride in breaking at every turn. Alexi would not piss on me if I were on fire.

It has to be Mico, he’s the only compassionate one in his cousin’s world, and I relax and do not fight him as his hand cups one of mine. Bringing warmth to my limb that up until his touch felt numb and cold still. I want to get with reality and look at him, ask him why I’m here and what’s going on, but nothing works, and I am locked brutally inside my weary head.

I can’t move or roll in any way, so weighted and achy and ready to fall out of orbit with every inhale. Being dragged backwards repeatedly into the quiet, I lose the energy to fight to stay here. I can’t seem to stay awake.

‘Cam, relax and rest. You’re going to be okay. I would never let anything happen to you.’ He soothes me huskily, a gentle fanning on my cheek of his breath as he leans close to whisper to me. The soft touch of alien heat as fingertips trail my temple and my face tenderly. The touch ends all fight in me, almost like he has some powerful magic, and like slipping silently from the water’s surface, I let go, fully submerging.

It’s all I hear as I succumb to the gentle waves lapping over my lifeless form and burying me in the still silence of nothingness.

***

I wake up gasping for air, panic-stricken as my heart hammers through my chest and my body springs alert in clammy awareness. I sit upright with speed and a force that yanks the tube from my face harshly and makes me yelp as the drain in my arm tugs savagely in synchronised timing. My arm and nose are simultaneously stinging with a sharpness that makes me feel nauseous from the depths of my churning stomach. I am panting from the nightmare which ripped me out of slumber and disorientated with my surroundings.

I seem to be in a small room, filled with moonlight and shadows, breathing hard and sweating as the last fading dregs of my dream slip away, and my view comes into focus clearly, to calm me. It’s still dark, and I jump, insides somersaulting, when a tall looming figure moves from the window and turns towards me sharply, casting a shadow that hits me with a huge déjà vu, and I recoil in terror. My skin goosebumps all over.

‘Alexi?’ It’s out without thought, body draining of blood as cold fear grips my spine, trembling voice and tears prickle as he moves closer. Stupid reactions hit me before sense does, and I try to dash up the bed to get away from him. Clambering fitfully and awkwardly, so afraid, so traumatised by the memories of my dream and what he is to me.

The monster who haunts me.

The monster who pushed me to hold a gun to my head and end it all.

I remember everything now. I know why I am here and what Alexi made me do to myself in a bid to end my pain.

I shot myself in the head!

Except? … I can’t have.

I’m still here. I am breathing.

Maybe I’m dead, and this is my personal hell? My tormentor for an eternity. It proves he was always the devil as he stands before me now, on the other side.

I feel utterly sick as nausea consumes me, churning my body inside out with a weakening lurch.

‘Camilla, calm down … it’s me … it’s Mico. Stop!’ The light flicks on over my head as he hits the lamp, and I’m dazzled by brightness, stopped in my tracks by him illuminating the room around us. Half hanging off my bed in a hospital gown as he clings to my arm to stop me from facepalming the floor. Desperately holding my writhing body as I stop bucking and fighting to run and realise it’s not the devil himself after all.

I hold still with paused breath and frozen fear as my brain catches up and connects the dots. Seeing him, taking in the room and face, seeing no one else here that would hurt me right now.

I recoil my tight and stiff limbs and relax a little, breathing heavily to self-calm the waves of anxiety-ridden panic, my body pulsating and clammy as they disperse slowly.

I allow him to pull me back onto the bed carefully and cautiously. He’s being overly gentle but firm. Eyeing him up like a deer caught in the headlights and still so coiled to flee.

My heart rate and lungs are pounding in unison as I drag in the air to seem less hysterical.

‘I’m sorry.’ It comes out with a wave of tears, emotion hitting me hard. So exhausted suddenly and distraught in the blink of an eye. My body sags with both relief and sheer weakness. Not fit for anything, let alone a fight or flight response as my heart still jackhammers in my chest. I grimace as he rights me, aching body and all, and my head hurts like crazy, more so than it did. A banging drum of aches going off like a pulse in the back of my skull.

‘Don’t be. You have had a rough few hours. How’s the head?’ He nods at my head, and I automatically lift my hand to touch the one spot that hurts worse, right at the centre back, where I am shocked to find a lump the size of an egg. It’s a complete shock to me.

‘What the hell? How did I get a ….’ I trail off as something else dawns on me, mind rambling over newly-found memories, and it blurts out instead.

‘Why am I not dead?’

I held a gun to my head and pulled the trigger with every ounce of decisiveness in me. I didn’t hesitate and put it right to my temple. I intended to end it all.

How does that translate to lying in a hospital with a banged head?

Mico pauses for a second and looks to the open door, his expression cagey for a moment, leaning in so as not to be heard, and lowers his voice.

‘Gun jammed, and the bullet stuck in the barrel. Alexi pushed you back to get the gun out of your hand and knocked you for six into the concrete wall. We thought he had killed you.’

His calm tone and serious frown tell me this is not a joke or a dream. I am not floating in the afterlife or hallucinating in a coma.

Everything drains from me, realising what I tried to do and how low I sunk. And yet …

‘Why did he try to stop me?’

It’s the burning question in the forefront of my mind. Despite everything I can remember, my foolish heart still clings to a flicker of something, and I inwardly scowl at my weakness. I hate myself for even thinking about him at this moment.

Didn’t he want me gone?

Wasn’t he the one pushing and pushing and goading me to break? Who stood there and did nothing to alter what I was doing? He had to know what I was planning; it was obvious.

He doesn’t deserve to dwell in my mind and thoughts. I need to put him where he belongs for all eternity. In hell with his sadistic ways.

‘He’s a son of a bitch, Camilla, but not a completely heartless one. Alexi wanted to end your connection, not watch you die. He never wanted that.’ Mico looks away as he speaks, something on that face, but I don’t know him well enough to translate it. He seems uneasy and unable to look at me, and I shake it away, along with the visual of that cold bastard peering at me from inside my head.

Instead, I blink around my surroundings, trying to free myself and focus on anything that is not Alexi Carrero. Take note of the sterile surroundings instead.

The fact that we seem to be in a regular hospital means they were told I knocked myself out and never mentioned the gun incident. It’s not the private one I was in last time, so I guess I was rushed to emergency with only the mention that I had banged my head while plastered on booze cocktails. It would explain his apprehension at being heard.

I know better than to mention the gun either. It only muddies the waters and lands you in shit. The last thing I need is to be put on suicide watch and have a psych trailing my recovery. I had that once before when my injuries from Rick seemed self-inflicted. I knew even then never to open my mouth and let the truth come out.

Chapter 2

‘So, what now? He lets me get away with threatening him? I get handed to you and forgotten?’ My voice is harsh yet low, and I whisper hoarsely at him, aware that the door is open and you never know what night staff are still nearby.

Even I don’t believe that will be the outcome. Alexi is one to exact revenge and punishment for far fewer crimes. He won’t forget I pulled his gun on him and held it to his heart. He would never allow me to go without some reckoning for such gross behaviour. I mean, the guy flipped over me throwing salad at him; I have no doubt pointing his gun at his heart is a far worse crime. That comes with a far worse punishment.

‘He knows you weren’t trying to kill him. You were scared, upset … drunk.’ Mico turns his attention back to me and seems helpless. Smoothing the edge of my bedclothes awkwardly and tapping his thumb on the overbed table at the foot. That infuriating Alexi trait, and I glance away, pain slicing my soul in two. I hate that he still gets to me when he is not even here.

‘So, what does that mean? I’m forgiven? … life goes on. A pitiful little show from a desperate plaything.’

I told him I loved him … and he destroyed me for it.

‘No.’ Mico inhales heavily, yet I hold my breath and eye him in question, tensing on the answer to what I am waking up to.

Where do I go from here? What does Alexi do with me now?

‘Alexi has told me to release you, all debt wiped. You go your way; we go ours. It’s over, Camilla. You’re free.’ Mico sighs heavily as though somehow that’s a relief for him rather than me, and I frown, trying to take it in.

I don’t know how to react. Everything in me falls eerily silent, and I blink at him in disbelief. Numb inside so suddenly as my mind tries to understand the words that have come out of his mouth.

‘Just like that? Fifty grand struck off.’ I sound as sceptical as I feel. An alternate universe flying in to smack me in the head.

I can’t believe that something Alexi held over me to keep me in his clutches is now dismissed as nothing, now that he has broken me. I’m dropped like an unwanted and used toy. I have lost the fun value, I guess. Alexi no longer wants a toy that’s cracked … he has new playthings to ruin. Where is the fun in that?

‘It’s pocket change to him. Take this opportunity to start a new life somewhere far away from the name Carrero. Forget him, forget us and get off this path.’ Mico oversees me, that warmth on his face showing through, and his voice reflects a hint of affection for me.

He is my first real friend in life. Pity he comes connected to that bastard cousin of his. Looks enough like him, sounds like him, and when he’s in shadow, and his eyes are not as green as they usually are, he can pull expressions just like him.

The tears bite my eyes, and that stubborn aching throb inside me raises its ugly head. Traumatised for so many reasons.

Everything I felt last night washing over me as I become more lucid and in tune with my surroundings. Every memory of what happened is almost crystal clear as the minutes roll by, and I cringe at my behaviour.

I am appalled that I genuinely tried to kill myself.

I am so goddamn stupid. I am no better than my mother with her pathetic addiction to prick men with control issues and abuse fetishes. I swore I would never let a man push me over the edge, yet here I am. One fucking man undid all of me and sent me spiralling out of control.

I refuse to keep being a victim of my own tragedy.

‘Don’t worry about that, Mico. I have no intention of ever coming back. Alexi is a dirty word to me, and I scorn the day I ever laid eyes on him. He doesn’t have to worry about me showing up anymore. I’m done... Maybe I needed a knock to the head to help me think straight and realise I should stay a million miles away from him.’ I grit my teeth, stubborn shining through to push my pain aside and lock it all back up in that icy vessel inside me, back to the girl who never cared.

My body is aching, but I’m determined to pick up and find that cold part of my soul that shields me like a cloak.

Camilla Walters is a heartless bitch who lets no man fuck with her. Not anymore and never again!

I have lived through worse than Carrero, and I won’t let him keep me down.

Mico gets up and moves away from the bed. Silent and stone-faced, unreadable, much like his bastard cousin, he ponders me momentarily. Nothing in that expression to give his feelings away.

Alexi’s poker face. I have to hide the grimace that almost cringes out of me.

‘Here.’ He slides a thick envelope out of his inner pocket and gently throws it to land in my lap, a heavy thud of a weighty packet, and I flinch with the tenderness of my bones as it assaults me.

‘Courtesy of Carrero new start.’ He jests without any real humour behind the empty smile, and I glance from him to the package in question. Nervous, but I have no idea why. Mico has never given me a reason to be so when it comes to him.

I slide it towards me cautiously and open the flap with one finger to see what it is, peeking warily, and my eyes almost pop out of my head at the pile of one-hundred-dollar notes jam-packed into such a small vessel. It’s crammed full. There has to be thousands here. Fifty at least, and I blink up at Mico in complete shock. Stunned by the gesture, mouth-drying instantly.

‘Why are you giving me this?’ My voice trembles unsurely.

‘He feels responsible; it’s your foot up to a new life.’

Like a punch in the stomach, that one word that leaves a sour taste in my mouth pushes everything else aside, and I let the flap drop. Stunned goes to anger in less than two seconds.

‘He?’ I bite nastily. Every single ounce of flickering hope dies right inside of me. And I toss it back to Mico at the foot of the bed with a look of disgust for even letting me touch it. Feeling dirty, as though he’s infected me with a toxic chemical, I rub my hands on the bedspread to shift the feel of the paper from my skin. Mico watches me silently, a frown deepening on his handsome face.

‘I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from him or any tie he can ever come back for. Give it back to him and tell him … I survived on my own my whole life; I don’t need his handouts to start over. I can do it on my own.’

Mico sighs heavily at my venomous pitch and scowling looks. My anger isn’t for him.

‘Take the money. It’s nothing to him.’ He tries for a low defensive tone, but I start shaking my head impulsively, even though it makes my headache worse and my mind sway.

‘It’s everything!’ I raise my voice as anger peaks, sitting up higher in bed as that fire in my belly builds like a volcano waiting to erupt and glare at him furiously.

‘It’s control! It’s the upper hand. It’s him knowing after everything he did that, he still had to bail me out and throw me a lifesaver. He can fuck off. I don’t need anything from him ever again. I will never accept another helping hand from that arsehole, prick-faced, son of a bitch, wanker called Alexi.’

I finish about two levels louder and higher as rage consumes me, and he continues to stand there like the silent black statue I know he can be. Unfazed by bat-shit crazy Camilla! It irks me that he has that same insane ability and fuels how irritated I am beyond reason.

She’s still in there! My fighter, my self-esteem! What little of it I have, she is rising in all her glory, fuelled by Alexi hatred right now.

I need to hold onto that and let it feed and fuel my willpower. He may have knocked me down to dust, but I have the know-how to mix it back up to cement and rebuild my fortress. I have done this a million times before.

‘That’s not what this is …’ Mico breaks into my rambling thoughts.

‘Stop it! I don’t want it, and this conversation is over. Please just go. If we’re done, I need to get better, get out, and know where to collect my belongings.’ I snap at him, closing down and pushing away. He may be my first real friend, but I am doing the only thing I know how to do in life to protect myself. I am running away. Emotionally, mentally and when I am well—physically. I don’t need other humans touching my life anymore. I am better when they are all gone. It has been proven time and again.

‘Camilla?’ Mico soothes, trying to reason and move towards me, a pleading look enveloping that face and trying to soften my resolve, but I raise a palm. Remorse for being rude to him pushed down by my inner steel. I know what’s best for me.

‘I’m sorry. I am thankful for all you ever did, but you and him … I need you both gone. I don’t need you standing guard by my bed or waiting for me to change my mind. It’s over—all of it. It’s a concussion, and I’m not suicidal. I was drunk and stupid and caught in his spell … it’s not the case anymore, and I won’t be downing booze anytime soon. I need to let all of this go, and that includes you…. Go, please, Mico.’

Mico stops stock still, and we both regard one another, eyes focused, and I try not to imprint the memory of his face in my mind as the one human being who was decent towards me. I know I am putting myself first, which is the right thing. It only hurts for a little while, and then it will all go away. I won’t care about him soon and will forget what he was. That’s how this works on both sides.

I don’t have friends.

I have to remember that.

He waits for what seems like an eternity as he analyses the stubborn set of my jaw and finally relents. He has the sense to know this is a battle he will not win. I won’t back down, and all of this is delaying the inevitable. He sighs heavily, eyes dropping as his intense digging of my features soothes away.

Mico picks up the money and holds it momentarily, weighing it as though he’s thinking of trying again. Defeat crosses his face as he thinks better of it and slides it back into his jacket with a precise even movement.

He pulls out a card instead and holds it out to me with a more determined half-smile, and locks his eyes back on mine with a newly returned unemotional gaze.

‘Keep this. It’s my direct number, and I will be on the end of that cell phone should you ever need help, in any way, at any time … I’m not my cousin Camilla. I’m your friend and will still care about you even when you’re gone.’ His voice is gentle.

It’s a weird moment.

Eyes locked silently. So many feelings course through me, and I sniff back an unexpected tear. My heart is aching with this strange tenderness, and doubt hits me low in the gut. Mild panic swirling that maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty.

If only Mico were the guy I had fallen in love with and had no other woman in the wings keeping his bed warm. Maybe I could have a chance to be happy with someone who might treat me a little better.

I never had a friend—not a real one, and now I am telling him I never want to see him again.

I will walk away the same way I came into the Carrero world—alone and beaten.

I lean out, take it carefully not to touch his hand, and cradle it in my palm like a precious gem as my eyes return to his. I am brimming with tears and unable to formulate a response with the sudden lump lodged in my throat. I try for a smile instead, and he nods. Seemingly understanding of the raw emotion that must be evident on my face.

He may never have been a lover, but my heart is breaking.

‘Hang in there, kid … You’re stronger than you think, and I don’t doubt you will bounce back. It’s the thing I admire most. I’ll miss your face and that British sass. The club won’t be the same without you … I’ll make sure your belongings are brought here so you don’t have us hanging over you anymore. The bill’s paid. You have to get better.’ Mico swallows, clearing his throat as though he, too, is suffering from a sudden surge of uncontrollable emotions. His eyes are misting, and he looks away from me to the open doorway.

‘Goodbye, Mico,’ I whisper, so it’s barely audible, and he nods. Clears his throat again, as though it’s hurting him too. We both know I will never call; this is the last time he will ever see me. We are drawing a line in the sand; I won’t be a Carrero problem anymore after this.

That’s it.

After our sad goodbye, he turns on his heel and leaves me alone to ponder what happened. Heavy and pain-ridden. Struggling to breathe as he disappears for the last time.

After almost a year of agony, my brain is pushing it all aside and focusing on the only thing that matters now.

I’m free.

With the money in my bank account from working for Alexi with practically no living expenses and nothing in my path to stop me. It’s not a huge amount, but it’s enough to scrape by if I am smart until I am back on my feet and find a place to begin again.

It’s what I am good at.

Moving, leaving, wiping the slate clean and starting everything over again.

I am Camilla Walters, and running is what I do best.

Chapter 3

‘Can you just not?’ I snap at Lorraine, the other waitress in this hellhole, and shove her out of the way with my arse as she lounges in the hatch in my way for the millionth time today. I am already tense and irritated by my day, and having her fat ugly face hanging around me makes me even more so. 

‘What’s eating you, sugar?’ She drolls lazily, that fake New York twang she tries to mimic, even though she is from Texas, and eye rolls at me.

Her frizzy, over-processed nest of almost white hair over pudgy fake tanned and poorly applied makeup gives her an air of late fifties rather than the forty-two she told me she is. I swear she’s on the verge of getting a fork in her eye today, and I am not in the mood to deal with a menopausal old hag with a laziness disorder. She needs to tuck her disgusting spotty food baby away as it overhangs, giving her a muffin top on the trousers she has on today, and I wonder why I am the only one who gets stuck with the shitty pink waitress dress.

I hate working here most days, but I think that turned to extreme loathing in the last forty minutes.

I have the first traces of a mega cold, banging sore head, and swollen glands, and if one more sleazy construction worker feels my arse when I am serving him lunch, I may scream. Flu doesn’t make for a witty and happy, overworked slop server.

Four months, five days, seven hours and twenty-three minutes since I walked out of that hospital with only three suitcases and a hatbox, and here I am.

Living the fucking dream!

That is if your dream is to be a shittily paid, overworked grease servant in a grubby back alley diner that stinks every day of fried food. Manhandled by sweaty mucky men and barked at by your Hitler of a boss as he also eye rapes you and can’t seem to dig his eyeballs out of your cleavage on a daily. I don’t think it’s a mistake he supplied me with uniforms that are two sizes too small, and I can barely move without a button popping over my bust.

I am working to pay for a crappy one-bed shithole across town in the dump dive, better known as the lower west side of the meatpacking district. It's hardly a safe environment for a young woman alone, but it’s all I can afford if I want to stay in the city.

I told myself it was downtime, a plod-along stop gap until I got stronger and more able to climb back on the horse. And then I kept telling myself I wasn’t ready to get back on the street to start hustling for a better life. Really should have known from the moment I was arguing over my reasoning that I was not Okay.

I’m different somehow.

Alexi broke me in so many ways, and the thought of going back to canoodling with dark-hearted, suited men in the world of drugs and sex terrifies me. I’ve lost my confidence, and my ambition is shaky. My heart is fragile and bruised, and I don’t think I would have the ability to swoon and charm men in a bid to get the upper hand anymore. He showed me that there are men who are more terrifying and effective than being sexually assaulted. It’s a different kind of brain fuck, and the afterwards is equally devastating.

I am still healing from being touched by him.

I’m biding my time and figuring out where to go and what to do from here on in. I have enough money to live this out for a while, putting away what I can to make a real start somewhere else. Making plans for a different life, a safer one.

I have no ambitions of grandeur, not anymore. I never finished school or earned any qualifications, and besides my looks and effortless skill at making men want to have sex with me, I haven’t a lot else to work with. I know my youth and beauty won’t stay with me forever, so I need a better plan for a life that outlives it. That doesn’t translate to many jobs when you’re trying to avoid men and attention. These are the only things I have ever been good at.

I manoeuvre around her with a glare, avoiding any more chit-chat with a woman I can barely stand looking at, let alone breathe the same air. She’s a clumpy and grubby pain in my ass, constantly chewing on chicken legs and lax when doing her job and hygiene. She has favour with the boss, though, as she lets him put his hand down her pants whenever his wife is out at the wholesale. And then their weekly fuck session when she is on her day off isn’t hard to hear. Grunting, pig snorting and humph sounds echoing from the back make it obvious they aren’t baking a cake together.

Getting behind the crowded table and dodging the kid spitting peanuts all over the floor between the tables, I get there as the nearest customer jumps up from his seat, startling me with his over-enthusiastic appearance. He has headphones in, listening to today’s game, and I guess they scored. Unfortunately, his elbow catches my tray and flips it at me at super speed, pouring two putrid soups, a swimming fried breakfast, two icy shakes and water right down my already grubby pink uniform with a magnificent crescendo.

I gasp and then grimace with an ‘Ughhh’ as hot and cold assault me simultaneously and soak through most disgustingly. Clothes are moulding to my body as it all slides down me with vile aplomb. My body shivers and recoils inside my sodden outfit as I cringe all over, eyeing him up with a furious glare as he tuts at me and slides back into his seat as though I am the one who did something stupid.

Dickhead!!

‘Meghan!!! What the fuck?’ Today has been one of those crappy ‘all bad things happen to me’ kind of days. Joe, my boss, screams at me from the frying pit he calls a kitchen, and I stand there in utter disbelief. His voice has the same effect as nails on a chalkboard, and I have to inhale very slowly before moving.

‘Stupid bitch.’ The middle-aged customer mutters at me, and I bite my tongue to stop cussing back at him with a vengeance as I peel plates from my tits and wiggle the crockery to fall back on the tray, which is still in my hands. I count to ten inwardly and keep reminding myself how much I need this job, ignoring Joe and his aggressive rant about my incompetence. He’s banging around in the kitchen, hollering abuse my way, and I try hard to zone him out. I am more fixated on the liquids running down my legs.

I balance what I can, then swoop down with one hand to retrieve things in the pool of mess on the floor. Internally pissed at life and hating that I now have to clean this shit off the chequered black and white tiled floor and still serve this utter arsehole with more food that Joe will no doubt dock me for. He doesn’t care whose fault it was.

‘While you’re down there, baby.’ The customer juts his groin at my face as fellow workers laugh dirtily, egging him on with macho snorts and more vulgar lewd remarks aimed my way. I keep my eyes on my task, bite my bottom lip to silence myself, and give no response. Anger simmering low in my belly, and my body stiffens with aggravation.

I am so sick of these daily minor sexual jibes and groping, but it’s a far cry from the life I knew as a teen. I can handle this crap, as annoying as it gets in my daily routine. I need to remind myself that this is nothing compared to the life I just got out of. No idiot man with harmless sexual innuendos could ever be as bad as the emotional torture from that one sadistic prick whose name I will never utter again.

I smile his way haughtily, lifting a brow, trying to curb my rage inside my fiery vessel and continue what I am doing while ignoring the crass comments over my head.

‘She has some tits on her. Hey sweetie, how about bending some more so I get a better view.’

Another male voice grunts with an amused laugh that makes my skin crawl, and once again, I ignore it. I get up and walk back to the kitchen with as much confidence as I can muster and no backwards glance or reaction while wearing an entire order. I stink.

‘I’ll get you a new tray,’ I throw back verbally, lacking sass, but I know better than to bite at the customers. I was on a warning three weeks back for pouring an entire jug of lukewarm coffee in a man’s lap after he stuck his hand up my dress, and no danger am I walking on eggshells again to keep this measly job.

Joe used it as an excuse to keep cornering me at every opportunity, to breathe down my top and suggest joining Lorraine in the ‘quick fuck when the wife is gone’ brigade. He has no chance in hell, and if he could learn to keep his smarmy hands to himself, I would be entirely grateful.

He’s a massive chunk of a man with a skinhead and facial piercings. Not my cup of tea and has as much grace and class as the greasy mess on his diner floor. Joe is working-class, ex-construction, with a suitable vocabulary and a lack of respect for women. He thinks nothing of pinning you to the counter as you pass and pressing his dick into your arse while breathing into your ear with so-called orders.

I am biding my time until I figure out what I will do with my life, and I can guarantee it won’t be as a waitress in any way, shape or form after this.

Chapter 4

I exit the subway and slowly walk the four blocks to my apartment. I have felt this lacklustre and empty for weeks and cannot seem to shift the hovering grey clouds that follow me everywhere I go. Tired, dirty and mentally exhausted from a day’s gruelling shift, repetitive life, and generally can’t be bothered anymore.

I should quit, move on and find another job, but I’m stuck. I am superglued to the cesspool I accidentally landed in for some respite in the sun, and now I’m withering away in the heat of the day.

I don't know what I will do beyond this, and I have no energy to try. I haven’t been able to function properly in months, and every night I still dream about that complete monster, Alexi Carrero. Tormenting me, making me hate him over and over. Heart breaking to icy shards every time he walks into my dream with those soulless grey eyes and an evil smirk. I can’t deny that his face alone gives me incomparable heartache.

In between the shadows and the monsters and the bad memories, he’s always lurking. Face shaded and shadowed sometimes, so I can barely see who he is … but I know. I can feel him, smell him. Close enough to touch.

He stands in my dreams and stares at me silently in the most foreboding way. Then other times, he’s there in my face, in clear daylight and stroking my cheek tenderly as though he might care, melting me to liquid and destroying my mind all over again. That is, before pulling out his gun and forcing it into my hand with a cold smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

‘Do it.’ It’s all he ever says, and then I wake in a flood of tears, unable to breathe with the freezing, biting feel of that heavy steel still in my palm.

It still haunts me. I stooped so low as to try to end my own life because I was that broken. How far he pushed me to that cliff, and only fate saved me from carrying it out. I was so caught in his power that I couldn’t see how weak I became until it was too late.

I shudder at the thought, a weird chill creeping over my entire body, and I try to shake it off. Sometimes when I am working, I can still feel it in my grasp and rub my hand across my hip to remove the horrible sensation from my skin. It’s something I will never do again.

I have no longing to die. I don’t even know why I did what I did, and I am eternally disgusted at myself for letting him push me. I hate him for making me go that far.

Despite all I dream about, he is the most terrifying of them all, even though mostly, all he does is watch me, stare at me, close enough to hear him breathe. It’s all in the mind games and how he could pull me into his control, and it’s the last thing I will ever let happen again.

I will never let someone like him ever have that control again. I will run far away and always protect myself from here on in.

In these months, I have built up the hardness in my heart and a wall of thick steel that no smooth Carrero charm will ever be able to penetrate. No one will ever get close to hurting me like that again. He will never get a chance. No one will. If he were to walk back into my life, I would run a million miles in the opposite direction.

I was weak and stupid, and I gave him too much to use against me. I let him in, and I let him break me. I fell in love with the parts of him he designed to draw me in as I was supposed to do. He sought out my deepest cravings—security, safety, a home, a chance to be someone else, have someone to care for—and he used them to bring down all my defences. The hints of caring and the split personality character were all a ploy to grind me down, get under my skin and into my head.

He is a devious player with a PhD in manipulation, who needs control and destruction to thrive, and I will never make that mistake again.

I push open my door in the dark, damp hall, the smell of black mould and years of disrepair hitting my senses with a bitter, foul scent in the air that dries my throat on impact. Keeping my senses alert even though no one is around.

It’s not a good neighbourhood, Washington near 14th Street, the city's crime central and downtrodden area where attacks and break-ins are frequent. I’m already tense and on high alert, overly aware of every noise and sensation as my skin prickles in anticipation. I always feel this way coming back here at the end of the day. It’s hardly home at the end of the day. It’s a stopgap.

I carry mace and a taser with me at all times again and am always on the watch for men in the shadows. I look around quickly, scanning the hall for followers before I slide inside and immediately lock the several deadbolts I put on the door when I moved here. Not that they are much of a deterrent. They are barely gripping the rotten wood, and one has fallen off twice. I have no doubts that they would be worthless with a bit of force. Sometimes I feel like it’s a waiting game before my apartment is targeted. It lay empty for a long time before I moved in, rotting away, and I try to make it seem like it still is; there is less chance of being the next break-in in this building.

I pull myself up to stand when I slide the last low bolt near the foot of the door and sag against the chipped and peeling surface with a heavy sigh. I feel empty. Going through

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