Chapter 3

“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 ad*****n 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.