Chapter 106

It happens so fast I don’t have time to think or breathe, and as I am rammed face first against a wall with a hard body biting at my back I can barely move. I’m knocked for six, instantly stunned as the doors slide shut, and I’m left with a complete stranger holding me captive. My heart starts hammering as my body turns cold.

Why does this shit always happen to me?

‘’Keep it quiet and I’ll be nice, Camilla.’’

I have no idea who he is other than he’s the blonde rough guy I spotted earlier and I have no connection to him. I feel sick with that infernal constant terror I feel nowadays and yet the fact he knows my name makes it more intense.

This isn’t random, he knows who I am. He also has me at an immediate disadvantage by pinning me face first against the wall and restraining me. Instant terror on its own, even if I did know him. A million scenarios run through my head from Rick paying this goon to finally find me, to any number of men or women I screwed over in the past tracking me down for revenge before Santagato crosses my mind.

He was too polite and distancing himself tonight, too ready to play nice and forget that little drama from before. Knowing Alexi and his manipulative gameplay I can almost be positive that this is Santagato’s doing.

I try to twist and free myself but he pulls his hand off my mouth, spins me, so we are facing one another and crushes my back to the wall cruelly. A relief to be out of that infernal position, but a short-lived feeling. He slides a gun out of his inner pocket, brings it up to hold at my temple and all bravado drains from me. Taking away all my fight as he smirks evilly, eyes running up and down with a look of creep with more than kidnap on his mind.

‘‘Who are you? What do you want?’’ I blurt it out, my body shaking and suffocated with the proximity, aware of how much danger I am in, yet I have no idea how he got past all of Alexi’s men; heads will roll for this shit when he finds out.

Up close I can see this guy is late forties, rough and not well shaven or well groomed. He has an air of street thug with watery blue eyes that seem devoid of life.

‘’I’m no one, just a hired hand leaving a message. Seems someone of importance values you enough to warrant me to make a mark.’’

Shit!

Santagato never backed off at all, he’s not convinced that Alexi isn’t into me and still thinks I am a weakness. It has to be. I don’t even know how he still managed to keep a firearm after getting in here as Carrero's men pat everyone down, and we have metal detectors on every entrance. If he has a gun in here then he obviously had it left for him, meaning someone on the inside is involved, and he knew to wait until he got me alone.

‘’I’m nobody—just a hired whore, I have no value to anyone.’’ I try to keep my cool as cold metal digs into my skin on my face and try like crazy to keep my wits about me. No tears, no weakness. I have more steel than this. My insides maybe crumbling to dust and screaming with hysteria but my mask is in place and I can do this. I just need to bide my time until we get out of the lift and someone else, possibly security, sees us. We are in Alexi’s building.

‘’A hired whore he hid in his mansion to keep safe, do you think people don’t watch his every move? He shows a weakness, my boss takes advantage. That’s how this works baby, and he’s waited a long time to find an angle to change up the dynamics with Carrero.’’

It IS Santagato. The slimy back-stabbing prick.

‘‘Why me? Why not any one of his family? He has a ton of them who are more important to him than I am and more accessible.’’ Keep him talking and hope he takes me to either the office or the apartment, as both have silent alarms that I can activate, and the desk man watching the cameras is outside the office twenty-four-seven.

‘’You don’t harm a Carrero, that would start a war of epic proportions. You though, you’re just a whore he’s taken a shine too, that would just fuck him up, and his family won’t back that kind of backlash. You’re an edge to a negotiation, and he can get you back when he agrees to a few demands.’’ He snarls yet moves in closer and runs a nose close to my neck and jawline, inhaling my scent in the freakiest perverted psychotic way and I wouldn’t put rape past this creep.

‘’Back?’’ I try to bring his attention away from mentally undressing me.

‘’We’re going up in a lift of a building that Alexi has armed to the hilt, how do you plan on getting me out?’’ I know goading him isn’t the best plan but if I keep him focused and talking then he’s less likely to start stripping me for his own desires.