Chapter 117

I can almost feel Mico’s pity as he loads my last case into the car and I stare numbly at the club in front of me. Standing in the damp grey light of this back street, staring at everything I thought would hold me captive for the rest of my life.

Alexi let me go, just like that, no more worth to him, no feeling, nothing. No longer obsessed with his ownership of me, and I’m just a problem he wants rid of, so he’s sending me to be someone else’s headache. I have no choice. As long as I still owe him money I am his to do with as he pleases.

He doesn’t want me, my body, or my presence anymore. I don’t have to be persuaded to go either. The fact he left me sobbing on his club floor and walked away to let me, said it all. He is exactly who I thought he was. A cold bastard that used me for his own ends, chewed me up and spat me out. He does it to women every day of the week. I wasn’t special in any way,

Gino was completely wrong.

Joanne seems smug now, but I can guarantee she’s next. Sooner rather than later, she will be another sobbing mess on that club floor, and she won’t be the last. I don’t even take any consolation from that thought at all, I’m empty and just … done.

I get in the car as Mico’s phone rings; he closes the door on me and walks away to take the call. I’m left sitting here numb and devoid of life. Staring at the back of my driver’s head while he delays the inevitable with a dumb phone call.

My life once again being turned on its head to start somewhere else, somewhere new with a new wave of strangers who will no doubt use me to some advantage that isn’t to benefit me in any way.

I know I look exactly how I feel. I didn’t bother to fix myself after I washed my face and brushed my hair. Clothes wrinkled, face tear stained and limp red hair. I don’t care about anything, and my appearance for once isn’t polished and primped to conceal all I feel. I am just losing everything I am.

I sit and stare at my own nails in my lap, hands laid loose and pale, like dead weights and just sit that way to await my fate. I am so tired all the time and that stupid flu bug I could feel coming has my throat rasping beyond my bout of tears, my glands swelling as I sit here in the lull of activity.

Mico wanders around the street for a few minutes talking before he comes back and opens my door.

‘’Change of plan, weather’s taken a turn and all planes have been grounded until further notice, we have a storm brewing. I have to take you to an apartment Alexi has in the city until your flight is sorted.’’

And just when I thought my dark cloud of heavy depression couldn’t bear down on me any longer, there is this.

‘‘Why can’t I just stay here until then?’’ I ask blankly, sick of being pushed around from pillar to post all the time, and he hesitates. One thing I have learned about Mico these past few weeks is he’s not as cold as his cousin, he has hints of a heart in there, and if I had to ever choose someone to feel an inkling of affection for in my life, it would be him.

He also knows how to use his face from time to time to show an actual expression; maybe he could give Alexi a few hints.

‘’Alexi will be using it tonight, now you have removed yourself.’’ He doesn’t need to spell it out, he means to hole up and fuck someone in all his sadistic glory and I start to cry again, even though I didn’t think my body had anymore tears to give.

I don’t care if two men are staring at me like I have two heads and I’m making them uncomfortable with my female dramatics. I am done hiding my pain; it’s too big and all consuming. I don’t want to feel anything for him anymore. I want to go back to the woman who viewed sex as a tool or a selfish pleasure and could turn what he did to other women out of my head with disinterest.

I hate that he made me this way, turned it all on me, and now I cannot even imagine letting another man ever touch me again. He’s ruined me for anyone else and he doesn’t even care. Just goes back to his life, his fuck buddies and his apartment like I never existed.

Mico closes my door and goes to the front of the car to get in, handing me back some tissues when he does and I take them with surprise, blinking through blurred damp vision at that face regarding me softly.

‘‘Do yourself a favour; find a life that isn’t connected to him or us in any way. This world is not a place for a woman, not without someone to take care of you, and it’s definitely not a place for a girl like you. Get out while you can.’’ I just look at him with a heavy heart and still my tears, sobering up with some real human treatment. Mico is a surprising source of it.

‘’Maybe you’re right; maybe I need a new game plan, a new outlook on what’s left of my life.’’ I lean back when the car starts to move and will myself not to look at that building one more time with the darkened windows that conceal what goes on inside. Even though I wonder if he’s up there somewhere looking down.

I know he won’t be; why would he? That would imply I held some sort of feeling in that empty dark soul of his and I don’t. He probably put me out of his mind the second he stopped looking at me.

He is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life and that is really saying something.