Chapter 174

‘YOU are NOT staying here! You’re coming to the club and staying in the apartment tonight and you’re going to quit that dead-end job that makes you wear that piece of shit dress. Meghan isn’t your name, I don’t want to hear it again and you WILL come home, Camilla! It’s where you belong.’ Alexi explodes slightly; I guess frustration finally builds to that level. It’s that bossy, arrogant ‘I OWN YOU’ tone that I knew he hadn’t lost—hiding in the pretend docile act. He’s losing his temper with me and here it comes. Next will be the side of him that really knows how to party in hell. Sadistic Satan with his crooked crown!

I’m glad. This is the side I want to see! The reminder of why I should stay a million miles away from him for as long as I live. No matter how good an offer he’s throwing my way; In case I ever forgot what a controlling piece if shit he is.

I jump to my feet too, anger spiking as quickly as his just has, bravado strong when in full volcanic rage about to erupt.

‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do, you arsehole. Don’t think you can waltz in here making demands and throwing your weight around just because I’m down on my luck. It’s my fucking life! I will survive this like I do everything fucking else. I survived you, didn’t I? I survived a bloody crack in my skull at your hands, and I have survived men who almost killed me countless times. Why don’t you just piss off?’ I turn haughtily to walk towards my bedroom, so done with this conversation and him, and determined to end it. Signalling that this is well and truly over and he should let himself out.

How would he know where I belong? He spent weeks telling me it wasn’t with him, so why would I listen to him now?

Alexi grabs my wrist unexpectedly and yanks me back harshly, causing me to gasp with the surprise and fly back to face him defensively. I flip my shit in shocked reaction; Sanity jumping out a window when it comes to this man ever trying to restrain me again.

That inner demon, the girl he bruised and broke. The one he shackled and emotionally abused. The one, who has been licking her bitter wounds for the past four months, throws out her head and attacks with a fury that makes his rage pale in comparison.

I slap at his shoulder and arm, shoving him and wrenching my wrist free, hurling abusive curses at him and screaming with all my earthly might as he just tries to defend himself uselessly.

‘DON’T EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME AGAIN!’

Alexi seems shocked at my overreaction and just lets me go, eyes wide in question, yet he holds his hands defensively up which signals he isn’t going to try anymore. Instantly backing down from his aggressive handling and a wary expression crosses that normally arrogant face. The guy, who always punished me for daring to lay a finger on him, releases me without even a tiny spark of annoyance at what I just did. He just seems out of his depth so suddenly.

‘You lost the right to touch me; you won’t ever get it back. Keep your hands to yourself!’ I cry it at him; tears pouring down my face as everything inside of me slides out rapidly and I no longer care. He can go die for all I care; I’m done with him and this conversation. I am done hiding how much he screwed me up.

I don’t stop to wait on his response, just drag my arse to my bedroom at speed, clumsily, and shut the door hard with a bang that rocks every wall hanging in my room. I push a chair up under the handle so he can’t follow, and throw myself against the door too. I slide down and huddle beside it as an extra barrier to keep him out—crying because I am frustrated, angry, broken inside and so very sick.

I just want him to leave me alone and stop messing with my head just by being here. He has no concept of how messy in my brain it has been since I last saw him and I wasn’t prepared for any of this. Alexi just makes me feel completely crazy.

The knock on the door stops me and I curl up into a tight little childish ball, willing him away, deflated with his persistence.

‘Go away!’ I yell through muffled tears, but he knocks again.

‘I’m not letting you in so just go away,’ I blurt out, my voice muffled as I silently sob.

‘Cam? … Did they …?’ He trails off and I turn to look at the shut door, confused by that weird broken sentence and it hushes my tears for a moment as I try to mentally finish his it. He sounds weird, hesitant, his voice low and patchy. He doesn’t sound like him at all and it draws out a question from me surprisingly.

‘Did they what?’

I don’t know how or what he’s talking about, or what he is even on.

‘Did they touch you beyond violence?’ His voice cracks as he asks it, a gut kick at the sound because it’s so alien from him, and it dawns on me what he is asking. He thinks my reaction to his touch is because my intruder raped me, and for a moment I want to both laugh at how insane this moment is and yet cry that it takes everything that’s gone before to actually see a genuine moment from him. He thinks they raped me, and he sounds horrified by that fact. Alexi sounds like it actually matters, even if he is a few years too late. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, seeing as I know how he feels about men hurting women in that way, even if it’s completely ironic because he just fucks our heads up instead of our bodies.

I let him stew for a moment, staying quiet and shaking my head at him through that wooden wall between us, finding composure in this irony. I hope he feels bad, even if it’s just fleeting and lay my head back down on my knees to calm myself further.

‘Cam?’ It sounds strained, pleading almost. Begging to know how far they went in hurting me, and as much as I want to make him suffer, I don’t want it to be like this. I’m not him with his mind games and emotional weapons. I don’t ever want to be like that again. I’m not that girl anymore.

‘No. They just knocked me out and left me on the floor while they ransacked this place. I woke up dressed. They didn’t rape me Alexi.’ I lift my head and listen to his silence, looking at the squalor of my surroundings and long for the warmth and cleanliness of the apartment over the club. He knew which carrots to dangle alright; it’s the first home I ever really bonded to. I cannot get the aching longing of homesickness out of my head as I sit and look at my dim reality.

I dealt with all this in my first weeks here and thought I had it under control, but I guess with him being here, making me feel this way, it’s all coming back to hit me again like a freight train.

I think I hear him exhale but it’s muffled through the door, and then he speaks again.

‘I want to have you checked over; to be sure you’re okay. Concussions can be serious.’

Don’t I know it!

Three days in hospital with a migraine from hell after he banged my head into the apartment wall. I had headaches for weeks that lingered for days and were so severe I would see spots even a week after. I ended up back in emergency when I started throwing up after a particularly bad headache ten days on, and was told that I had to take it easy, let my head heal. I had a fracture in my skull that needed time. Something that private clinic he paid for never mentioned when they released me. They were more interested in reporting my well-being to the bill payer than telling me anything.