Chapter 287

My stomach is swirling at the thought of a repeat of that agony and it makes my insides tighten with anxiety.

“It was nothing. Went as planned.” He dismisses me with a look that’s his normal ‘conversation over’ face and I gawp at him. The urge to smack him on the head is curbed instantly and instead I follow him a tad aggressively to where he sits down and stand in front of him.

“As planned? What are you talking about? You knew there would be a shootout?” I never once thought he would be behind something like that and put himself in the middle of danger. That takes all sorts of insane, and I thought he was smarter than that.

He surely doesn’t mean that, does he?

Alexi frowns, sighs heavily and sits for a moment, regarding me as though torn about what he should tell me. Either that or wondering why I walk around his apartment in see-through black lace scraps of satin lingerie when he’s not allowed to touch. I can never tell with his facial expressions, to be honest.

It could be he’s annoyed that he has to explain himself to me or justify his business actions, but he seems to know better than to deny me right now. I move beside him and sit-down, eyeing him up accusingly and see him relent as he catches my stubborn brow lift. A sign I’m going nowhere without answers.

He sighs heavily. His frustration is evident.

“I set it up … it had a purpose. It’s a need to know.” He shrugs it off and picks up his cell from the table, swiping the screen and I get annoyed, yank it out of his fingers and slam it down on the leather couch impulsively. Exasperated with the return of King Carrero attitude, I swear he has more personality changes than a woman on her period. It’s like he forgets he’s supposed to be keeping me sweet.

“What in the actual fuck do you mean you set it up? Oh, and you bet your arse I need to fucking know!” I say it slowly and precisely, rage consuming me that I went through all the worry and agony when he could have just told me it was his fucking doing. He could have pre-warned me that he had shit going down and was in full control the whole time.

It takes a serious kind of fucking arsehole to do that to a woman.

Alexi glares at me for my obvious anger at something he did, my nerve at taking his phone and pulls it back from the seat. Putting it back on the table in front of us, slowly and precisely to make a point that it annoyed him and grits his teeth. He’s pissed that I’m not behaving like a submissive good girl and he can’t do shit about it.

Yeah, tough cookies, sweetheart.

I’m liking this hold I have over him. Guess it works both ways and I could get used to this.

“I needed Santagato to owe me, so I could use him to my advantage. He’s not an easy man to get under the thumb so it had to be extreme.” He glances at me sideways, but I do not move an inch, still inwardly seething that I went through that emotional hell and he was the one who ‘planned’ it. What a complete jackass and I wonder if he manipulated my upset to see if I gave a shit about the stubborn headed wanker.

I wouldn’t be surprised. I bet it’s why neither he nor Mico would answer my calls.

Sadistic, self-centred asshole of a man. Honestly, what I see in him is completely beyond me. I need my head examined.

“By shooting your men?” I ask in stupefaction. Wondering how the hell he can choose to sacrifice his own family in such a horrible way. Surely, he isn’t that callous.

“By having someone shoot his son and intervening to save the kid’s life. He owes me now. He owes me big.”

I literally drop my jaw and stare at him as though he has two heads, mind blown and unable to put all that together in any logical way. Suspicion of underhanded manoeuvring of my emotions dropping away. It’s like a sick game between all these powerful men, and yet I’m struggling to figure out how shooting Santagato’s son ended up in losing some of his own. My brain is replaying some cartoon gunfight at the O.K. Corral and imagining flying bullets whizzing past his head in some Al Capone type shit.

“How in the … do I even want to know? How many of your men died?” I swallow, head reeling and just blink a lot in his general direction. Adding more weight to my over-saturated brain and I’m amazed I can still feel anything anymore.

“Umm, none. I wouldn’t put them in harm’s way. You want to know then I’ll tell you. If that’s how you want this to be; no lies, hiding nothing from you, then I’ll tell you.” Alexi sits up straighter and turns to face me. Eyes on me and I bite back my anger, confusion at the lack of death count, chew on my lip and nod at him. If Alexi is capable of transparency, then maybe there is hope for us yet, and I need to know why it was whizzing around earpieces that five or six were dead. I’m so confused.

It’s the reason I thought he was dead. I didn’t imagine it!

He sighs, a man who doesn’t explain his actions to anyone and yet here he is, having to tell a mere woman, the lowest in the pecking order in his world. He tenses that strong jaw and blows out his breath in a show of minor frustration before picking up a cushion and pulling it onto his lap to rest his hand on top of. Stilling his hands, I guess, and I mentally screw up my nose at our shared trait.

“Santagato’s son is a piece of shit who murdered a prostitute in cold blood several years back. NYPD couldn’t pin it on him and her father, who was a detective at the time, took early retirement. He had a breakdown in which he pistol-whipped Marcus Santagato in an interview and developed a drinking problem.”

None of this means anything to me so I just sit staring and nod at him. Acting like I give a shit about any of these men when I really don’t. I only care about the ones I know who went with him and how many Carrero security never came back. Some of those men I knew.

“He has been lying low for a long time, this cop out there biding his time. A little tip he would be there tonight, a gun pushed in the right direction and some clarification that Marcus was the man who killed her. I knew it would go down, and we were waiting for it.” Alexi is in serious mode, looking at my face for a reaction as he summarises, very briefly, what sounds like a plan that took a lot of setting up and I can only sit numbly and take it all in.

“Why?”

“I needed Santagato to owe me for a life. I saved Marcus after he took a shot to the shoulder. Mico and I took out detective Lafoy between us, no idea which bullet did the job, maybe both. We saved his son's life and got him out of there fast before NYPD swooped in. With it being an ex-cop, the chief made sure we were out before shit hit the fan which is why I made sure he was at dinner. Witness to my innocence, and not about to make it public it was one of his own boys in blue that shot at a restaurant of rich New York businessmen and innocent bystanders.” Alexi looks completely satisfied with his well-executed plan, that clever nature and mind on show. I literally spend a second adding all this up in my brain and really taking stock of what a genius of a shit he is.

No mention of casualties either so that means there was an error in the chain of Chinese whispers, and I got upset over absolutely nothing. Bloody Jackson and his idiot men. No one died then, except for some random ex-copper.

“You’re insanely devious, you know that, right?” I just gawp at the level of smarts this man has and can’t get my head around what sort of brain this would take. All the players falling neatly in place to get them where he wanted them. That takes skill and confidence.

“I needed the upper hand and now when Santagato reaches out and tries to clear the debt, which he will hate hanging over him, I get what I want out of it.” Alexi shrugs with one shoulder nonchalantly. A look of sheer satisfaction that all his eggs are lining up. Pleased with himself that all this came out as he wanted it to, even me throwing myself at him. I’m still not convinced that wasn’t part of his overall plan. He is just too manipulative not to factor it in.

“Which was what?” I blink at him, mind running empty on anything other than making sure the man no longer tried to infringe on Alexi’s life.

“Your immunity. He will never come after you again for any reason, even if you leave me.” Alexi locks his eyes on mine and I almost choke with that answer. Eyes widening with the weight of why he set that up and I can only blink at him for long seconds. Head unravelling that in one night he has thrown not one but two major episodes at me that blatantly declare his love. He did factor me into his plans, just not in the way I am mentally accusing him off.

He did all that to keep me safe.

He did that for me.

To ensure I would never be a walking target again where that man is concerned. I can’t even react as the realisation hits me hard and shocks me to the core. A warm fuzzy feeling curling up inside of me and sending little strange flutters right up to my throat.

“You’re insane. They could have killed you; you could have been shot.” Vision blurring as tears fill my eyes at that horrendous realisation, and again, my head is thrown into chaos about what I feel for this man.

“Maybe. I have survived it before, besides, Mico is a fast gunslinger and would throw himself in front of a bullet for me so I wasn’t worried.” He smiles at that and impulsively I slap him across the shoulder for making light of something so serious, such is my insta-rage at him. It’s not humorous in any way and joking about it is such bad form. My hand instantly stings with the force of punishing the ignorant wanker, but he just looks pleased with my violent assault.

I think he is seriously deranged and in much need of having his head examined, more so than me.

“That’s not funny. None of this is. You instigated a shooting and put yourself in the path of a crazy gunman you complete tosser.” I snap at him, voice hoarse with the sheer force of emotion running through me. That fear of something happening to the idiot, making my insides ache with an acute type of pain that threatens to take my breath away or cause a massive coronary.