Chapter 55

I stand my ground despite my lip starting to wobble and I bite on it to hide it. I won’t back down for the bastard, not when it comes to this. I spent too many years letting others control what happened to my body.

‘’Fuck this shit.’’

Alexi pushes past me moodily, knocking me sideways so I almost tumble over and grabs his shirt from the couch in a swipe of aggression. Reverting to spoiled little man-child and throwing an epic tantrum. He storms to the kitchen and starts slamming around glasses and bottles of booze.

Seems he’s good at making the rules but does not like listening to anyone else’s and I’m surprised he does actually listen. He is being ridiculous over something so minor. My own temper finds root and surges like a bushfire.

‘’Oh my fucking God! Are you seriously having a temper tantrum because I won’t let you just use and abuse my body for your sadistic games?’’ I literally feel all ounces of self-control fly at his boorish, abusive arsehole act and throw a scatter cushion at his back impulsively. It’s not my crowning glory moment and as soon as I do it I completely regret it. I always did have a bit of a throwing reflex and as much as I try to curb it sometimes, it happens all by itself.

It hits him in the back of the head with remarkable aim and he turns like a demon from hell with the speed of light and completely scowls at me with a rage I didn’t think his face was capable of. Not one of his normal responses anyway. I guess he is still fragile after his Gino scene.

He furrows his brow so deeply he looks insane and then storms towards me with aggression and speed that has me backing up to get away, tripping over my own feet and aiming for the nearest exit as remorse floods me and terror guides me.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Now I know what true fear feels like. He’s faster than I am and as he gets to me I literally panic in all-out white horror as he grabs me by the wrist. I impulsively slap him in the face in frightened self-defence, hard enough it makes a horrendous noise and burns my hand half to death with the impact. Paling as the realisation of what I impulsively did, hits me.

Camilla? What the actual hell did you just do?

It’s a fight or flight reaction and as soon as I do it I swear I just want the ground to open up and take me; if I thought he was mad before, then the turn from fire to ice makes my entire body turn cold to fluid in one turn of his head. If evil had a face, then I am looking it in the eye and I literally recoil in complete angst as that sweep of intimidating calm comes over him. I feel instantly sick with the wave of change that happens so obviously.

He closes down all hints of emotion and that blank face takes on an eerie smugness. He smirks, rubs his thumb deliberately and slowly over his lip where the bottom of my palm caught him and looks at me in the most wrathful way I have ever seen on any face in my whole life. Cold, sinister and calm. His calculating brain devising a plot to make me suffer. I swear that’s what I summarise in that expression.

I’m frozen to my spot and hold my breath because I think I just unleashed the insane and I have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide; even if his guards hear my screams they will ignore them. I know how this world operates and his paid goons are hired to clean up whatever mess he makes while never judging him for it.

Alexi catches me around the throat like he did earlier and as I gasp in fright and sheer terror, he slams me back against the wall that I have backed myself up against. Winding me, he’s nose to nose and my body is completely limp because I know what’s coming and tense for the impact of a beating. I have been here a million and one times before, except the difference is that I know fighting Alexi is futile, and he’s got the capability of killing me if I do.