Chapter 76

‘‘Move.’’ Alexi pushes me forward across the parking lot aggressively, still glaring at me from the argument we had on the jet here, and I am still sulking about being dumped in my idea of Stepford Wife hell.

I haven’t slept, I look like death and my entourage of cases is being packed into the cars parked waiting for us by Alexi’s black suits. ‘’Stop pushing me, I am walking in four-inch heels and have a maximum speed setting.’’ I snap at him as I get another prod in my spine. He’s been an arsey one since we got on the plane. Moody for him, not that it’s that blatantly obvious as he has one facial setting even on a good day, but it’s in all the little tones and tiny facial changes, veiled mannerisms and the colour of his eyes that you really see what he’s feeling. You have to look really hard and study his face endlessly, otherwise you would miss it at all.

I realise it must be something I have done over the months, stare at him and watch him, because I can tell he’s pissed and in no mood to be nice while looking suave and cool in that Alexi uniform of his. The man makes a tailored suit look like everyday wear and when teamed with a black overcoat, like now, he really brings old school mafia back to life.

‘’I’ll carry you if you keep stalling.’’ He warns through gritted teeth and my frayed nerves completely snap with how much of a weighty black cloud he has been on me for the last twelve hours. I swear he has been bearing down on me ruthlessly and didn’t go to bed all fucking night, choosing to wander the apartment while making calls, typing loudly on his laptop or annoying the shit out of me anytime he heard me make a noise. The downside to co-habitation with Dracula, he hears when you are up and about and isn’t shy on walking into your bedroom to see why.

‘‘You know what? … Just back the fuck off!’’ I snap, my accent slipping to common Hackney girl and for once I don’t give a toss. I turn on him aggressively, dropping the small handheld case I am carrying and square up to that mass frame with zero shits anymore. He really has got on my last bloody nerve.

He just opens his eyes a little in sarcastic interest, amused with my female dramatics.

‘‘I am not fucking stalling okay! I am tired, emotional, exhausted even. I have been up all night and yet you insisted I put on a face and a sexy dress to fly out here and walk in shoes that are hurting my feet, on legs that just want to give out. I am done with your overbearing shitty attitude today and I don’t know how much more I can take.’’ It comes out in a great Camilla mouth vomit of things I should not say out loud to him of all people, and I know I have just given him more things to use against me.

I can feel all the glances from his men silently judging me and probably expect me to get a slap for my behaviour, yet they all just carry on as Alexi scrutinises me calmly. The storm of those restless hues of grey in his eyes; it’s an art form to exude that much anger and hatred while looking completely unaffected, but I am no longer impressed by it. Sometimes I think it would be easier if he just ended it and put me out of my misery when it comes to him.

‘‘How you ever survived on the streets as long as you did is beyond me.’’ It’s all he says. Like I didn’t just epically yell at him in front of his minions and I just blink in complete disbelief.

‘‘Believe it or not, you are more challenging than living life on the streets ever was—you make me insane.’’ I fight the urge to prod him in the chest and just pick up my bag instead, glaring hatefully and turn to continue walking at my own speed in my own time, and I jump when Alexi yanks my bag from me, relieving me of the weight and glance back warily.

‘’Showing weakness, no matter what it is … gets you killed or gets the people you care about killed. You’re not meant for this world.’’ He says it quietly and it has the same effect as putting water on a raging fire, everything inside of me simmers and I just feel weepy once more. It’s the highest form of insult he could have given me; he has no clue how many layers of this world I have managed to survive.

How fucking dare he!

‘’If not this world then where? I don’t belong anywhere.’’ A self-depreciating statement uttered softly and sadly that I never meant to say out loud, yet I did. It’s him and how epically out of my own persona he makes me. He just turns me inside out and I say dumb shit that should be kept in the deep recesses of my soul. Alexi just smirks at me and shakes his head.