  I wake up in Alexi's bed alone, memories of last night flitting through my head like it was all a dream from another place, another dimension and none of it was real at all.
      Alexi made love to me for hours. Not like before, not like anything I ever expected of him. Silent in the darkness of his room, my body surrendered, and he brought me to heights of pleasure over and over.
      No rush, no war between us, no pain, no punishment, no being held down or bound. No aggression, dominance or ownership, in fact, we never spoke at all. Just two people locked in getting pleasure from one another and all else faded away to unimportance. Alexi made me feel like he had an ability to be something more and gave me a taste of what it would be like to be loved by someone like him.
      Just a glimpse, the fact he can be gentle and considerate and fulfil a need when you don't even know what i

  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 wa

  I hold the ice pack to my face and stare at my shaking hands aimlessly. Sat on the couch in the apartment and just trying so hard to process all that just went down.
      I jump when the door opens, nervy as hell and Alexi stalks in with Mico, he looks me over with a completely unreadable expression, and they both walk straight past to the kitchen.
      I have been sitting up here for an hour or two, no sense of time, no idea what was going on down there and I can't get my head around anything. He brought me up here, handed me a strong drink and the ice pack then stroked my hair back from my face before leaving me alone. It was surreal, like another Alexi from another place, and then he went back down to take care of the mess he made.
      Alexi killed someone, right in front of me, because of me. I don't even know what to do with that and I have no clue how to feel.
      I think I'm in severe shock, everything feels surreal and floaty and even though my face is throbbing, I just feel numb. I saw the look on his face at that moment. The unbridled rage and then after, when he was pulling me off the desk the way he closed down and ordered his men to start cleaning it up like all he had done was knock over his coffee.
      No emotion, no remorse at all just an empty act of taking someone's life with no fear of repercussion. This is the real face of Alexi Carrero. This is why he's the way he is, this is what he was made into and over the years somehow, it was trained out of him to value another human life.
      He doesn't feel sympathy or suffering, how can he when he cannot even muster remorse for murder—it explains a lot.
      Then there was the tenderness and the moments of making me feel like he cared that someone tried to take me from him. Multi-layered and complex, and I was left second guessing whether he has the ability to feel emotion like a normal person or not. It was a stark contrast and completely out of place for what was happening around us.
      My head is completely tangled over it. I don't know how to feel about him right now, he's just devoid of reaction as he stands over there talking to Mico in hushed tones while they pour themselves a drink. Like this is like every other Saturday night for them and nothing of value just went down.
      This is his world; this is his normal. Just like being beaten and abused is my normal.
      I am in way over my head, but one thing keeps racing through it and I cannot stop repeating it to myself - I just sealed my own fate.
      I just witnessed Alexi murder someone, and that means I am bound to him for life. You don't witness something like that and get to walk away. You leave in a box or not at all. I saw a mafia mob boss end a life with his bare hands and now I am a walking liability. My debt will never end, my freedom will never come, and I will spend my life in his shadow afraid to step out of line forever more.
      He can just snap a person's neck like it was nothing more than a chicken bone and I should have feared him all along. He has had restraint concerning me and I see that now, he's capable of so much more.
      I jump when a cold glass touches my shoulder, almost right out of my seat and drop my ice pack on the floor at my feet. I glance up warily, heart hammering like crazy and see Alexi holding a glass of booze out towards me, something dark with ice, and I take it shakily, carefully and avoiding looking him in the eye.
      He stands over me, unmoving and completely calm, and then scoops to pick up the pack and dumps it on the table for me.
      I have no bravado in this anymore. I just got well and truly put in my place for all time where he is concerned.
      I have no doubt they have made that body disappear and the guard will be gone too. Lost in the depths of an organisation that cleans up its discrepancies, and I have no doubt that man will be brutalised until he gives them all the information they need, then what?
      Revenge? Reaction?
      I don't want to know how it works. I am so drained and so mentally messed up that I just want to sit here and stare into space. They dared to come into his house and start a war. Alexi won't leave that alone, it's not in him to not bite back. If Santagato is at the root, then this is the start of a whole bigger thing.
      I sense him moving away silently, glad he didn't try and coax words out of me and allow myself a moment to glance up and look at him, afraid of what I will feel when I do. He and Mico are leaning against the bunker once more, low tones and small looks my way from Mico who looks unsure. It's not hard to guess what they are talking about and I look away quickly, breathing shallowly.
      My heart and stomach sink, the edge of trepidation to what that look is. I swear an icy hand runs through my body as it dawns on me that I just became another mess, and maybe this is the way to tidy up loose ends. I look down at my drink wondering if he's the type to let you have one last drink before he takes care of what he needs to take care of and put it on the table impulsively, shivering and wrap my arms around my naked arms in complete fear.
      I don't think I am going to live to see tomorrow and I have nowhere to run.
      ''Let me know.'' Alexi's louder voice startles me out of my trance and I realise Mico is leaving us, Alexi has his eyes on me, and I literally cower under his gaze. Mico shutting the door as he goes, making me jump and I blurt it out crazily.
      ''Are you going to kill me?'' Tears bite my eyes, even though I thought I wouldn't care about dying downstairs, somehow at Alexi's hand it seems a lot more horrific and all-consuming. I'm terrified all the way down to my toes and cannot conceal the raw emotion in my voice, visibly recoiling and vibrating all over.
      ''Why would I go to the effort of saving you if I was planning on doing the same to you? I would have let him take you and saved myself the hassle, clean up isn't cheap, or easy.'' I hate the way it all comes out of his mouth as though he's talking about his weekly chores. Like its normal, nothing, and it's a minor inconvenience and not the death of a person.
      Clean up? Is that what they call the disposing of a body?
      Oh, my God. I feel sick.
      ''I saw it, I'm a witness.'' I shudder again as the images of that man's face run through my head for the fiftieth time, and Alexi wanders over and leans on the back of his couch with his glass in his hand. Far too smooth.
      ''Well as long as you have no intentions of running your mouth, then you should be okay.'' He says it so blankly and I just blink at him.
      ''Who would I tell?'' It's an odd response to a weird atmosphere and a stranger reaction from a man who just seems unaffected.
      This isn't really happening.
      ''Then we won't have an issue, and no one's going to touch you.'' He straightens up, downs his drink and then glances my way again, almost an afterthought as he scans my face. Moving to the side unit to lay his glass on a nearby surface.
      ''Most women would have crumbled by now you know?'' He even manages to sound a little impressed, his tone husky because he sounds exhausted and I just look at him emptily. Eyes filling with tears and shake my head. If only he could see inside my head and the reality of how much I am falling apart.
      My outward persona has always been good at masking it all, but surely in this state, he can see I am far from okay.
      ''Who says I'm not?'' I may have been a hooker, a drug pusher and had my life interlaced with back street darkness since forever, but I've never seen someone murdered right in front of me before. Especially not by someone who my heart has decided to pin some sort of feelings on. I'm traumatised in my own way.
      Alexi says nothing, walks around the couch to me like a sleek panther, regarding me silently as he bends to catch my hand in his gently. I don't fight his touch, so lost in my own head and free-falling.
      The initial feeling of apprehension where he was concerned abated with the long embrace he gave me downstairs. Soothing and bringing me back to Earth. He pulls me up to him, body following without fight, and stands me up, so I'm face to face with him, barely touching he tips my chin up to him slowly and softly. All focus on my eyes and just so dreamlike and not really happening.
      He could pull me around like a ragdoll right now, there is nothing in me resisting or making any attempt to control my own limbs. Detached, floating inside my own body and emotionally shell-shocked to the core. I am definitely in shock. I know this feeling well. The numb before the fallout.
      ''I know what you need.'' He says it softly, mouth hovering near mine as his eyes fix on my own. Looking at me like he just wants to make it all better. I shouldn't trust it, knowing it's never true when it comes from him, but I want to. To wake up yesterday and have this day play out completely differently.
      ''What?'' It's so soft, gentle and weak; like I just don't know who or what to be right now, and I have no fight inside of me. Just a fear that every second might be my last, and I don't trust what he will do to me.
      ''Me.'' Alexi leans in and kisses me, his hand cupping my face as he does so and tugs me against him carefully.
      It's not like any other time he has brought my mouth to his. There's no aggression, no dominance or pressure. Just a kiss, teasing me open to him and letting my head let loose and drift away. Unexpected tenderness and seduction and I completely fold. Falling into him with a need I didn't know I was capable of feeling.
      I want him to make it all go away and make me feel better.
      I want to feel safe in the way that only he makes me feel. I don't fight him; I don't know what or how to feel and right now I anchor myself to him in a bid to let him take it all out of my head. I don't want this burden or this memory, so he can have it all back.
      Alexi picks me up effortlessly, scooping up my legs without breaking free from kissing me into oblivion. He just keeps holding me to his mouth and secures me snugly against that muscular body, my arms sliding around him and my fingers curl into that short dark hair as though it's as natural as breathing.
      Sex can be a cure when you don't know what else you need, and as he's the master of this world I put my trust in him that he knows this is what it is.
      He wants to help me for once and I don't want to question it. He has been here a million times before, knows how it feels, and he knows how to make it go away.
      Alexi turns, keeping me held securely, that feeling of safety he gives me overwhelms me, just like I wanted as he walks me to his room and carries me inside to block out the past few hours.

I wake up in Alexi's bed alone, memories of last night flitting through my head like it was all a dream from another place, another dimension and none of it was real at all.
      Alexi made love to me for hours. Not like before, not like anything I ever expected of him. Silent in the darkness of his room, my body surrendered, and he brought me to heights of pleasure over and over.
      No rush, no war between us, no pain, no punishment, no being held down or bound. No aggression, dominance or ownership, in fact, we never spoke at all. Just two people locked in getting pleasure from one another and all else faded away to unimportance. Alexi made me feel like he had an ability to be something more and gave me a taste of what it would be like to be loved by someone like him.
      Just a glimpse, the fact he can be gentle and considerate and fulfil a need when you don't even know what it is. He made me feel better, he took my mind elsewhere, and not once did he put me in a position t

Chapter 20