Chapter 3

How the hell does he know so much about me? A few hours ago, I was not even on his radar, and yet now he seems to know I have nowhere to live, on top of how I have been supporting myself for the last two years. I know better than to ask questions in this business, and I can only assume he did his homework on me the second I became his baggage.

Men with money and means! It’s scary to know what a man with cash can dig up in no time at all.

‘’I need to try and collect my belongings from the place I skipped out on a few weeks back. I owe them money.’’

I don’t know why I’m telling him this. I have never needed to be honest with anyone, but I get the vibe that lying to him about anything would probably be the dumbest thing I ever did. Possibly the last, too, as he seems like someone who can sniff out a lie at a ten-mile distance.

‘‘I’ll take care of it. Call this number in the morning and give my man the details.’’ He extends something to me in the darkness, and I glimpse a card in his hand as he leans in to hand it to me. I take it carefully, my hands shaking so badly and fearful of touching him—in case the devil can suck your soul out by contact alone. That’s the sort of chill I am getting.

‘‘It’s two grand in rent.’’ I blanch at his offer and push the card into the sheet beside me, tucking it under my thigh. You don’t lose someone like Alexi Carrero’s number or leave it lying around for hospital staff to find.

‘‘I’ll add it to your tab ... Do you have a cell?’’ He shifts and moves closer, and I get incredibly claustrophobic with the proximity of someone his size, strength emanating like a heavy dark cloak and that aura of an aggressive, dominant male. He’s formidable for a man; I remember that much from seeing him in daylight. I wish I could better recall his appearance, but my memory is hazy with the finer details.

‘‘I tossed it when I ran. I don’t have one anymore.’’ I sink back into my cushions when he steps the last small distance, suddenly right beside me. Trying so hard to make him out, when I am blinded by the dazzling light of him switching on the lamp over my bed, I screw my eyes shut. Flinching at the assault, head aching intensely, before blinking myself back to the room and acclimatising slowly as I flutter them open to try and see.

‘‘I’ll have one dropped off in the morning, and you can give the details of where to collect your belongings then. When you’re ready for release, you will be taken to my club, and we will talk again. Until then, Miss Walters, try to make the most of your recovery time. I happen to like a full effort from anyone I associate with.’’ He’s so calm and faultless.

I am glued to that face and almost speechless, nodding at whatever he’s saying because I am completely thrown. I clearly never got a good eyeful of him when I was shacked up in the back of that car with Sophie, bleeding myself into oblivion as I would remember someone who looked like this.

Alexi is gorgeous in an entirely devastating yet almost forbidden way, and I have to check my tongue is not hanging out; I never knew gangsters could be so 'Phwoar'. He reminds me of a wild husky or a predatory animal. Black ruffled, expensively styled hair, showing hints of a curl if it was left to grow, over tanned skin, and ice grey eyes that almost appear colourless—like a soulless animal searching over his prey for the last scraps to pick.

He is all squared, chiselled perfection, with a clean-shaven face and hints of dark stubble below the surface. A black ink tattoo of a dragon curling up one side of his neck, under a white button-down, with a leather jacket moulded and sculpted to a very fit and toned body. Hints of more dark ink peeking over one hand under his sleeve, and I wonder how far his markings go, tempted to see that body with less covering.

Alexi is a little too handsome to be real. He wears expensive clothes, a heady aftershave, and a face that would not look amiss in a Hollywood mob movie. The accent is slightly Italian; I caught the odd twinge in some words, but it’s so minor it’s barely there. He has spent much time in Italy if he wasn’t born there to leave its mark. He is not the package I was expecting, and I would put him in his early thirties if I had to guess; young for a mobster King.