The Carrero Contract - Finding Freedom (Book 3 of Contract Trilogy)

9

I venture down to the club, wearing a simple back fitted shift dress over black flats with my hair up in a sleek ponytail. Understated glam today and simple with natural makeup, which isn't my normal forte. I feel like a change, and to blend in a little, rather than my bold and brassy self. Low key to match my fragile mood, I guess.

I don't know if he is still in the building, but I'm hoping we don't cross paths for a little while. I need some normal to get my flow back and settle down after the past hugely traumatic and crazy twenty-four hours.

I can almost feel the calm and serene emanating from the club as staff work to put it to rights for tonight. The drama of last night forgotten because no Carrero men were harmed. The missing three had been Alexi, Mico and driver because the chief of police had sent them off ahead of the rest to miss out on the drama that followed. Gossips all over the club are whispering about it in dark corners and clearing up the misunderstandings. So much confusion last night from garbled, chaotic messages, but today it's like a peaceful blanket has dampened it all down again.

Everyone back to business and carrying on with their duties like old hands who never blink at the occasional shooting in a public place.

I'm avoiding the news because I know for a fact it will be all over it and spewing whatever cover story the chief of the NYPD has put out there. The level of corruption in Alexi's world is insane and destroys my faith in humanity.

He can literally get away with murder, which is a terrifying thought.

I wonder how he pulled that off in London with Rick. I'm guessing he has friends all over the globe who band together and pull in favours for the right price, and I know from when I lived there, London has its own underground crime scene and rich mob bosses. I have no doubts he has a few English Mafia as reliable friends across the water. Alexi is a man with a lot of connections and a reach that travels far. He can do whatever he wants, and his power has no limits. Such is the reality that most normal people have no concept of.

What's one little paedophile pimp's death to them?

Absolutely nothing more than a small favour for a powerful chum. The same world in which minions disappear daily only to be found in concrete boots nestled among the shoals of fish nibbling away at their flesh.

The whole thing makes my head spin.

People in the real world have no clue about this alternate existence that carries on right under their noses. The daily deals and deaths and the inscrutable characters who think nothing of selling people, arms and drugs, and get away with all sorts of heinous mischief. I have been part of that world for so long I doubt I could ever live in another. It's there in the smiles of powerful men you think you can trust. Mayors, Police chiefs, respected businessmen and so many more. They are where the real power lies. Money talks and human life is cheap.

I don't see myself being able to transition from that kind of experience and knowledge to become Suzie Homemaker. Raising brats and baking cookies in that fantasy world where everything is hunky dory. That's not what I see for myself and it's not what I want, not that I can have it. I don't want to pretend I have no clue about the dark side of the world, and I don't want to try to fit into the pretend play either. I don't know what Alexi wants in a woman, but I won't be tied down to become his trophy or kept with nothing to do all day except buy shoes and max his credit cards. There will be no mini Alexis in my future anyway, Rick took care of that and it's something Alexi must know if he read the journals but didn't mention it.

I want to have control over what I do. I want pride in some accomplishment and focus in life. The club gives me that, but I have an ambition that grows even further. I want something respectable, so I don't have to hide the title of what I do or avoid normal conversations with people in Alexi's public world, who know nothing of seedy sex clubs and drug-fuelled nights of debauchery.