I wander listlessly around the club, picking my nails, watching the floor without much interest. Angst is my new current mood, and I am finding it hard to breath with the weight that has settled on my chest. The hours have been dragging so slowly it feels like time has stopped, and I'm obsessively clock watching like a freak. Mind unable to stay with my task at hand.
'Miss Camilla ... Camilla?' Jackson is following me again and I look at him as though he has two heads, unsure why he is repeating my name incessantly. He has been like a suffocating shadow all evening and I don't normally get this irritated with him.
'What?' I snap, that feeling of inner turmoil making me cranky.
'You're pacing like a mindless bot ... maybe you should go have a break?' Jackson has been very attentive to my anxious pacing all night, overly aware of my sensitive mood and snappy tone with the staff.
I can't help it—it's now well after eleven and Alexi has not come back, not replied to any of my texts and not answered any of the times I rang his phone. I'm obsessing over his safety and worrying myself sick over it. My insides are so strung out it feels like I might throw up.
It's a dinner! They usually never run majorly late, and he hasn't contacted me to say he's staying away, even though he doesn't really have to, but he should have come back by now. He said he was coming back.
He promised me!
I know I'm being ridiculous and maybe it's a night of drinks and God knows what. It's none of my business what he does outside of these four walls ... or even in them sometimes. I just cannot shake the foreboding fear that my initial gut instinct was right, and he knew there was something tonight that I should be worried about.
'I'm fine ... I just need to go do something, then I'll be back.' I dismiss him coldly.
By something, I mean call him again, or Mico, because I'm edgy and tense and all I need is a little 'we're fine' and I'll calm down. I have put off texting Mico because I felt stupid but now I just can't stand it anymore. My phone is in the kitchen on charge and it will take a minute to bite the bullet and do it. It could just be that Alexi has his phone on silent because of his dinner and doesn't know I have been trying.
'Wait!' Something crosses my mind as I go to walk away and I turn back to him.
'How far is the reach on your wireless thingamajig?' I point at his ear thing and motion at his chest where I know the other part will be concealed.
'Hundred yards or so ... out of Mico's reach if that's what you're asking? I can try their channel but it won't reach.' He gives me that knowing look and I exhale heavily—instantly disappointed. It must be obvious that my earlier upset is plaguing me once more, and I blow out a long steady exhale to calm my trembling nerves.
'I need to call him. Something's wrong, I can feel it.' I sound like some needy wife, and I am aware Jackson is giving the weird eye as though I am one, but he just doesn't get it.
My life, whether I like it or not, is completely tangled up with Alexi Carrero on so many levels; it's not just about this club, this income, this opportunity.
He makes me feel safe.
If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have the apartment upstairs or my standing in this club as part owner. If it wasn't for him I would still be on the streets, hauling arse and begging for scraps in the shitty direction my life was going in. If it wasn't for him I would have probably met my end at Tyler's hands a long time ago and be another nameless face in the morgue, swept under the title of 'unknown victim of crime.' If it wasn't for Alexi I would just not have a life at all.
Alexi has made sure that my survival depends on him, and he somehow managed to solidify it by dragging my heart in too. I just cannot imagine a life in which he doesn't exist and the thought absolutely terrifies me. If he died ... I would die too.
We are weirdly connected, and as much as I hate the fact, I can admit it. Alexi changed me in irreversible ways, so that I can no longer just go back to the street and pick up where I left off. Those four months were proof of that.
He broke me, picked out the worst parts of Camilla and turned them to ashes, but in her place, he rebuilt something else when he gave me another chance. He shaped a woman who has no desire to ever go back to selling her body to survive. To live on her wiles and manipulate and lie to everyone in her wake. To screw people over and always be looking behind her, over her shoulder, for the last person she ripped off. To keep living alone with no ties to anyone; She was a despicable worthless deviant, and she died with the part of me that Alexi ripped down ... she never came back with me to this place.
I want more! I want to be proud of what I do and have something to have pride in. I want the security of people around me who care. I like my life now, even him sometimes, and I have no designs on manipulation or upper hand in any way. I have everything I need, all I ever wanted as a child.
A place to belong—Safe and warm ... sheltered.
I want for nothing, and even when he is being a boorish prick, I have always known he would never let anyone hurt me.
In his own fucked up way, he has been trying this time, to make me feel valued and worthwhile; healing some of the wounds he left on my heart. Even if he can't actually say the words and make them sound like he means it, he has been showing me a different side to him. I have seen it, even if I denied it at first. I may not be dumb enough to fall back into his claws, but I appreciate the fact he has been trying to heal some of the things he did to me. I have seen his efforts even if I sometimes mistrust them.
I pace away from Jackson, leave him watching me with an exasperated expression. He obviously isn't having the same panic over Alexi's safety as I am and doesn't get the depths of fear coursing through me.
I avoid people milling around and head out to the corridor, using my pass to get into the kitchen out of the way, glad to see it's empty.
I head straight for my phone, pull it off the charging dock and immediately swipe to Alexi's number and hit dial, tensing my whole body and holding my breath as I put it to my ear.
It rings out for what seems like an eternity then goes straight to his answerphone and I try again.
Two, three, four, five times in a row with mounting panic as each one trails off then goes to his voicemail. I take a heavy breath and shake myself, instead pulling up Mico's number and try him with a sense of hope and my fingers crossed.
I get the same result.
Heart plummeting and head consumed with worry and frustration. I know it could just be that they don't want to be disturbed and both have their phones on mute, I have never tried to call him at a dinner before, so I don't know if that's normal protocol.
I trawl my phone to see if I have Daniels' number, or any of the other men on his watch, then try Mico again when I find none. It just goes to answerphone right away this time and I shudder. Completely overwhelmed with this and hating how overwrought it has me feeling. I'm just cut loose and lost and don't know how to act. My brain is spewing over a thousand scenarios and visions that turn my stomach inside out. I need to stop thinking the worst but I can't help it.
Something is wrong. I can feel it in my bones and soul, and Alexi never usually ignores his phone at any other time of day. It seems like Mico has turned his off suddenly and I start to tremble crazily.
The panic which started upstairs hits doubly hard, almost winding me, and I rush out into the corridor to shake myself and take a breath. I head back to look for Jackson to have him call any of the other men he knows are on Alexi's security detail, but I am stopped with him meeting me half way. He looks ashen and so very serious.
'No one is answering their cell ... complete communication blackout,' he states, almost as though he read my mind and tried to call people when I was. I wonder if we cross called Mico and that's why I got his answerphone.
I instinctively try again and this time Mico's rings out in the same way Alexi's did.
Shit!
'Not a single one of them is answering, Jackson. What does that mean?' I ask him grabbing onto his jacket pathetically, which only emphasizes my growing despair.
'It means something is going down and Alexi has put everyone on no comms mode ... it's normal for him. Keeps the channel clear and stops prying ears from any Intel.' He looks a little stressed, but not in full-blown freak out like me, and I grip him harder.
'Meaning?' I can't handle it. I'm visibly shaking and clawing at him for answers to still my beating heart but I cannot get control of it.
I feel sick. Something inside me knew ... it just knew.
'It means something is happening and we wait. We use the radios like Chinese whispers across the city. If there is news it will be passed on until it gets to us. These mics are secure and we all have our own channels.' Almost as soon as it's out of his mouth he pauses and covers his ear with his finger and thumb. Looking up and past me towards security down the hall and my eyes follow too. I see them all pause and listen, and I guess something on their wireless has come through, passed on just like he said it would. Everything just stops dead as I hold still and wait for whatever it is.
'Shit!' Jackson pales and presses his ear.
'It's Jackson, I need the venue location ... We're on our way from Zone 3 Club. We'll take over the pick up.' He says to some unknown voice in his ear and I tug at him crazily. Emotion taking over as my heart starts racing again. Mind turning faint with the overwhelming assault of everything I am feeling. I feel like my surroundings are starting to spin wildly.
'What's happening ... What's wrong?' I squeal as he pulls me off, starts clicking fingers and pushing men, who all seem to crowd this way. Two of them from the group pull me aside and it seems they are organising something between them agitatedly, all abuzz with whatever they heard, and I am shoved away as unimportant. The air is crackling among them and hitting me with bad vibes.
'Jackson? What?' I squeal at him in hysteria and pull him by the arm out of the fold of his men frantically. He clears his throat, seems to pull himself together and holds onto me with a firm grip on my arms.
'There's been a shooting ... There are casualties. We need to go pick up our men as police have cordoned off the restaurant and cars can't get out.' His face is unusually white and I can tell he's not as calm as he's making out. I pale as everything in me turns to ashes and a numb shock hits every part of me. The blood rushes to my head so that my stomach lurches and eyes blur.
'What about Alexi? What about Mico?' It comes out like a strangled gasp and Jackson's eyes drop from me agonisingly. His face haunting and eyes wide as something hits him hard.
'I don't know. No names—only that we need to pick up five survivors from their party of eight.'
That's all I remember as my body gives out and my mind blanks with the heavy pain I can't handle.
I pass out.