C3 3

I don’t know why I’m telling him this, I have never had a need to be honest with anyone in my life, but I get the vibe that lying to him about anything would probably be the single 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 catch a glimpse of 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 extremely claustrophobic with the proximity of someone his size; strength emanating like a dark heavy 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 what he looks like, 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 just make him out when I am blinded by the dazzling light of him switching on the lamp over my bed and 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 literally 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 a completely devastating, yet almost forbidden way, and I have to check my tongue is not hanging out; I never knew gangsters could be so 'Phwoar'. 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, 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.

He has on expensive clothes and heady aftershave and a face that would not look amiss in a Hollywood mob movie. Alexi is a little too handsome to be real. 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 a lot of time in Italy if he wasn’t born there for it to leave its mark. He is not the package I was expecting at all and I would put him in his early thirties if I had to guess; young for a mobster King.