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

47

Alexi leads the way from the garden, scooping up my shoes as we pass and splits away from me to jog over and tell his family we are leaving. I idle by the path at this far edge and pull my shoes on as I wait for him. Watching him with a strange contentment stilling my nerves as various family members hug and kiss him. Looking so at home with them and much more relaxed than when we arrived. My stupid tears have stopped, and I just feel in great need of being naked and joined to him to wipe away my dumb insecurity.

I note his father giving him a goodbye hug that lasts longer than anyone else, but his mother is nowhere to be seen. I shrug it off, wondering if she has returned to her basement to go throw some bat wings in her cauldron. Maybe gone to stuff more decapitated heads for her secret collection. Bet she has a whole cupboard of voodoo dolls stashed away with Alexi's face on. I'm sure I'll get added now.

Alexi comes back to me as I get to the edge of the lawn, wandering slowly so he could catch up and slides a hand in mine, throwing me a handsome smile and a quick kiss to my cheek before we continue. It pulls a happy smile from me and I thank my stars he is who he is, and no longer that bastard I fell in love with months ago. He has surpassed all I thought he could be in every way.

"Ready, sexy? I can't wait to get you home. These bad boys are burning a hole in my pocket." He pats the chest of his leather jacket where my underwear nestles, and I grin at him.

"Let's not do this again in a hurry. I now see why you rarely venture home." I point out and get a smile and a shrug from him which signals both 'let's drop it' and 'yeah, I agree'. My poor lost boy and his mother issues. Something I need to work on with him so he can learn to cut that bitch's hold on him and set it loose. I took a long time to do the same with my sad excuse of a mother, but he will be free to smile more when that black cloud stops raining on his parade every day.

"My mother is inside greeting some new arrivals so if we use the side door, we might just avoid her altogether." It's a tense tone, his agitation swirling again, and I guess it won't be a bad thing to swerve her completely. For his sanity and to avoid any ugliness in the absence of his father. He is obviously eager to get out of here and worried about another scene.

I don't doubt that she might get nasty if we run into her without him once again. She seems like a snide manipulative bitch who would be that underhanded.

Alexi leads me through patio doors into a large kitchen that is nestled to one side, and the house suddenly seems gloomy and silent compared to the outside sun and noise of babbling people. Eerily so. We walk across to the main door on a cold tiled floor, which is flanked by a couple of doors inside the kitchen that seem completely out of place. We are almost at the exit when we catch the sound of his mother's voice drifting this way and coming closer.

"Come to the kitchen with me and I will make you a coffee before we head out." Her shrill, Italian accented tone grating on me instantly.

Alexi flicks a look my way before changing route and hauls me into the door to the left, pulling me in fast and closing it as quietly as he can. So swift he almost knocks me off my feet and my heels barely touch the floor. We are suddenly encased in a dark room with no windows whatsoever, and I can't tell if he just locked us in a larder. I can't see shit.

"What are you doing?" I whisper hoarsely, grabbing onto him in the dark while my eyes adjust and he ushers me further in, bodily pushing me into the dark depths away from the door so she can't hear us.

"Taking you on a detour to get by her. This is her study, there's another door over the other side to the hall entry. We can leave that way."

Alexi's warm hands smooth around my shoulders and then to my waist as he feels me out to guide me and then curses loudly as he stubs his foot on something as we try to navigate in the dark. A grind of furniture on the wood floor as something heavy shifts with the impact of him.