Chapter 406
I keep it together with all my might, watching the road as Mico and our escort of cars navigate through the tight little streets of the colourful Chinatown and gets us back on track, heading out to Upper Manhattan. Back into fast traffic and homeward bound.
Once we lose most of the foreign cars that had followed us, Alexi turns to check over his shoulder and the side windows before turning to me, scoots closer, pulls me against him in a hug and slides his arm around me. Secure in the knowledge we are finally out of sight and he knows I desperately need him in this way.
"You okay? I'm sorry I had to put you through that, but it was necessary." He slides both arms around me to envelop me, pulling me in tightly so my seatbelt strains and I rest my cheek on his chest; I close my eyes to breathe him in and return to that safety he always makes me feel. Unloading the heavy weight of everything like dumping off a huge thick coat. Suddenly able to breathe and realise how tightly I was holding myself until this moment. I dissolve into a mess of loose limbs now he has me. I can let it go, knowing he will take the burden away.
"I will be. It was a shock. You should have warned me what was coming, Lexi. I could have prepared myself for that." My voice trembles and I close my eyes as his finger traces my cheek and brushes my hair away from my face tenderly. So familiar, and so necessary for me.
"I didn't know for sure it would. Santagato was still trying to get a reach out on everyone in her organisation until I got that text. We weren't sure if we had everyone covered as the meeting was so rushed and last minute. We had no room for error or backlash. It had to be one even sweep or it wasn't happening." He kisses me on top of my head, lingering to inhale my scent and ground me fully; I slide my arms around him and deflate completely. Head whirling with images of men suffocating right in front of my face. Pushing the horror away along with the broken face of that woman. I shudder slightly as I close them down tight in a black hole far in the depths of my mind.
"So, they're all gone?"
The complete wipeout of a threat in a very organised hour. It's mind-boggling that they could orchestrate that kind of efficiency in just one night.
"She had a lot of paid guns who were only too happy to walk away to fight another day. Her trust circle was small, and the two men with her were her stepsons, not blood. Their father died years ago. There is no one to come after this. It's over. Her family abroad won't retaliate, they wanted nothing to do with this." He assures me and there is no hint of dishonesty in his tone. It really is over.
I'm guessing they reached out via his father and checked what the outcome of doing something to her would be. Her family clearly had more sense than she did.
"What a stupid woman. Thinking she could take on the likes of you lot and live to tell the tale." I shake my head, pulling back to get lost in those calming grey eyes. Finding the safe harbour in the pale unearthly beauty.
"She thought she had figured it all out, much like her idiot father did decades ago. Come in with a show of force and put fear into the other heads. Bully them into letting you lead. The logic is flawed. You should always know your opponents and their capabilities before throwing down a gauntlet. I was never going to just brush this off."
"She wanted power and position. She just went about it in the worst way." I understand the silly girl's logic and I blanch at why she ever thought it would work. These are men who have power and a ruthless desire to keep it. They don't hand it over to women with attitude that easily. Her gender was the first fault in her plan.
"Should have married me, huh; maybe she would be sitting at the head of the next table issuing orders if she had." He jests but I don't smile. This whole bizarre scene wasn't funny, but I see the funny in what he said. I spent my life trying to be someone and in one drunken Elvis service, I'm suddenly a respected figure among the men I hated and endured my entire life. It really is a fucked-up world out there.
She wanted this power; she fought and killed for it, and where is she now. Left in a room with murderous men who will make her last hours hell on earth, for merely trying to get what they have, in ways they probably gained it to begin with. The imbalance of this misogynist world we live in.
"Let's go home. This has been a hellish few days and I just want to curl up and have a normal day to forget all this." I'm exhausted, mentally and physically, and feel like we've been stuck in an emotional whirlwind for the last few days. I want nothing more than his couch, Alexi and Lync curled up beside me, some mindless Netflix box set and a good glass of red wine. Pretending none of this is real. Like normal people do. Home sounds like the most amazing thing at this moment.
To detach and put this all to bed. To forget, to be wrapped in the bubble of "Camlexi" where this reality is a blur and doesn't really touch me anymore.
"I second that. I need to go out later, but you can have me all to yourself for a few hours first. My father is flying in, we have a board meeting tonight to talk about how this went down."
Obviously not something they want to discuss over the phone.
I sigh at the reality of this life and just nod. This is how it will always be, well, until the day he retires, and our casino beckons us. Until the day he is free of the responsibility of heading this family and having so many rely on him. This is what happens when you marry the King. I knew this when I got into things with him, and I have to accept that that world will always have a place in who he is.
I wanted a place where I could live between the two. Unable to exist in suburban reality, but neither did I want to live in the underworld of crime, sex and murder, and Alexi gives me that weird in-between place I never knew existed. By his side, I can walk either way at any time, and live in the grey area most have no concept of. The place he has been dwelling most of his life with his men, his father and anyone else who has to wear two personas and be two different people. I feel like, somehow, this is how I was always supposed to end up. Not choosing one or the other to find my happiness but choosing him and letting it all slot into place.
I curl up tightly in his embrace and sigh heavily, everything seeping away so there is only the feel of him and all the peace that comes with it.
"It's over. Finally. Maybe now we can start living and work on this crazy marriage of ours."
"The marriage isn't crazy, just the wife." He chuckles in a funny retort and gets a swift slap in the abdomen for his cheek. My unamused scowl at his jest before he hauls me to him and kisses me firmly, pushing it to passionate immediately as he buries his hands in my hair and reminds me why we work so well.
Putting an end to the conversation and reminding me of all the reasons he makes me crazy, in one fell swoop.