Chapter Four
One week later ... two weeks later ... three weeks later ... one month gone.
Two months gone.
Jane rolled out of bed, made her way toward the calendar and struck off another day. They were now moving into the third month that she had been living in Alexey’s apartment.
She had not seen the outside world once in all those months.
That was fine, though. Alexey had been able to stop her from going stir-crazy, Jane believed.
She cleaned his apartment, because he no longer trusted the cleaning crew.
The first week of her staying with him had resulted in at least one cleaning lady attempting to kill her.
That had been her second kill in her life.
The woman had a knife and kept attacking her.
She hadn’t expected Jane to fight back. She did get a couple of additional cuts that had to be treated by Alexey’s doctor.
This did not show she would be able to take care of herself outside of his apartment. So, cleaning ladies were cancelled.
Nor were they allowed to order takeout food. She had ordered herself Chinese food, because she had been wanting some delicious noodles. She never got the chance to order takeout because it was expensive, but Alexey had said she could have anything she wanted.
One of Morello’s goons had dressed as a delivery driver, and before he’d even handed her the delivery, he had his hands wrapped around her throat.
Thankfully, Alexey’s men had been there and killed him before he could kill her.
She did get stabbed with a knife, which had been painful.
So, takeout was now ordered, collected, and the cooking process was watched by one of Alexey’s men.
Jane didn’t want to go to that much trouble. Instead, she got a few cookbooks and decided to start cooking. It was a lot more fun than warming up packet noodles, and it did taste good. Alexey also insisted on tasting her food.
The first lot of noodles she attempted were not good, as she had burnt most of them to the bottom of the wok.
That had been next to impossible to clean.
She’d been tempted to throw the wok out; however, she gave it a long, hard soak, then researched how to clean and deal with woks.
Since then, it had been a breeze. She knew how to cook, but she now preferred to follow recipes.
Alexey didn’t complain. He had a home-cooked meal every night. Along with her cooking adventures, she had also started to bake. The guards loved her baking attempts, although some complained they had put on weight. This was a bit of a problem.
She was used to hard work. Once she cleaned the apartment every day, she had a lot of time on her hands and nothing to do.
This was when she stocked up Alexey’s freezer.
From there, she even started to cook for the guards.
Then came the baking and the excess goods she had no choice but to give to several guards, because they would spoil before she got a chance to eat them.
Cooking only took up so much time. She had to find another hobby. Growing up, she tended to have the hobby of avoiding the drunken foster parent or hiding from the bully. There was a lot of hiding and avoiding, which was just a way of life.
So, she used the computer Alexey had given her and started to look at homebound, or at least apartment-bound hobbies.
This was why she now sat on the sofa, knitting what was supposed to be a sweater; however, if she held it up to the light, it had more holes in it than cheese. She was determined to finish it.
Most people started with a scarf. Jane wanted something challenging, and what the fuck did “cast off three, keep knitting until the end row, then knit another row and cast off an additional three to shape the neckline,” even mean?
It was confusing, but the women on the online tutorials made it look like so much fun.
Maybe hobbies were not her thing.
She hadn’t even realized so much time had passed, until Alexey literally walked through the door.
At nearly three months, most of her bruises were gone. There was the odd mottling on her stomach from being stomped on at least twice. That had been the deepest of all the bruises. The ones on her face were gone. Her lip was no longer split, nor her eye swollen.
“Evening,” she said, finishing off her row of the horrible-looking sweater and getting to her feet.
She had put a pot roast in the oven on low, and it would take the broccoli just a few minutes to tenderize.
She pulled out the pot roast, checked the meat, and of course it was juicy and tender.
She had come to learn to trust a selection of the cookbooks Alexey had gotten for her.
They had not steered her wrong, and she felt like a better cook for it.
“Evening,” Alexey said.
“Long day?”
This was the longest she had stayed with anyone.
The broccoli was cooking in the skillet with a tiny bit of butter and some oil, and she grabbed the wine from the fridge.
It was a nice, deep red wine that was supposed to go well with pot roast. She would be using the leftovers tomorrow to make a pie.
Jane stopped as she realized how domestic she sounded. It was crazy that this was currently her life.
“Yeah, it was long.”
Alexey never talked about work. He would occasionally give her an update on Morello.
From what she knew, things had not been going well in the past couple of months.
Morello was pissed because Alexey had cost him a few million in drug money, by blowing up his shipment.
Jane hadn’t thought it was funny. Alexey had.
Even Nikolai, Igor, and Makar had found it funny.
From time to time, they stopped by to enjoy some food and talk with Alexey.
She liked all his friends, which was a shock to her. At least they all had his back. She had come to see herself as quite a good judge of character. It helped her survive a lot over the years.
They were good men. Sure, they did bad things, but there were a lot of bad men out there. It was rare to find good bad men. She knew it was weird, but it made sense to her. Alexey was a good man.
She handed him a glass of wine and made her way into the kitchen to serve them some pot roast with broccoli.
She opened the fridge door, grabbed the parsley she had chopped earlier, and quickly sprinkled it across the roast before serving, then she added a little more for decoration at the end.
It looked so damn good. This was not the first pot roast she had made.
“So, I was thinking, and this is a crazy thought, but I was hoping you would consider letting me perhaps take a small walk in the park tomorrow. I’m talking ten minutes tops. I just walk from one end of the park to another and come back,” she said.
Every time she had suggested leaving the apartment, he didn’t even give her a chance to beg. It was always a strict, “Hell, no.” Jane looked at him, and the fact it was taking him a few extra minutes to answer was indeed a miracle. She waited.
He looked at her. Then, he nodded his head. “Yes, I’ll take you to the park tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I know the guards would be more than capable of doing it. I don’t want to put you out.”
“Jane, the only way you’re getting to that park tomorrow is if I’m by your side.”
“No other chance?”
“Not a single one,” he said.
“Then I guess we’re going to the park tomorrow. Now, eat up, this is supposed to be super good for you. It’s got your meat and veggies.”
“And I see you put broccoli on my plate,” he said.
“It’s so silly for you to not like broccoli. It makes absolutely no sense to me.” She offered him a smile, and Jane was a little afraid, because in that moment she realized she really liked living with him.
****
Jane looked way too happy.
He hadn’t locked her up as punishment. The few people that had snuck past his guards had gotten lucky. He was shocked when she did kill the cleaning lady, not that she had any choice.
Jane was not like a lot of women. She was a fighter.
After the attacks, rather than argue with him, or leave, she had dug in and dealt with it. She cleaned his apartment, learned to cook and bake. His guards adored her, and she had won them over with the power of her food. It helped that she was a good cook. Even his friends had adored her.
She had killed for him as well. Nikolai liked to point that out time and again. Morello was pissed off, intent on war, and was acting irrational. He had even attempted to ambush him during a meeting, but Alexey had seen right through his tricks. Morello wanted the girl.
Alexey looked down at the girl at his side, and he saw the delicate smile on her lips. She had closed her eyes and tilted her head up. She was happy.
Her eyes opened and she turned toward him. He had never considered brown eyes to be all that attractive, but Jane held warmth within hers. He never noticed it before, but she possessed a couple of cute dimples in her cheeks.
“Okay, just between us, but I might be getting high a little on all that Vitamin D.” She let out a little giggle.
It was summer. The heat waves had been a nightmare, not that Jane had felt much of them, because he kept the apartment at the same temperature. While most people were sweating their balls and tits off, Jane had been pleasantly cooking up a storm in their apartment.
Alexey reached down and did something he never did with a woman.
He held her hand and locked their fingers together, so he could keep her close.
His men were all around the park, looking for any sign of Morello.
He had no doubt Vincent had men around, waiting for the moment to strike, but he wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Alexey, you don’t have to hold my hand,” she said.
“Yes, I do.”
He expected her to argue, but she didn’t pull away, and by some strange miracle, she didn’t even argue with him. In that moment, he wanted to put his fingers against her temples to make sure she was okay. Jane not arguing was a strange concept.
She didn’t argue, and he walked her through the park and kept a close eye on every person there.
There were runners, families, mother pushing strollers, even fathers.
There were already kids in the park, since it was summer.
People were always going to parks and lapping up the sunshine to make them feel better.
Jane sighed. “You know, I have always liked the simple things. A walk in the park. Enjoying the few free things life has to offer, free air, free sunshine.”
He wasn’t about to tell her that this simple walk was not exactly free. The men he paid to keep her safe did not come with just enjoying the morning walk.
“So, do you have any plans for today?” Jane asked.
He looked down at her, and she offered him a smile, to which he was a little taken aback.
Over the past few months, he found himself enjoying her company.
He genuinely wanted to go home each night to see her.
Life was not hard, nor complicated with her.
She didn’t ask him a million questions or beg him for girly treats.
In the beginning, he didn’t think he was going to be able to live with a woman. Now, he didn’t want her to leave, and he stopped trying to find ways for her to leave. He knew a lot of men would find her plain and unattractive, but Alexey was fucking drawn to her.
At night, he found himself watching her in her cute pajamas. He brought her clothes home, and she was constantly wearing them. From the cute pajamas to the jeans, to dresses. She wore everything he got, and she didn’t complain once. He loved everything about her.
After the attacks, she stopped complaining and started to look for hobbies. Her cooking and baking were the best so far. The knitting was not going so great. He’d seen her hold the sweater up, and it looked awful. She was not a good knitter, but that didn’t stop her.
“Take you for a walk in the park,” he said.
“That is not going to take a long time,” she said.
He chuckled. “You never know. A park is an exciting place.”
She took a deep breath. “Yeah, I know. Do you see any threats? Anything I must be on guard with?”
“Nothing so far.”
“I already spotted Richard up ahead, and there’s Ben.”
He glanced down at her. “You know the guards’ names?”
“It’s only fair. They are risking their lives to save mine, and in all honesty, it’s not like I’m anyone important.”
“You saved my life. That makes you important,” he said.
“I’ve told you before. There are a lot of people who would have done it.”
Alexey chuckled. “You think you know the world, Jane. You truly don’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know there are a lot of bad people in the world. Trust me, I get it.”
He spun her around and pressed her up against the tree. “Does this have anything to do with that foster dad who ended up dead?” he asked.
She smelled so good, like vanilla, and it always made his mouth water.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.
This made him smirk. “You know when every foster kid responds in exactly the same way about the same situation, it stinks.”
Jane stared at him but didn’t say a word.
“Do you know what is even more telling?” he asked, waiting for a few minutes to pause. “When they dropped the case, all evidence seemed to disappear, and the kids just ended up going their separate ways.”
“I think I’m ready to go back home,” she said.
He liked that she called it home. Alexey didn’t want to let her go. She wore a cute yellow sundress that skimmed her curves, but each time she moved, it gave a little glimpse to what was hiding beneath.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll go home.”
He kept hold of her hand and walked her all the way back home, pleased that his jacket hid his raging erection.