Chapter Nineteen Alina’s POV
Chapter Nineteen
Alina’s POV
When I woke up to an empty bed, I wasn’t sure if I was happy or sad.
Having sex surely made things more complicated, I knew that much.
His absence could mean many things. It could be as simple as him needing to get started with the day’s work and not wanting to wake me up.
It could mean him waking up with utter shock and hating himself for getting involved with me at all, and then rushing out of my room, vowing to never let it happen again.
With the man in the picture being Konstantin, the latter was most likely the case.
However, it took just a single thought of the night we spent together to wonder if he was as cold as he appeared.
The way his eyes took in every part of me like I was some damsel, the way he held me to himself like I was a part of himself, the gentleness of his voice when he asked if I was okay—all that couldn’t have come from a monster with a cold heart.
As I left my room later that morning, I decided within myself that I would stay out of his way.
I wasn’t the kind of girl who had casual sex and just moved on.
I’d rather not hear him call me out on having delusional expectations or thinking too much of something that meant nothing to him.
I’d have breakfast after his departure and dinner before his arrival, or up in my room so we wouldn’t have any reason to meet.
While my plan might not be foolproof for the sole reason that we still lived in the same house, I was ready to give it my all. For the next several days, at least.
Aside from when he unexpectedly arrived earlier on the day after, my plan was working quite well.
Even on that evening, I avoided staring at him despite the pull to.
I had wanted to see if he had forgotten all about it, and he was back to passing orders as one would to a hostage, but I didn’t.
I forced my voice to be firm when I responded to his greeting, despite my heart wanting to welcome him with a calm voice and smiling face.
It was two days after that night, and I descended the stairs to find Hans and some other workers whose names I didn’t know putting things together at the manor.
I moved closer to the couch, where Hans was about to lift it with another worker. “Let me help.”
“Ma’am? No,” Hans refused. “You can’t join us. We’ll be done soon, anyway.”
“Well, I want to,” I insisted. “I already came down here. So I can’t sit and watch you guys do all the work. We all live here, don’t we?”
“Yes, ma’am. But, you can’t,” he said, shaking his head slowly.
I looked around and found Greta and Anna at the far end of the sitting room. They were cleaning the windows that weren’t replaced.
“Even Greta and Anna are helping. I’m going to help, I insist,” I told him.
He gave a resigned sigh.
“I won’t drop and die, don’t worry,” I told him, earning a small chuckle from him. “I’ll join Greta and the others.”
And I did, despite Greta’s initial whining.
Two hours later, the whole sitting room had taken on a different look. No longer looking like the remains of a dead ecosystem, it now had some semblance of life.
We stood back to examine our handiwork, pleased with what the new space looked like.
The couch set was now gleaming as new ones had been brought to replace the torn ones. The windows were now perfect, no more plastic sheets or cracked glass. The floors were now perfectly clean.
“Chow call!” one of the workers called, and we all laughed.
“You know what? Let’s eat together,” I suggested, looking from one worker to the other.
“We appreciate the gesture, ma’am. But it could be our doom,” the same worker said, still grinning. “We escaped being caught till we finished working. We might not escape eating at the same table with you.”
“Besides, it’s actually rude. It’s not proper,” another one said.
“And again, that table can’t take us all,” Hans uttered, chuckling. “No one dares sit on the boss’s chair.”
“Right,” I agreed, looking over to the dining room.
They all eventually went to eat and freshen up in their quarters while I ate at the dining table.
“That carrot cake was something,” I told Greta after she cleared the dessert plate off the table.
“Ah,” she uttered, smiling. “I’m glad you like it. I’m good at making several snacks, but carrot cakes aren’t one of them. But, since the boss told us that we were in trouble if there was any carrot-based food we couldn’t make, Anna and I have been experimenting.”
“Why would he say that?”
“You like carrots,” she pointed out, her eyes twinkling as she grinned.
I wanted to ask how he knew that. But, she wasn’t the person to ask.
So I said, “You know how to make many snacks, hmm?”
“Yes. A lot. Russian, American, Italian, I can make most of the common snacks.”
“Wow, that’s impressive,” I commented. “Can you make blini?”
“Yes, milady,” she answered.
“How about biryani?”
“Yes. The boys were still fighting over a batch a few days before you arrived,” she answered.
“Great. Pizza?”
“Yes!” she answered, laughing.
“You are one in a million, Greta!”
“Ah, it’s nothing,” she dismissed with a small smile.
“It’s everything,” I argued. “I can count all the delicacies I’m capable of making from start to finish on one finger.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“That’s the gospel truth,” I told her. “I’ve always lived by myself, so it’s not that I always had people treat me to home-cooked food or anything. But, when I’m not working at the clinic, I’m too beat to even clean my apartment. I mostly just order food or make something real quick.”
“I understand that. But it’s a surprise you don’t look like a bag of potatoes, then. With all the unhealthy fat these takeout meals and snacks contain.”
“I used to work out some years ago. But I think I’m like this simply because the activity of my daily life as a nurse outweighs the fat in my food.”
“That’s true,” she concurred, nodding. “That’s very true.”
“Yeah.”
“I could teach you how to make a few meals,” she offered. “We’re here to make sure you don’t need to put any cooking skills to use, but just for times when you feel like it.”
“Actually, that would be great,” I remarked. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
“No problem at all.”
Her eyes lit up as she added, “I could teach you something now. Maybe biryani? Or pizza?”
“Are you serious?” I inquired.
She nodded repeatedly.
I considered the idea for a second. It would definitely be a good way for me to clear my head.
“Let’s do it,” I told her, standing from the chair.
I followed her into the kitchen.
“Wow,” I commented, looking around the large rectangular space.
A deep freezer and a three-door refrigerator stood to the left, and a wide marble island sat in the middle of the room.
Against the wall facing the door, there were two sinks extending into a marble countertop, which stretched to the right wall.
The gas cooker and oven were on the right.
“Oh, ma’am,” Anna uttered as she sauntered into the kitchen with some dishes in a tray.
“Hi again, Anna,” I answered. “I’m here to steal some of your secrets.”
“We’re making pizza,” Greta announced, bringing two transparent plastic containers to the island.
Flour and sugar.
Anna washed the plates in the sink as Greta assembled ingredients on the kitchen island. I sat in one of the backless chairs and watched.
“Which toppings should we go with?” Greta asked.
“Anything is fine,” I answered. “It depends on what’s available, I guess.”
“Everything is available,” she said, chuckling.
“Maybe pepperoni?” Anna opined, turning around to face us.
“Yeah, we could do that,” I said.
“Maybe with some extra beef or chicken?” Greta suggested.
“Chicken,” I said.
“Okay, then. Let’s start,” Greta said, going towards the freezer. “We’ll start processing the chicken and pepperoni while we work on the dough.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding.
Thirty minutes later, after Anna had shredded enough mozzarella cheese and Greta had deemed the dough ‘well-relaxed,’ we transferred the dough to the pizza pan.
We added the toppings, including things like olive oil and a final sprinkle of cheese, which I wouldn’t have guessed were a part of the process, then placed the pizza in the oven.
“Whew! This has been entertaining,” I commented as we all walked back to the kitchen island.
“I’ll go get the next round of plates,” Anna said before adding in an excited tone, “I’ll be back before the pizza is ready.”
“Of course, you will,” Greta answered, chuckling as the young lady left the room.
“We could leave a slice for the boss. Call it a special treat,” she suggested, smiling mischievously.
“Why would I do that?” I questioned, folding my arms.
“Just from wife to husband,” she answered.
A wry chuckle left my lips. “I’ll pass.”
“There might be one or two in the way right now, but you both make a great pair.”
“Did you just say pair?”
“Yes,” she affirmed, nodding. “I’m not talking about surface level. You’re exactly what he needs to fill the empty parts of his life that make him incomplete.”
“And I don’t deserve to have the right person to make my life fuller?”
“You have him,” she stressed.
“Konstantin is the yang to my yin?” I sputtered.
“I know it doesn’t look that way,” she remarked, a patient smile on her face. “The boss seems icy, but that kind of frozen mass comes as a build-up of many things. Yet it doesn’t take so many things to defrost.”
“It doesn’t matter, we’re good this way,” I told her. “I can’t afford to lose myself.”
“You won’t lose yourself. He’s too genuine to let that happen.”
“I really don’t want to know.”
But, deep down, I thought of what it would be like to not have to think twice about Konstantin’s actions, to play around with him.
Hmm, mission impossible.
**********
“The boss sends for you, ma,” Hans said, standing by the doorway in my room.
“Uh, now?” I inquired, confused.
It was night, and I had retired to my room after an early dinner and another slice of the pizza we’d made earlier in the day. I had been sure the day would end without me having to see him.
Well, I was wrong.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nodding, I got up from the bed and followed him out of the room. When we got to Konstantin’s office, Hans opened the door and stepped aside as I went in.
Konstantin’s gaze left the papers on the table and landed on me immediately.
From the trace of hesitance in his expression, I knew I couldn’t expect anything good from this meeting.
I moved closer to his table as he gestured towards the glossy pictures and papers splayed all over my side of the desk.
“Photos of the dead courier. Compromised bank accounts. All tied to Vitya Morozov. Tell me all you know about this,” he said.
My eyes skimmed the papers, and I sighed.
I’m tired of these investigations.
I was angry that, even after all this time, he still asked me these questions like I was a suspect. We weren't exactly friends, but I thought the fact that I hadn’t done anything shady since he took me would be enough proof that I wasn’t a threat to him or the Bratva.
It annoyed me that I had begun to see through the clouds. That I'd begun to stupidly think he thought more of me, and we'd just coexist happily like normal people.
I was pained at the thought that I was probably right. The night we shared was just him being in the heat of the battle. Nothing had changed; I was his captive, and he was my captor.
“How many more times do I have to tell you? I know nothing about his operations!” I spat.
Surprise flickered across his face before disappearing again.
“You were in a relationship with him, Alina,” he pointed out, his voice calm while his expression remained anything but friendly. “Regardless of when it ended. This guy had a big mouth. He must have told you things.”
“It wasn’t an ideal relationship, okay?!
” I blurted out. “You know all about how I’d had to fend for myself when I ran away from the orphanage.
I told you. After Siroc, things were even worse before they got better.
I worked in many violent circles while I was still trained as a nurse.
I didn’t want to, but I did it because I needed the money.
When I was working for Liza and Roman, and I met Vitya, I thought I’d met someone who’d protect me.
He was kind and always there for me. But things changed. ”
I took a steadying breath as my voice became shaky with unshed tears.
“He started to show me his violent side. We were seeing a movie at his place one time,” I divulged, holding the chair beside me as my voice dropped. “He coerced me.”
I couldn’t say why, but the flash of anger on Konstantin’s face was apparent.
“I escaped that day. And it was the last time I ever set eyes on him,” I disclosed. “So, no, I don’t know about the Feds or his activities or the information he stole from you. I’m not his partner, and I’m not working with him.”
I expected a threat from him, but his calm gaze was what I got instead.
Leaning closer to the desk, he said, “Then help me find who is.”
I blinked, realizing what was going on. Konstantin was offering a shift from prisoner to ally.
“Okay,” I accepted, and he nodded.
Before taking a step I’d regret, considering the tension in the office, I told him, “I should go now. I had quite an active day.”
“Goodnight, Alina,” he replied.
“Night,” I answered, my voice just above a whisper as I left his office, my body screaming at me not to.