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.
