Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 32402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
“No hospital,” he said.
She went to her first aid kit. It was something she always made sure she had on hand. She had no choice but to care for her own wounds over the years. Being mixed with a lot of bad people, she had learned to take care of herself. She also filled a bowl with warm water and found a fresh cloth. She didn’t have a lot, but what she did have was always clean. Over the years she had learned how to take care of wounds. Nothing like a gunshot wound, but she was willing to give it a go.
“I need to take off your shirt,” she said. “You’re bleeding and I need to know if we need to call someone, or if I can just clean it up.”
She looked at him, and he had thick, dark blonde hair, as well as piercing blue eyes. She imagined a lot of women would be nothing more than a puddle right about now.
She waited for his response, and his answer was to try to take off the shirt as well.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “I can help you.”
She peeled off his shirt, being careful as she did so. There was a wound at his shoulder and another near his side. One look at the front and back, and both wounds looked like they had been through and through.
“You must be one lucky guy,” she said.
She got to work cleaning the wounds, and she happened to have a bottle of vodka, which she used as best she could to sterilize the area. He let out a growl, but he didn’t scream once.
After the alcohol, there was a moment when he passed out. Jane used this moment to take his cell phone, use his thumb to activate his cell, and look for anyone she might be able to call. She noticed a couple of men that must have been called multiple times. She pressed the button for someone named Nikolai, but she didn’t want to remember his name. Also listed were Makar and Igor, names she refused to log into her brain.
“Alexey?” a gruff voice asked.
“Look, I don’t want to ask a lot of questions and I’m certainly not about to answer any. I’ve got your boy, Alexey, here. He’s in bad shape. If I give you the address, will you come and collect him?”
There was silence and she saw that Alexey, whose name she didn’t really want to know, was starting to stir. This was not good. She was not looking for trouble. She was not interested in knowing this man or anything associated with him.
“I don’t have a lot of fucking time. He was attacked, I helped him, but now I need you to come and get him because there is only so much I can do, and you’re starting to piss me off,” she said. She told him the address and hung up. She put the man’s cell phone back in his pocket and got to work cleaning him up.
She dressed his wounds as best she could, but he was going to need stitches, and she told him she didn’t have them. She was in the process of cleaning the mess away when there was a knock on her door. Alexey tensed up and she told herself to stop thinking about his name and just remember him as the nearly dead guy.
Gritting her teeth, she made her way to the door, and she had no choice but to open it a little. There was a single chain, but Jane knew that would not stop anyone from getting inside. It was an illusion.
“Talk,” she said.
“I’m here for Alexey,” he said.
He sounded like the voice over the phone.
“I don’t want to know names,” she said.
Opening the door, she turned to see that the nearly dead guy had come into the hall. She watched as the two men went to his side, and she was not going to think of him as Alexey.
The two men turned to her, and she shook her head. “Leave,” she said.
They looked at each other, and the man in their arms was already passing out. She had done what she needed to do. This was over for her.
****
One Week Later
Alexey Baranov glanced down at the file he had been given on Jane Adams. There was not a lot to go on. A list of her recent employment, a record of her education. No family. No one even knew the day she was born, so the day she was found was registered as her birth date.
She was suspected, along with a few other kids, of killing one of the foster parents. Nothing came of it, because the evidence against the foster parent was too much for them to justify punishing the kids.
Jane Adams was nothing to look at. She was a nobody. Not even pretty. No one would notice her in a room. Yet, Alexey couldn’t get her out of his mind, because when he had been ambushed by the Morello mafia, he had nearly died.