Poison Ivy

Ch 8

Rose

Today was the day I am finally getting out of this place and going home. I was absolutely exhausted and knew I wasn't going to get any more sleep till I got out of here. All I wanted was my own bed and my shower. My hair needed some good conditioning, whatever they had here at the hospital left it a bit greasy and flat. I was completely embarrassed with how I looked because I had an unexpected visitor, Dimitri. I was thanking whatever gods that Alberta and Celeste had brought me some clothes from home. So at least he didn't see me in a hospital gown.

I don't know how he knew, but he got me my favorite flowers, Lilies. My mom used to get a bouquet of Lilies every year for my birthday. She knew I hated Roses and anything to do with them. She often reminded me that I was named after her great grandmother and should be proud of my name. But that's the thing I never met any of my family, never seen a picture of them or said grandmother. Actually there are no pictures of me or my mom before I turned five. She was very secretive about her past so much so that she wouldn't even tell me my dads name. All she would say about him when I would ask is that he was a dangerous man.

I had so much on my mind last night that I couldn't sleep, I kept playing that night over and over in my head. Lissa told me that I was very lucky, my head injury could have been worse, and that scared me. It also scared me to know that Jesse was on the run. I wanted to believe that Detective Croft would keep me safe and find him, but I knew how Jesse's family was. They would do anything to protect him and had the money and connections to do it.

I was tossing and turning and ended up texting Dimitri. He couldn't sleep either so we ended up talking on the phone all night and into the morning. It has been a long time since I've felt a connection to someone. I told him things that I hadn't even told Lissa. He told me some very personal things about his family and his dad. That's what made me feel comfortable enough to tell him things about Jesse that no one else knew.

"Knock, knock. Who's ready for their last hospital breakfast?" Lissa practically skipped into my room carrying a tray of food. She sat it down on my bedside table and took the lid off. I took one look at it and wrinkled my nose. I'm so glad to be going home and not having to eat whatever it is they have been serving me.

"It's not that bad, but since I know you and you're getting out today I brought you these." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a package of mini chocolate donuts. I grabbed them from her and opened it up and immediately put one in my mouth.

"Thank you Lis, you are the best." I said with a mouthful of donut.

"You're welcome." She stood there just staring at me eating the donuts.

"What do I have donuts on my face?"

"No……."

"Then what is it Lis?"

"I was just curious if you were going to tell me about your visit with Dimitri? I was told he had to be kicked out. He was here so long."

"It wasn't that late, nurse grumpy pants just had a stick up her ass." Lissa laughed, she knew me and that nurse didn't get along.

"Is that all you're going to say about it?"

"Maybe?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"Well then maybe I will just keep you here another day."

"Come on Lis you wouldn't?"

"No, but I could, now spill. I saw how much you were smiling yesterday talking to him. He seems like a great guy."

"He is."

"Why don't you tell me all about it while I do your exam."

So I did, while she assessed me to make sure I was good to go home. I told her about his visit and then the phone call we had. I didn't tell her everything we talked about, but gave her the cliff notes. By the end of it I swear she has us married with kids and the white picket fence. She lost it when I told her he was picking me up and taking me home today. I was worried about him seeing my apartment because I knew I left it in a mess. He has already seen me at my worst here in the hospital. I didn't want him to see my place as a hot mess too. I was really proud of it because I worked very hard to get that studio. It was an upgrade from the first apartment I had to get after Iost the house.

This day was going so slow. I was so ready to leave, really I just wanted to see Dimitri again. I had texted him earlier to let him know what time I should be getting out. I had what little stuff I had accumulated all packed up and ready to go, along with my flowers that he had gotten me. I was sitting on the bed waiting for my release papers and I heard a knock on the door. Hoping it was my papers or Dimitri I told them to come in. I was so happy to see it was Dimitri holding my papers in his hand.

"Ready to go?"

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Dimitri

That meeting couldn't have gone any slower, at some point Mr Mazer had come in and got Adrian. We didn't see either of them the rest of the day, which wouldn't be out of the ordinary. But this was a meeting with one of our biggest clients and one of them was always there. Mr Mazer was acting very strange before he left, but I couldn't worry about that right now. Right now I was on my way to go get Rose. She had texted me earlier to let me know what time to come get her. I had changed at the office out of my suit and tie into something more casual. I wasn't sure how this was going to go, would I just drop her off, would she invite me in, should I get her dinner, should I make her dinner? If Ivan were with me right now he would be telling me to stop overthinking everything.

I got to the hospital and checked in with Jill again. I had learned from Rose that Jill was Lissa's half sister. She had told me her dad had an affair with Jill's mom and it resulted in her. Lissa's parents were still together and had raised Jill since she was a baby. I said Hi to her and got my visitor's badge and made my way towards the elevator.

Once off the elevator I started my way towards Rose's room. I was stopped on the way by Lissa. Now that I knew they were sisters I could see the resemblance in them both. She greeted me and handed me Rose's discharge papers and told me she was free to go home. I thanked her and made my way towards the room with the papers in my hand. I knocked on the door and heard her say come in. I opened the door to see her smiling face sitting on the bed ready to go.

"Ready to go?"

"More than you can know Comrade." She jumped up from the bed and grabbed a couple of bags. I hurried over to grab them so I could carry them for her.

"You don't have to do that, I can carry them." I knew she didn't like help from anyone and liked to do things herself, but my momma raised me to be a gentleman so she wasn't going to be carrying her own bags.

"How about I get your bags and you can get the flowers."

"Ok, it's a deal." So I took her bags and she grabbed the flowers that I had given her. We walked out of the room and passed the nurses station where Lissa was standing. She came over and gave Rose a big hug and whispered something in her ear that made Rose roll her eyes. After they let go Rose said her goodbyes to the nurses and we headed to the elevator. It was a quiet ride down, even though the conversation flowed so easily yesterday, I didn't know what to say, I was still so nervous. We made our way out of the elevator and passed the desk where Jill was sitting. She jumped up and gave Rose a hug goodbye and waved to me.

I led her out to my Jeep, which I had parked as close as I could to the front door. I unlocked and opened up the passenger door for her and helped her get up into it.

"You're quite the gentleman, comrade."

"I try to be." I shut her door and opened up the back to put in her bags,then got into my seat. I turned it on and totally forgot I was blasting my music on the way here to calm my nerves.

'Whoa Comrade, were you having a party on the way here?" Again with that nickname, actually it was kind of growing on me. I quickly turned it down and apologized. She just laughed and said I had horrible taste in music. I turned the music back up and told her this song was a classic. She rolled her eyes at me and just giggled saying something about me being an old man. I wasn't that much older than she was, but I grew up with my mom listening to nothing but eighties music.

I asked where we were headed and she gave me her address and I put it in the GPS and we were off towards her place. The closer we got I realized that she wasn't too far away from mine and Ivan's apartment. Once we got into the parking lot she told me where I could park. I took a look around and noticed that this used to be a warehouse and was turned into apartments. I put my Jeep into park and turned it off and got out and walked over to her door to open it. I reached my hand out to hers to help her down. She rolled her eyes at me and gave an exaggerated sigh. Even if she didn't want the help she was going to get it. I made sure she was good then grabbed her bags from the back. We walked up to the doors and she put in a code to unlock it and we went inside.

"So I'm on the third floor, think you can handle the walk?" She bumped me with her arm and laughed.

"I think I can handle three flights of stairs, what about you, shorty?

"Did you just call me short?" She put her free hand on her hip.

"l show you what these little legs can do." With that she was off and running up the stairs. I let her go for a bit before I started to jog after her. It didn't take much to catch up to her with my long legs. Plus she had just gotten out of the hospital. I knew she liked to workout at the gym as did I. It was one of the things we talked about on the phone. We had talked about going to the gym and working out together once she was cleared to exercise again.

We made it to the third floor and she stopped to catch her breath.

"Damn you and your long legs." I noticed she was wincing a bit.

"You ok?"

"I'm fine, I just forgot I have a couple of broken ribs. Once I am all healed up you won't be able to catch me."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Absolutely, comrade." She reached out her hand so we could shake on it. She then put in another code and unlocked the door. She stopped before she opened the door fully.

"Please excuse any mess there may be, I haven't been here in awhile." She opened the door the rest of the way and stepped in with me right behind her. She had a beautiful studio apartment. To the right was a kitchen with stainless steel appliances, a breakfast bar with a couple of barstools. Right in front of me was a wall of just windows. She had a little living room area with a tv mounted to the wall and a couch and a big comfy chair. To the left of the living room in what I assume was her "bedroom". She had wooden room dividers making a wall like structure to separate the two. It in fact was not messy at all, I looked over to the breakfast bar and noticed some flowers in a vase with a sign that said Welcome Home.

She walked over to the flowers and shook her head and smiled.

"Looks like Celeste and Alberta cleaned up for me and fed sparky." I gave her a strange look because I didn't see any animals.

"My fish Comrade, any other animal hates me." She pointed to an aquarium with a Betta fish swimming around in it.

"Sparky is quite an interesting name for a fish."

"He was a housewarming gift from Lissa's fiancé Christian. So I named my fish after him."

I gave her another strange look.

" I call Christian sparky because when we were in home economics he was cooking and set the oven on fire."

I nodded and laughed.

She put her flowers that I had gotten her next to the other ones, both bouquets of Lilies. I still had her bags hung on my shoulder and asked her where she would like me to put them. She took them from me and headed to her "room ''. She told me I could have a seat in the living room and she would be right back. I made my way over there, but before I sat down I decided to take a look out the windows to see what kind of view she had. It was a spectacular view of the city, I could even see mine and Ivan's apartment from here.

"Beautiful isn't it?' She snuck up beside me and looked out the window.

"Yes it is." I wasn't looking outside, I was looking at her. Even just getting out of the hospital she was the most beautiful person I have ever seen.

"I got really lucky with this place, Celeste family owns this building and I was able to get it for a great price. Actually she and Alberta live on the bottom floor. When this place became available they asked me if I would like it." I remember her telling me that after she and Jesse broke up she had no place to live so she was sleeping on the couch of the bouncers I had met at the club that night. They seemed like decent guys, and from what she told me about them they were very protective of her.

"Are you hungry? Because I am starving and want some real food. I know I don't have anything here so I was thinking about ordering a pizza if that's ok with you?"

"That's fine with me." She walked over to the kitchen and pulled out a menu and we looked over it and decided what looked good. She ordered and then we went to sit on the couch while we waited for our food. She turned the tv on just as background noise, neither of us were really watching it. We just sat there having small talk. The whole time my phone kept ringing, It was Ivan texting me to call him. I texted him back and let him know where I was and to please not bother me and I would call him later. Then I set my phone on silent and put it on the coffee table.

The pizza came and we sat at the breakfast bar and ate in silence. I just watched her stuff her face full of food in awe. It was nice to see a girl with an appetite and not afraid to show it. I couldn't believe how much she put away, she was a small thing and I had no idea where it all went. Once done she asked if I would like to watch a movie with her and I said yes. I was not ready to go home and wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. She picked out Twilight because I said I hated anything to do with vampires. Truth be told I knew I wasn't really going to be watching the movie. At some point she curled up next to me and I put a blanket around us. We must have both fallen asleep because next thing I know my phone is vibrating on the table. I carefully moved trying not to disturb her to look at the caller id, It was Detective Croft. I also saw I had three missed calls from him and two from Ivan. I reached over to get my phone and stirred Rose awake.

"Belikov."

"Dimitri, I"ve been trying to reach you for a couple of hours."

"Sorry about that, what's going on?"

"There has been a new development in the Voda case." I excused myself so I could talk away from Rose, I wasn't too sure she could hear the other end or not so I walked over to the breakfast bar and turned my back to her.

"Please tell me it's good news?"

"Yes and no." He paused for a second.

"We got an anonymous tip that he was definitely in New York City and what apartment to find him in. So we had Detectives go to arrest him. When they got there he was barely conscious and looked like someone had beat the shit out of him. He's currently in the ICU and there is a uniform officer guarding his door."

"Do you have any idea of who would do that to him?"

"That's where I'm going to need you to come to the station." Even though I knew I had nothing to do with whatever happened to Jesse, I was scared where this conversation was headed.

"Ok, should I be worried?" He paused again and I was starting to really worry.

"Can you just come to the station and I will explain everything? Ivan is already here, but I would like to talk to you both at the same time."

"Ok I will be right there." Now I was in full blown panic mode, I had no idea what was going on. I walked back over to Rose and she had a concerned look on her face. I was hesitant to tell her what the call was about. She didn't know that me and Detective Croft knew each other outside of her case. I wanted to tell her that Jesse was off the streets and she didn't have to worry, but I couldn't right now. I didn't have time to have that conversation with her. I didn't like keeping this from her, but at this point I needed to know what Croft had to talk to us about. So I decided on telling her it was Ivan and it was about work and I needed to go right away.

I didn't want to leave, in all honesty I wanted to stay on the couch curled up with her. We said our goodbyes and I told her I would text her in the morning. I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left. I got in my Jeep and started to head to the Police station. Once there I got my visitor pass and headed towards Croft's office. When I got there I saw Ivan sitting in a chair and the look on his face said he had no idea what's going on either.

"Have a seat Belikov."