Chapter 13 His Attention
Aiyana's P.O.V
The first night in my new room felt like trying to breathe in a dream I wasn’t sure belonged to me.
The bed swallowed me in softness, the blankets warm like a gentle arm wrapped around my ribs, telling me I was safe now, but my mind refused to believe it.
I lay there for hours, staring at the ceiling, drowning in a silence that felt both comforting and frightening.
This room was everything I never had.
Everything I never imagined someone like him would give me, but I also learnt the hard way that nothing ever came free.
Not love.
Not kindness.
Not comfort.
As sleep finally coaxed my eyes shut, I wondered if my peace tonight was simply the calm before another storm.
~=•=~
Morning came gently.
For the first time, I didn't wake to the sound of footsteps or locks sliding open, nor did I wake up to cold cement beneath my spine. No damp air scraping my lungs.
Instead, there was fresh linen against my cheeks. The distant murmur of voices. Sunlight filtering through emerald curtains, drawing gold across my skin.
When I sat up, breakfast was waiting.
Warm.
Rich.
Too perfect.
A tray with fruit, eggs, toasted bread, even pastries that were chocolate-filled, the exact kind I used to buy once a year when I could afford to feel special.
I stared at it too long, half afraid it would vanish as I blinked back tears from the thought that what I had to save for a while to buy was now offered to me on a platter
Someone knew me.
Or someone studied me.
I wasn’t sure which thought scared me more.
I ate slowly, like my body was rediscovering what pleasure felt like, then I walked to the door. It wasn’t locked.
It stunned me enough to stand there, frozen, palm hovering over the knob like touching it might break the spell.
After a little while, curiosity overpowered fear.
I cracked it open.
Two guards stood outside, alert, heads straight. But when they noticed me, they didn’t shout or drag me back in.
They bowed.
"As ordered, we are assigned solely to you, Aiyana." One said. "No one enters without permission. No one touches you. No one speaks to you unless you speak first." He spoke in such a monotonous tone, one could mistake him for a robot.
They seemed a little too professional, especially after being with the previous ones.
My throat tightened painfully.
Protection, but also possession.
The leash was velvet now, but still a leash and I love my freedom more than anything. It was all I had to my name.
I nodded silently and stepped back, closing the door.
Inside, I paced. There was too much space, too much softness. I didn’t know what to do with comfort when all I'd ever held was survival. My hands kept brushing fabric, furniture, things that didn’t hurt to touch. Every hour that passed made the room feel less foreign, yet every moment reminded me it wasn’t mine.
Not really.
This wasn’t a gift. It was a claim.
His claim.
~=•=~
Jerome visited by evening.
No knocks this time, just footsteps, confident and unhurried, like he belonged everywhere.
When he entered, I felt the air shift.
He always had that effect, like gravity tilted toward him and everything inside me scrambled to hold balance.
He wasn't in his usual black suit, and no weapons I could see.
Today, he wore a dark shirt, sleeves rolled up, with some veins visible along his forearms. He looked less like a gang leader and more like something dangerously human.
"You're settling in." He observed, as his eyes scanned the room, the way I'd rearranged the pillows, the blanket pulled to the edge of the bed.
"I’m trying." I answered quietly.
He nodded once like that mattered to him.
Then, he came closer. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that I could feel warmth radiating off his body. Close enough that I had to tilt my chin to look up at him.
He never used to stand this close.
Not until the night he almost kissed me.
A silence grew thick between us. Not really awkward but charged and I didn't know what to do with myself.
He reached out slowly, like giving me a chance to move if I wanted to.
His fingers brushed a strand of hair behind my ear.
My breath caught and I couldn't even help the sound that escaped me as it did.
He noticed and his eyes dropped to my lips, just for a second before lifting back to mine like nothing happened.
"Do you need anything?" He asked calmly, looking over the room for something that needed improvement.
The question was gentle. Too gentle, it unsettled me.
I should've asked for freedom.
A phone.
A chance to run.
Instead my voice betrayed me.
"I don't know."
His hand lingered near my jaw, hovering, like he was deciding whether he had the right to touch me again, but he dropped it, stepping back like distance was the only way to keep control.
Or maybe to stop himself from doing something we’d both have to face.
"I'll have clothes brought for you." he said, tone unreadable. "Books. Whatever you want."
"Why?"
The word that haunted my thoughts from the first day, escaped before I could stop it.
He paused, completely still with no expression, no breath. Just silence stretched thin.
And then, very softly:
"Because I want you living, not surviving."
It shouldn’t have hit me so hard, but it did because no one in my life ever cared if I lived or died, yet here was a man carved from ruthlessness speaking like my life meant something.
Before I could respond, he stepped closer again, a little too close this time as his fingers brushed my wrist lightly, almost hesitant, but his touch burned through my skin like memory.
His thumb lingered against the inside of my palm.
It was so electric and intentional, I couldn't help but want to lean into it.
"This room is yours." He murmured, breaking me out of stupid thoughts.
"You are safe here, Aiyana. Safer than anywhere you've ever been."
Something inside me shook, because deep down I believed him, and that terrified me more than chains ever could.
His hand slid away slowly, like he didn’t want to stop touching me but forced himself to.
Then he turned toward the door.
But before he left, he looked back, with dark unreadable eyes, full of something I couldn’t name.
"Goodnight."