Chapter Fourteen

Adrik

Sephie still felt slightly upset, but she was trying to smile through it. She turned toward me after putting her contacts back in, smiling sweetly at me. She reached up and pressed her lips to mine. “I love you,” she said as she grabbed my hand to walk back to the kitchen.

The guys were still in the kitchen as Sephie led me back out. They looked concerned, but I could tell that she smiled at them as I saw all of their faces soften. Vitaliy and Aleksei were standing with them. Sephie didn’t waste any time. “Vitaliy, what did you feel when you shook that woman’s hand today?”

He looked surprised, but there was also an air of amusement. “It’s good to see you too, malishka,” he said, a sly smile across his face.

“Answer my question and I’ll fawn over you, but not before. I saw your reaction when you touched her,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest. The guys were struggling to not laugh.

Vitaliy chuckled but answered her question. “She’s very evil. Battista knows of my … ability. Occasionally, he brings people for my approval. She was one that he was seeking approval on,” he said.

“Then why did he tell me that I did him a huge favor and he’s in my debt now before we left?” she asked.

“Because you gave him a valid reason to get rid of her quickly. They’ve been working on a few small things together and it’s gone well, but he said he’s never felt completely comfortable with her. He just didn’t know why. That’s when he usually seeks out my services. She’s very influential with a few other business associates of Battista’s, so he can’t just cut ties with her without a valid reason. You’ve given him a valid reason. He may be a womanizer and he might openly flirt with women but never in the disrespectful manner that she did today. He knows his boundaries. She clearly did not, but you did an excellent job of reminding her, malishka,” he said, laughing. “What did you tell her when she got up?”

“That if she ever tried to touch him again, she would no longer have functioning hands,” Sephie said, her arms still folded across her chest. She was definitely still irritated with her.

Vitaliy and Aleksei both looked surprised, but both laughed at Sephie’s words. She moved to lean against the counter, chewing on her bottom lip. “Vitaliy, how does your ability work? Is it a black or white situation? Or do you feel like levels of good and evil?” she asked.

“It’s more nuanced than black and white. Like I said before, some people are ruled by good, some by evil. But there’s also what they’re doing about it. I can feel that too. Some people fight against the evil and ultimately end up being very good people. Some people are ruled by good, but still choose evil for whatever reason. It depends on the person. This woman today, though,” he sighed. “There was no good in her,” he said.

Sephie looked at Ivan, silently asking if he was okay to tell Vitaliy what happened. He nodded once. “Ivan and I saw her demon. She’s completely consumed by it,” she said.

Vitaliy raised his eyebrow. “How?”

Sephie said, “We’re still not entirely sure. It’s happened to Ivan before today, but it was rare. It’s never happened to me before.” She suddenly looked at Ivan like she’d made a connection. “It might’ve happened with me because your hand was on me. Like I borrowed it from you same as I do Misha.”

Vitaliy looked at Ivan. “You can see the face of evil?”

Ivan shrugged his shoulders. “It hasn’t happened in so long that I’d convinced myself I was imagining it when it happened before. I was a kid when it happened before.”

“When you were at the facility?” he asked. Ivan looked surprised, then turned to look between me and Sephie. Vitaliy quickly added, “I figured it out. They told me nothing other than you were incapable of feeling pain and you had a hatred for doctors. I’d heard stories of the facility for years. Your inability to feel pain was highly sought after in Russia years ago. You shut the program down the night you escaped, for the record. You scared them.”

Ivan looked stunned. Sephie went to him, sliding her arm around his waist. He put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. He kissed the top of her head, saying, “Thank you. I needed to know that.” He looked back to Vitaliy. “When I was at the facility, I never saw the doctor’s faces. It was always their demons. It’s why I’m so haunted by it, even still. It hasn’t happened since I got out, so I just convinced myself I was a traumatized kid. But then as soon as that woman turned toward me today, I could clearly see it on her. Sephie saw it later.” He still had his arm around Sephie as he talked. She quietly stood next to him, happy to be his anchor.

Vitaliy thought for a few minutes, then looked at Andrei and Misha before looking at me. “Did you three get anything from her today?”

“I was nauseous every time I looked at her. That’s how I know something is going to go very badly,” Misha said.

“I didn’t get anything good from her. I didn’t like her, but she didn’t talk enough for me to be able to figure out why I didn’t like her,” Andrei said.

“She made me sick when she tried to touch me,” I said.

Vitaliy looked at me, both eyebrows now raised. “Does that happen often?”

I shook my head no. “Only twice that I can think of and only since I met Sephie. Both times were other women trying to touch me. There was one time a woman at a bar touched me but it was not as extreme of a reaction. I didn’t like it, but she didn’t make me sick. The other two made me sick. Almost to the point of anger both times.”

For once, Vitaliy smiled at someone other than Sephie. “That’s how it started for me. I was about your age when it started too,” he said. “It started with women other than your mother. I couldn’t stand for them to touch me. It was very intermittent when it first started, but it started to get more prevalent. Then it started happening with everyone. The more I paid attention to it, the more precise it got. You, though. You’ve always felt different to me. I could always feel something from you, even before I could from other people. From the first time I held you as a newborn, I could feel you were special. I’d never found anyone else who felt like you until you brought Sephie to me.”

“And then you found out he brought you five more. You have a very generous son, Vitaliy,” Sephie said, grinning at him.

Vitaliy nodded his head, agreeing with her and unable to hide his smile.

“I think your math is off slightly, Seph,” Stephen said.

Vitaliy looked at him seriously. “She speaks no lies. You feel the same as the rest of them. I don’t randomly put my hand on your shoulder because I’m a warm and fuzzy guy, Stephen. I didn’t believe her at first either, so I checked. All of you. You’re all the same.”

Stephen and Viktor looked at Sephie, the surprise visible on their faces. She couldn’t help but laugh. “You both have something special about you, but you’re very timid about believing it. We don’t know what it is until you start to believe it for yourselves. It’s also not an absolute guarantee that you’ll figure it out in this lifetime, which is just fine. You’ll figure it out in your own time, on your own terms. This is a lot to take in for all of us. You’re both dealing with your own things on top of everything else. There’s no time limit on any of this. It will happen when you’re ready,” she said.

They were both quiet for a few minutes, mulling over what she’d just said. Stephen’s phone beeped, to indicate dinner had arrived. He finally looked up at Sephie. “Vlad is going to be so pissed that I kept this from him for this long,” he said, as he stood up to go downstairs.

We all laughed as once again Vitaliy and Aleksei were left confused at just who this Vlad person was and why he would be pissed at Stephen. I found myself loving Sephie a little more for her random silliness that gave us so many of these moments now. I never wanted her to stop.

I woke up the next morning before Sephie. I fully expected her to stay asleep. She was so tired last night, even after she slept most of the afternoon, that she fell asleep in under two minutes. She was lying across my chest in her favorite spot, her fingers lightly playing on my chest. I ran my hand through her curls, causing her to snuggle into me more. I continued to run my hand over her body, loving the quiet moments I got with her.

“Good morning,” she said quietly, without moving.

“I didn’t expect you to wake up with me this morning. You can go back to sleep, love. I know you’re exhausted,” I said, my fingers playing with her curls.

“I feel bad sleeping when your father is here. Feels rude,” she said, finally picking her head up and looking at me.

“He won’t care, Sephie. He’s not the boss of you,” I said, grinning at her.

Her smile stretched across her face. “Somehow I don’t think he’s going to stay in the city for too long. He’s very grumpy about having to meet with people he hasn’t seen in years. I think there’s a reason he hasn’t seen them in years, but they clearly can’t take the hint.”

“He’s still considerably less grumpy than I’ve ever seen him before, since he met you,” I said.

“It’s because I know he’s a cheeseball and he’s trying to be extra nice so I don’t tell everyone else he’s a cheeseball,” she said, climbing over me to get out of bed.

“Have you called him that yet?”

“No, not yet. I haven’t found the right moment, but I will. I’m looking forward to it,” she said, looking back at me grinning ear-to-ear as she walked in the bathroom. “What’s your schedule like today?” she called from the bathroom.

“Light. I have a few meetings, but they should be short. Neal is the last meeting. We’re finishing up removing Armando and Ricardo from the building project. He’ll be happy to see you, if you want to stop by,” I said.

“That might work out. I forgot to tell you that Mr. Turner wants me to come see him. He whispered it to me yesterday when I hugged him. He very rarely asks me to come see him, so I know he has something he needs to tell me. He always works the early shift, so he’ll be home by early afternoon,” she said, walking out of the bathroom as she was putting her hair up on top of her head. My breath caught as I watched her walking around in nothing but my shirt, her hair messy from the night before. She caught me staring at her, still in bed. She walked back to me, climbing on top of me. She hadn’t put her contacts in yet, so her eyes changed to blue right away, making me smile.

“What? You’re beautiful in the mornings,” I said as she was silently giving me a hard time for staring at her.

She gave me her heart-stopping smile as she held my face in both her hands. She leaned in and kissed me sweetly. “I love you, you know.”

The few meetings I had went by quickly. I was looking forward to the meeting with Neal at the end of the day. I was anxious to get Armando and Ricardo off the building project so it could continue to move forward. I didn’t need either one of them to make the project happen. I brought Armando on as a courtesy. At the time, I still believed he was loyal to me and was going to reward him for it. Once I found out his loyalty was in question, I had them start the process of removing him from the project.

That process was going to be finalized today. Neal was bringing the paperwork to the office for me to look over and sign. What Sephie didn’t realize yet was that I replaced Armando with her on the project. I had discussed it with Neal first, as he was a close business associate that I’d been partnering with for years. He was very happy with that idea. “She’s got more business sense in her little finger than Armando does in his entire body. I’ve never met someone so successful and yet so dumb in my entire life. I don’t understand how he’s stayed in business this long. But she’s just getting started,” Neal had said when I brought it up to him. “If we bring her on for no other reason than her marketing and persuasion skills, it’ll be worth it.” He laughed. “She has a unique way with words.”

Neal didn’t know why I wanted Armando and Ricardo off the project, but he also knew well enough to not ask. He did an excellent job of keeping the legal businesses and the illegal ones separate. He’d made a significant amount of money with me over the years, so he never said a word about the darker side of my business dealings. Even still, he seemed relieved to not be working with Armando any longer.

He walked into my office promptly at 4:00 pm. We ran through the paperwork, discussing a few changes. “There are no traces of Armando or Ricardo on any of the documents for this project any longer. Sephie is also now a partner on the project, as you requested. I just need her signature on the few places that are marked in red. Once that’s complete, it’ll be official. We’re breaking ground on the first of next month. We’ve still got a few contractors to find and hire, but there’s time to do so before they’re needed,” Neal said.

“I have a guy. He does great work. He’s only got a small crew though, but he’s very dependable. I’ll send you his information. You won’t be disappointed if you use him,” I said.

Neal nodded. “That’ll save me a huge amount of time trying to find someone else.”

We were discussing a few more random details on the project, when Sephie walked into the office, followed by Ivan and Andrei. Neal stood to greet her, extending his hand to her. “Sephie, it’s good to see you again. How have you been?”

“Hi, Neal. I’m good. You?” she said, taking his hand.

“I’m good. I need your signature while you’re here. Then we can get this paperwork filed and official by the end of the day today. That’ll make me very happy,” he said.

Sephie looked at me, surprised. “Um, why do you need my signature on anything?”

Neal looked to me, just as surprised as Sephie. He wasn’t aware that I hadn’t told her yet. I smirked at him. “You’re replacing Armando and Ricardo on the building project,” I said, enjoying the look on her face.

“Um, why am I replacing them? I don’t know anything about business!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Sephie. You know more than you give yourself credit for. You’re the reason we have all the restaurant space leased out before we’ve even broken ground on the project. I’m pretty sure if we put you in charge of the marketing for the office space and apartments, those numbers would also jump to 100 percent,” Neal said.

“But …” she was too stunned to be able to argue. She was cute when she was speechless. I just smiled, holding a pen up for her as Neal flipped through the paperwork finding the places she needed to sign.

“No buts. Just sign,” I said, winking at her.

She narrowed her eyes at me, but walked over and took the pen from me. Neal pointed out each section she needed to sign. They were done in a matter of minutes and the paperwork was finally official. My plan to completely erase Armando from history was one step closer to completion.

After Neal left, I turned to Sephie, who was still mostly in shock. I just pulled her in my lap. I knew I’d made the right decision. She would figure it out eventually, once she got over her surprise. It was also a guarantee that she’d come to more of my meetings. I wasn’t mad at that.

“Did you see Mr. Turner?” I asked, brushing a stray curl from her face.

She nodded, still chewing on her bottom lip. She glanced at Ivan and Andrei, then looked back at me. “You know he knows just about every influential person in the city, because they all eventually come to the hotel for business. He overhears everything too. He’s also said it never fails to surprise him how freely people will talk in front of him, like he’s not even there. We used to joke about it when I was still working at the restaurant,” she said.

“Who did he overhear this time?” I asked, my hand rubbing her back lightly.

“He said the mayor was at the hotel a week or two ago. He was talking about replacing the police commissioner, Henry, as he left the hotel. If he gets re-elected, of course. Then, he said that Henry was at the hotel with a few other police chiefs a few days after the mayor and they were talking about how to prove the mayor is in Sal’s pocket. He said a few of the police chiefs were sure they had enough evidence to prove the mayor was dirty. But then he said two of those police chiefs were back at the hotel, with the mayor, like three days after that. He didn’t hear anything that time, but he said it looked very suspicious, given what everyone was talking about the first two times,” she said.

I looked to Ivan. “Does he know the police chiefs?”

He nodded his head. “He said he can’t remember one of their names, but he recognized him. He gave me the name of the other one.”

Andrei added, “He’s also nervous. I’ve never seen him nervous before, so I might’ve snooped. One of the police chiefs who met with the mayor saw him walking into the building one afternoon. He was walking down the street. Mr. Turner was sure he recognized him and he watched him walk in. He thinks he’s been followed a few times since.”

“You still have guys on him, correct?” I asked Ivan.

He nodded his head. “He still doesn’t know. I was going to talk to Viktor and add more in the morning. It’s possible he’s noticing our guys following him now because he’s nervous. Once we see what the extra guys can find, we’ll know if he’s really being followed or if he just now noticed our guys on him.”

“You’ve had him followed this whole time?” Sephie asked.

I chuckled. “I assigned guys to him when he moved here, just in case. We had him watched after you left your apartment, but I assigned a regular team to him once he moved here.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew you were fond of him and that he’d always watched over you when you lived at your apartment,” I said, smiling at her confusion.

“You did that? Really?”

“Of course, solnishko. It would make you very unhappy if something were to happen to him. I’d like to prevent that.”

Her beautiful smile crept across her face. “I love you,” she sighed as she put her head on my shoulder.

“I think it’s worth calling Henry. I can take the files on the police chiefs back down to him so we know who the second one is that met with the mayor. If Henry is trying to build a case against the mayor, he’s not going to get very far if those two know everything,” Ivan said.

“Find out who the second one is. I want to know what areas they’re in too, along with any other information we have on them. Then I’ll call Henry,” I said.

Ivan nodded. Both he and Andrei stood up, walking out of the office to gather the information. Sephie was fidgeting with my collar, her fingers lightly running up and down my neck. I closed my eyes, leaning my head back, enjoying a moment with her.

“Long day?” she asked.

“Not bad. Just stressed. The information we got from Battista so far doesn’t make me happy. I’m still irritated about that whole meeting, but most importantly, I’m worried about you.”

“Why? I’m okay,” she said, lifting her head from my shoulder so she could look at me.

“Mostly. I know you’re fighting sleeping. It’s starting to show.”

Her brow furrowed. “Did I do something? Did I zone out again?”

I chuckled. “No, love. You’re just darker. Your light dims when you’re exhausted. It’s becoming visible. At least to me.”

She leaned her head back on my shoulder. “Maybe I am a little tired,” she said, her fingers returning to my neck.

“Which is why you should stop fighting sleeping in,” I said, holding her tighter.

“You’re not the boss of me,” she said, as she snuggled in closer to me. I heard her giggle softly.

The guys came back to the office a short time later. Sephie was still in my lap, lazily talking about random things. When they walked in, she realized what time it was and went to get up. “I should go upstairs. I’m hungry. I’m sure you’re all hungry too.”

Viktor smiled his sweet smile that was reserved only for her. “Sephie, I already ordered food. You’re tired. You need a break from taking care of us.”

“Told you,” I said, pulling her back to me.

“I don’t know how I feel about you all having such excellent observation skills now,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder once more.

“It’s your fault. You only have yourself to blame, gazelle. You brought it out of us,” Misha said, trying to be serious, but failing miserably.

“Accountable,” she said, giggling at him without even looking at him.

When I woke the following morning, Sephie was curled up next to me under the covers. I pulled her back against me, but she didn’t move. Finally. Instead of trying to wake her up, I kissed the back of her shoulder and got out of bed as quietly as I could. I was worried that she would start to shake once I left, so I stayed close. Luckily, she was wearing pants for once as she was cold last night when we went to bed, so I could move her to one of the guys if needed.

I took the quickest shower possible and got dressed. I didn’t hear her talking, but when I walked back to the bed, I could see her shaking. It wasn’t bad yet, but she was just starting to mumble as well. A quick text to Andrei and I scooped her up, carrying her to the couch.

It didn’t take long for Andrei to come upstairs. He stretched out on the couch, happy he could sleep a little longer too. “I’m so happy she finally did this. I’m so fucking tired,” he said.

I raised my eyebrow at him as I laid her next to him. “More so than usual?” I asked.

He nodded his head. “Feels like I got run over by a bus. It started after we were at the hotel. I haven’t recovered yet.”

That made sense. “New level for you. It always makes her extra tired. Same thing happened to Misha. The only one I haven’t seen it affect yet is Ivan,” I said. As soon as Sephie was lying next to Andrei, her body started to relax and she curled up next to him. She hugged his arm as he tucked the blanket in around her. It was, in short, adorable. Even if I was jealous that he got to stay with her and not me. “She’s likely going to sleep until noon, so take advantage of it. I’ll keep everyone as quiet as possible,” I said. Andrei just nodded his head, looking grateful.

I motioned for the other guys to be quiet when they walked in. Aleksei and Vitaliy walked out of their rooms at the same time. No one had seen Andrei on the couch with Sephie yet.

“Sephie finally lost her battle with sleeping in. She’s on the couch with Andrei. I tried to leave her in bed, but she was shaking and starting to mumble by the time I got ready. He’s experiencing new level fatigue anyway. It works out for both of them,” I said.

Vitaliy looked curious. “You let her sleep with them?” he asked.

“Gross, dude. She’s like our little sister,” Misha said, a look of reproach on his face.

“It’s also very obvious that she looks at Boss very differently than she looks at the rest of us. She loves us, but she belongs with him,” Ivan said.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I trust them. And I trust her even more. Since she and Ivan were taken, she hasn’t been able to sleep without someone next to her. It brings her nightmares back if she’s alone. Her body reacts sometimes violently. We noticed it early on that I could stop it, but they’re able to keep it from starting if she’s next to them. And Andrei has the warmest body temperature out of all of them. She’s incredibly sensitive to cold.”

“That girl has lived through just as much trauma as I have, Vitaliy. Some wounds stay fresh for a very long time,” Ivan said.

“She’s also exhausted anytime something new happens to her. She’s had a few new things happen recently. We’re all surprised she lasted this long without sleeping in,” Stephen said.

“What new things?” Vitaliy asked.

Misha chuckled. “She gave me and Andrei an extra ‘fuck you’ boost to drive the point home with your two guys. That’s never happened before. I also think she’s incredibly adorable when she’s feeling protective of us, for the record. She was ready to kill those two. On our behalf. You know, trained killers and what not.”

“How?”

“You felt her anger when we were in Panama. That level was barely registering on her meter. She can deal with insane levels of anger and outwardly, she looks completely calm. She learned she can push her anger to them that day at the gym. She’s been doing it with me for months now, with other emotions too, but it’s much easier. She had to get it to a raging inferno to be able to push it to them,” I said.

“When we were at the hotel, we figured out we could give it back to her. She panicked when that woman looked at her and she saw her for what she really is. She struggles with her fear. It’s the only emotion she can’t control. Like her anger, all her emotions are that strong, so when she feels fear, it’s to the same insane, inhuman levels, but she can’t control it. Instead of having to deal with that, she was trying to keep her anger levels high enough it would override everything else. Andrei figured out what she was doing and learned he can push his anger back to her. When he did, it fed into mine as well,” Ivan said. “The few times I’ve felt her anger at high levels, I’ve never been that angry without someone dying. But she walks around like it’s a normal Tuesday.”

“You can’t push yours to her, Vanya?”

“No, I can. It seems to work slightly differently with me and Boss. It’s more connected, like hers is a part of us and ours is a part of her, just in different ways,” Ivan said.

“How?”

“She explained it the first time it happened. She said she can feel the difference between us. She called me her sword and Ivan her shield. She said my anger was beside her, moving through her, waiting for direction. Ivan’s is directed outward from her, away from her, more like a barrier. Like a shield,” I said.

“That’s why you called him that,” Vitaliy said, making the connection.

“She can feel the difference between me and Andrei as well,” Misha said. “She said Andrei’s anger is calm and controlled, but deadly. She said mine amps up the fuckery, which I’m totally here for.” He grinned mischievously at Vitaliy.

Vitaliy thought for a few moments. “I keep thinking I can’t be more impressed by her and she just keeps proving me wrong.”

I laughed. “I say that almost daily, Vitaliy.”

I checked on Andrei and Sephie before leaving to go downstairs to the office. They were both sound asleep on the couch. I caught myself wondering if she waited until today so Andrei could sleep too. He’d been busy the past few days. It wouldn’t surprise me if she knew he was also exhausted.

Ivan and Viktor walked into my office a few hours later. “Mr. Turner does have a tail that isn’t one of ours. Just one guy. We had our guys watch him to see who he reports to,” Viktor said.

“I’m guessing it’s the police chief who saw Mr. Turner walk into the building. Our guys said this guy was terrible at his job. Our guys have been on Mr. Turner for months and he still hasn’t caught on, but this guy was on him for a couple days and was made. The police always think they’re on top of their game,” Ivan said, shaking his head.

“I need to have a conversation with Henry,” I said. “That information we got from the journalist about Ricardo ties him up into a very neat package. I’d like to not fuck that up. Have you heard anything more from the journalist about the mayor?” I asked Viktor.

He shook his head no. “He seemed to think it would be quick work, but I think he overestimated his sleuthing skills. We’ve found a few things, but they’re circumstantial at best.”

I nodded. “Keep looking. Maybe ask for an update from him. Might help him along. Chen seemed to really enjoy lying to that guy, so he’ll be ready to meet him again when we need him,” I said. “Set up a meeting with Henry, in the evening. I want Sephie there when I talk to him.”

They both nodded and walked out of the office. I leaned back in my chair, exhaling. The hardest part of all of this was the waiting. Waiting to collect information, waiting for the next piece of the puzzle to reveal itself, waiting for the next betrayal. I was getting impatient. That didn’t bode well for everyone against me right now.