Chapter Fifty-Five

Adrik

Viktor walked into my office, looking quite serious, even for him. “Boss, the DA just called. He’s ready to prosecute Dr. Moretti. They went through the files we gave them from Sal in much more detail than we did. Eric can bring charges against Sal as well.”

I thought for a moment. “I’m not sure I want that happening. If Sal has made his own deal, his fate might already be sealed. I want to talk to Battista to see what he knows about Sal’s deal first.” I inhaled, tapping my fingers on my desk as I thought about how everything needed to happen almost simultaneously and we still didn’t have a solid plan. “Tell Eric he can have Dr. Moretti, but I want to wait on Sal for now.”

Ivan had walked in, shortly after Viktor. “Giving him the doctor will buy us just a little bit of time. The information we get on everyone else could look like it came from him, if we play it right,” he said.

“That’s what I was thinking, too. I think we can link Henry to Sal and make it look like the doctor is the one who exposed that connection,” I said. “I’d like to meet with Eric and Doug one more time before we actually hand over the doctor. Are they still being followed by Henry’s people?”

Ivan nodded his head. “I say that loosely. His people are not very good, but they’re still watching both Eric and Doug. There’s several places that we can easily get you to where you can meet with them without anyone seeing.”

“Let’s see what Battista has for us, then set something up to meet with those two in person. If I hand that sack of shit over to them, I want to know he’s going away for the rest of his life. I don’t want to have to find him again and tie up their loose ends. That’s just going to piss me off.”

Sephie walked in right as I said that last sentence. “Nobody wants that. Especially not now that you’re all murdery and shit on a regular basis,” she said, smiling widely as she walked to me. “Andrei can kill people with his thumbs, you can now kill people with one look.”

I pushed my chair back, opening my arm for her. She was still grinning at me as she leaned down and kissed me sweetly. It never failed to surprise me how much her simple gestures helped me relax and melted the stress away. I pulled her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her, suddenly not caring one bit about anything but her.

“I’ll let Eric know. Battista should be here in a few minutes,” Viktor said, looking at his watch. “Stephen is already downstairs waiting for him.”

“Thank you, Viktor,” I said, pulling Sephie closer to me. She leaned back against me, hugging my arms around her waist. “What have you gotten into this morning?” I asked, my mouth against her ear.

“Not much. Just making plans for world domination with the Wonder Twins. I really feel like this plan might be the one,” she said as seriously as she could manage.

Ivan chuckled. “If it’s you and Misha planning it together, at least we know it’ll be entertaining.”

She pointed at him, saying, “Right? Thank you!”

I laughed at her antics, loving the short breaks she always managed to provide to my day that made everything a little brighter. “Do you still have a weird feeling about Battista coming today?” I asked her, brushing her hair away from her shoulder. I let my fingertips brush her neck lightly, loving the sparks I could clearly feel from her as I did.

“I do. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad. I might just be nervous from the last time he requested our services,” she said.

“Did Andrei, Misha, or Stephen get anything else about it?” Ivan asked.

“No, not that I know of. The Wonder Twins are wary, much like me, but it’s nothing specific.” We all heard the elevator doors ding. “That’s Stephen,” she said.

“You need to teach me how to do that,” Ivan said.

She giggled. “I will gladly teach you how to do that if you agree to spar with me at least once a week for the foreseeable future.”

Ivan had smiled more than I’d ever seen him smile since I met Sephie, but the smile that stretched across his face when she asked him to spar with her more was maybe the largest smile I’d ever seen on that man’s face. I could feel how happy it made him. “Deal,” he said. I could also feel how happy it made her when he agreed.

“Not gonna lie, I love the fact that my fiancée is giddy over being trained to be a better fighter right now,” I said right before Stephen walked into the office with Battista. Shortly after, the Wonder Twins and Viktor walked in, closing the door behind them.

The mood turned slightly more serious once Battista was in the office. Once he had greeted everyone, we got straight to business. “Battista, how did you find out about Ricardo’s and Martin’s deals?” I asked.

He sighed. “It’s a complicated answer, but the very basics are that we have a psychic who gets notified by whatever communicates with her when another deal is made.”

“You don’t know what communicates with her?” Sephie asked.

“No, she refuses to reveal how she gets the information,” Battista said.

“How long between when deals are made and when she finds out usually?” I asked.

“I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think I’ve ever asked that question. Why are you asking?”

“Because Sal made a deal. We don’t know specifics, but it wasn’t that long ago that he did it. I don’t know if he made a deal with a lower-level demon and that’s why it hasn’t come up on your radar or if it’s so new that your psychic hasn’t been alerted yet,” I said.

“Actually, I was going to bring that information to you today. I thought I was going to tell you something you didn’t know. I should’ve known you’d all know already. How did you find out?” he asked.

“Dario said Sal told him about it after it happened, which is somewhat surprising. I don’t know how much these guys are talking about these things among each other, but it seems like something you’d keep to yourself,” I said.

Battista thought for a moment, then said, “Maybe this is all coming from Ricardo. Maybe he knows he needs more help than he’s found.”

“Can your psychic find out what kind of demon Sal made his deal with? Ricardo and Martin are going to need to be dealt with differently than everyone else, because of their deals,” I said.

“Differently how?” Battista asked. I knew he was going to want to know the details. I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell him about my level-up yet.

Thankfully, Stephen is quick on his feet. “Because the demons they made deals with are so powerful, we have to change tactics with them to be effective. It’s going to be much nicer for us to know beforehand if we need to change tactics with Sal as well.”

“We need to take precautions in order to protect ourselves. Knowing beforehand gives us the upper hand. Which is why we would appreciate notice if you ever need our services for one of your associates again. That was not a fun day for any of us,” Sephie said. Battista could tell by her tone that she was not joking around.

“My apologies, Sephie. I didn’t know the extent of his crimes beforehand. There were plenty of us who had our suspicions, but no one knew for sure until you guys exposed him,” he said.

“I understand. Just let us in on the suspicions next time,” she said. I saw Ivan wink at her, knowing she was trying not to get too irritated thinking about that day and everything she’d seen.

“You have my word that you will know what I know from now on. It never occurred to me that you guys would need to take precautions, but now that I do know, I will make sure you know everything that I do,” he said apologetically.

I knew we greatly benefited Battista, especially in matters of business, but I also got the impression that he genuinely liked us. He seemed to like my father as well. As much as anyone could like that man. They’d been friends for years, but I never realized the extent of their relationship until recently. My father had been helping out behind the scenes for much longer than I was aware of. It was an intriguing side to Vitaliy that I never would’ve known about, were it not for Sephie.

“What are your plans for taking care of Ricardo and Martin?” Battista asked.

“Honestly? We don’t have any yet,” I said, chuckling at Battista’s shocked expression.

We spent several hours talking things through with Battista. There were so many different players involved that it was going to be difficult to formulate a solid plan for all of them at once. We hadn’t even brought Martin into the picture yet. Or the Mexican cartels.

“I have it on good authority that Niko and Vito are planning on returning to the city in the next two weeks. We don’t have a specific date yet, but the money supply is drying up, so they’re coming back to find out what’s going on with the underbosses and their inability to collect taxes,” Battista said.

Ivan was running his hand over his goatee, as he usually did when he was thinking through a problem. “What if we let them come back to the city to try and collect taxes? The people won’t stand for it. What if we let the people take care of Niko and Vito for us? They’re a big reason why the underbosses stopped collecting taxes in the first place. Even with knowing what happened to Massimo and Lorenzo, they still likely would’ve kept trying to collect taxes if the people hadn’t fought back.”

“I happen to be very good friends with a very talented arms dealer. He can make sure the people are protected against whatever Niko and Vito decide to try,” Battista said.

I felt Sephie starting to make the connections at the same time I did. “If the people of the city take care of Niko, Vito, and whichever underbosses object, then the mayor will need to appear like he’s being tough on crime to keep the favor of the people,” she said.

“Which will be the perfect opportunity to arrest Dr. Moretti. He can be the reason we connect Sal and Henry,” I said.

“Henry connects the switch-hitting representative,” Ivan said.

“The mayor and the DA look like they’re being very tough on crime and easily get re-elected,” Stephen said.

“Not to mention the new wing on the hospital that’s happening out of all this,” Andrei said.

“Okay, so that takes care of everything here quite nicely. What about Ricardo and Sal?” Sephie asked.

Misha’s eyes went wide. “I know why there were two scenarios for taking care of the bosses. Because we’re using both of them. Niko and Vito are coming here, which is why I could see that outcome. But we go after Ricardo and Sal and take care of them before they have a chance to return to the city.”

Ivan chuckled, pointing to Sephie. “The princess agrees,” he said. They all looked at her, smiling. She looked to me, silently asking what color her eyes had decided on.

“Purple,” I said, kissing her cheek.

“Oh. Well, then. Italy is once again in my future, apparently,” she said. She looked back at the rest of the guys, asking, “Okay, so that takes care of them. Now, what about Martin?”

“I admittedly don’t have as much information on Martin as I do on Ricardo and Sal. What about Trino? Does he still have people who are loyal to him down there?” Battista asked.

“He does. He’s been keeping an eye on him since he’s been here. He said Martin has cut ties with the Mexican cartels, as well as Sal and Ricardo. Because he never got Giana as payment for whatever was supposed to happen when he came for her, he’s cut them off,” I said.

“How much does Trino know about what else is going on with all of this?” Battista asked.

“Everything,” we all said at once. Battista was surprised by our answer.

“How did he take that?” he asked.

“Quite well, actually. He’d already seen a few things. He’d seen my eyes go black; he knew I was able to somehow see things I shouldn’t be able to see. He just didn’t know it wasn’t just me until he got out of Colombia,” Sephie said.

“We’d decided already that one stipulation for his new security team was that they were going to have to be okay with everything weird that is happening, since his last security team had a very big problem with Sephie,” I said.

“We took two of Armando’s guys, the ones who helped us find Sephie and Ivan when they were taken, and gave them to Trino. They know everything now too,” Stephen said.

“How did they take it?” Battista asked.

“They’re mostly okay with it. I think more shocked than anything,” I said. I glanced at Andrei, Misha, and Stephen, before looking back at Battista. “It doesn’t hurt that we all control our demons now,” I said. I knew right away that my eyes had switched to black, without needing to see anyone else. I could feel it switch now. I could feel Sephie’s switch now. I knew if ours did, theirs would too.

Battista looked around the room, somewhat shocked to see so many pairs of black eyes staring back at him. He completely missed that Viktor’s eyes were still normal, which saved us from having that conversation with him. “When did this happen?” Battista asked.

“Recently. It didn’t happen all at once. They’ve all figured it out in their own time,” Sephie said.

“I was impressed when I first saw it on you, Sephie. I never would’ve thought I would see it on so many others. You know this is virtually unheard of, right?” he said.

She nodded her head. “You were right in that it’s a warning to other demons, but what you don’t know is that our demons are helping us. We’re basically using their powers for good now.”

Battista looked at her for a few moments. “You’re actually using your demon’s powers?”

She nodded once more. “Each of our demons complement us. Mine is very similar to me, for example. It’s like an added boost for our gifts, basically.”

“Completely unheard of,” he said.

“That’s because you’re looking at things in only black and white. Good and evil aren’t black and white. There’s a very large grey area that is more accurate,” Sephie said. “It’s hard to imagine that a demon would want to help, but you have to remember they haven’t always been demons. They were souls like us at one time. They just made bad choices and paid more attention to the evil than good. You can’t have one over the other all the time. Even only focusing on the good will get you in trouble. You can’t ignore that evil exists and expect it not to affect you or those around you,” Sephie said.

Battista was quiet for a few moments. He finally looked at her and said, “Light cannot exist without darkness, nor can darkness exist without light. The existence of one implies the existence of the other. This is something that people have known for centuries, but it has been altered and perverted by different religions to the point that people don’t understand the synergistic relationship between the two any longer.”