Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Andrei

I've never seen Sephie get that angry and be able to control it so well. I knew she was going to be lethal once she learned how to control her anger and she proved it today. Mike didn't know what hit him. We all knew she'd been holding back, but I think it surprised everyone just how much she'd been holding back.

I glanced at Chris and Keith a few times, trying to gauge their reactions to watching their team member get obliterated by her. I knew there was a chance this could cause problems with them, and I wanted to be ready in the event it did. I caught Misha looking toward them too. I raised an eyebrow, silently asking if it would be okay once the inevitable happened. He got that faraway look in his eye, but quickly nodded his head. He said quietly, "I don't think they like him, either."

The greatest part of watching Sephie finally realize her potential was watching her improvise with Mike. She was playing with him for the first half, trying to make him think she was weaker than she is and keep him convinced he had the upper hand. It made me proud. Not only was she a formidable opponent physically, she was a formidable opponent mentally as well. I had to say, I was happy to see her messing with his mind as much as possible. And I couldn't help but smile as I watched her try new things that we hadn't even taught her as she fought him.

Sephie's strength came from her legs. While she was quick with her punches, she was a woman. She'd never be able to deliver the same kind of punch that I could. It just wasn't physically possible. She knew that, which is why she'd started relying on her legs to deliver the most amount of damage when she'd train. Her kicks were just as fast as her punches, but with four times the power behind them. When she delivered the final kick to Mike's head, I knew he was done for. I'd been kicked by her when she was still holding back. I knew the power she could deliver even then. She was exponentially more powerful right now that she wasn't holding back.

Adrik walked into the ring, as Viktor walked to her with a towel. Mike had spat his blood on her at the end. We all made a move to jump in the ring as we saw her kick him. If she wouldn't have delivered that last blow, we would've been on him. You don't get away with calling her a whore with all of us standing there.

I noticed Chris and Keith walk into the ring. Chris went to check the vitals on Mike. Keith said something to Sephie, but I was watching Chris. I could see the look on his face when he couldn't find a pulse. He looked up and told Sephie that he'd hated that guy.

"Hated? As in past tense?" she asked.

"No pulse. I think that last kick to the head did him in," Chris said.

I looked to Misha. We both walked into the ring at the same time Ivan and Stephen did. None of us were sure how she was going to take this, but we were all incredibly proud of her.

Ivan and Sephie had grown infinitely closer since he was in the hospital. It was difficult to not be slightly jealous of their relationship now. She did a great job of spending equal amounts of time with all of us, but I always felt like she was slightly closer to me than the other guys. Now, Ivan had taken that spot. I felt silly for feeling jealous, but I sometimes did. He looked at her, saying, "Sephie, he sealed his fate the second he called you a whore. If you hadn't ended him, we would have. There was no walking out of here alive for him today. You just delivered his sentence, princess." The one good thing about him and Sephie growing closer is that Ivan was now just as good as Sephie at saying exactly what you needed to hear, exactly when you needed to hear it. I never knew that guy was so wise. He said exactly what she needed to hear, as we could see the switch flip back off and her face softened. She walked to him as he wrapped his massive arm around her. She always looked extra small next to one of us when she was any kind of upset. He whispered something to her that we couldn't hear. She just nodded her head, but kept her face hidden in his shoulder. He smiled and said something else to her, causing her to laugh. We all knew if we could make her laugh, it would generally make everything better. He knew the right thing to say to make her laugh. She reached up and kissed his cheek.

"Oh God, I'm using my sexual charms again!" she said, dramatically. "Somebody please stop me."

We all laughed loudly. This one was going to stick around for a while. Somehow, we found ourselves standing over a dead man, laughing like it was a completely normal Monday morning.

Once Adrik and Sephie left, we got to work taking care of Mike's body. It wasn't the first dead body we'd had to dispose of. It wouldn't be the last.

I caught Viktor away from Chris and Keith. "What about Chris and Keith? Are you worried they'll be a problem after today?"

Viktor shook his head no. "I got the impression that both of them were happy about the outcome. Chris, especially. It might be a little more difficult for Keith, since he grew up with Mike. I think we should ask Stephen if he has any insight into that. And Misha."

"I already asked Misha when Sephie was still in the ring. But it might've changed now that he's dead," I said.

"I think those two will be fine. I'm a little more worried about Armando. Mike was his guy. I don't want to cause friction between him and Boss," Viktor said.

"Mando loves Sephie. We just have to tell him what Mike said to her and he won't care," I said.

"Once we get the body out of here, I think we all need to have a talk. Sephie is likely going to need some support after this too. I know this isn't the first person she's killed, but I want to make sure she's okay with what happened today," he said, a look of genuine concern on his face.

"Whatever Ivan said to her definitely helped. He should know how to best help her until we can talk to Boss." My mind was racing, thinking about the morning's events. I had so many ideas for her training now, but Viktor was right. We needed to make sure she was okay with everything that happened. It could go one of two ways. Either she was going to be fine and her training could reach a new level of seriousness, or this was going to set her back a little as she struggled to deal with it. I would need to talk to Ivan to find out how to make sure the former option happened.

Having to deal with dead bodies on a semi-regular basis meant we had a cleaning crew on standby. Not your normal cleaning crew, either. They could come in and make a place look as if nothing happened in under half an hour. It was one of the most amazing sights I'd ever seen, to be honest. They erased all traces of Mike from the gym in record time.

While the cleaners worked, we all gathered on the other side of the gym. It helped that Viktor and Misha weren't worried about Chris and Keith, but I still couldn't help but worry. I didn't want this to cause problems in the future, so I was glad Viktor wanted to talk to them right away.

My fears were put to rest almost immediately. Keith looked at Viktor, asking, "Did you guys train her?" Viktor nodded. "And that's how you want to train us?" he asked. Viktor nodded again. "Yeah, I'm all the way in for that. She's unreal. But please don't make me fight her. I already know. I need to start at the beginning." His eyes were slightly wide at the thought of going against Sephie.

Chris nodded his head in agreement. "Start me at the beginning too. I will happily admit that she can easily kick my ass. I've never seen anything like that in my life. Where did you guys find her? Like, clearly that girl has been through some shit, but holy hell it's just made her stronger. Is she immortal? Can she be killed? Because I don't think she can be." He looked up at all of us, looking at him seriously at the mention of her dying. "Oh shit. I ramble when I'm nervous. It's a real problem. Like I can't stop talking sometimes and I say stupid shit out loud. Please don't kill me. I didn't mean anything by it."

Ivan chuckled. "It's a legitimate question, if you knew what she's been through."

"Our job is to make sure we never find an answer to that question," I said. "Which also means your job is to make sure we never find an answer to that question. If there's a problem with that, we need to know now."

"Not in the slightest," Keith said. "I've only seen a glimpse, but I'm starting to understand what you all see in her."

"Nope, no problems here," Chris said. He looked to Viktor, a curious look on his face. "What are we going to do about replacing that asshole though?"

Viktor sighed. "I haven't decided yet. One of you can have his position."

Keith said, "If I may, and I don't want to speak for Chris, but it's painfully obvious to me now that my training is severely lacking comparatively. I would be fine with deferring to you guys for the time being until I catch up."

Chris again nodded in agreement. "Same for me too. I realized today that I have major holes in my training. But at least I can admit it, unlike that poor bastard."

"I did warn him she was going to fuck him up. People don't listen," Misha said, shaking his head in dramatic disgust. It made me laugh.

"I'll talk to Boss about it. We'll come up with a solution for Mando's security," Viktor said. "You guys are free to go. I know Mando has meetings soon. He's going to need you."

They both nodded and left the gym. The rest of us stayed, needing to talk about what to do for Sephie. We stood in silence for a moment.

Ivan looked at the rest of us. "I think at this point she won't care that I told you guys. Sephie killed her uncle the night she got those scars. She had blocked it out until the night of the ball. When she was out on the plane, she relived that night. All of it. The beating, the whip, all of it. But this time, her memory let her remember everything. She sliced his Achilles' heel like she told all of us, but she stabbed him in the heart once he went down. She says she remembers standing over him and watching him die. He reached for her leg as he was struggling, but she picked her leg up out of his reach and stomped the knife further into his heart." He paused to look at our faces. Ivan enjoyed shocking us, so he wanted to drink this in for a moment. "I told Adrik that I had told Sephie her beast mode was activated that day she shot the guy in the face when they were trying to grab her. But then I said her beast mode has always been activated once he told me about her uncle. I think I was wrong both times. I think we just watched her beast mode activate for real today. I've never seen her so angry and yet so in control as she was today. We woke the beast and the beast is now fully under her control."

I couldn't help but feel excited about how her training would progress, assuming she handles the day's events well. "I have so many ideas on how to progress her training from here. Not even going to pretend I'm not excited about that."

Viktor smiled, but in his true reasonable fashion, said, "While I share in your excitement, we need to make sure she's okay with what happened today too. It could set her back and we don't want that."

I looked to Ivan. "You seem to know what she needs to hear about this. How do we help her through this?"

"I think she'll handle it better than you guys think. When I said that she just delivered his sentence, she said that to me when I told her about my past. She said, ‘Sometimes karma uses you to deliver justice. You just handed down their sentences.' I think the more she hears that Mike wasn't walking out of here alive today, the more she'll accept it. I also reminded her that what's said in anger is the truth. Then I told her how thankful I was no broccoli was harmed today," he said, chuckling. Misha and I looked at each other laughing, remembering that awkward day with Tori in the kitchen at the house.

"I think she knows on some level that Mike never would've stopped. Before you guys walked into the ring, Boss had told me that Mike was done, but he was going to let him live. Sephie disagreed. She said he was never going to let this go and that he'd spend the rest of his life trying to get to her or that he'd run straight to Sal and tell him everything he knew. She was right. That's when I told her I bet her ten bucks he was already dead," Viktor said.

"She told me that day at the house that she felt nothing about killing her uncle. I think that might be the case here too. We all know how emotional she can get when something is really bothering her. She feels her emotions very strongly. She was completely void of emotion standing there looking at him," Ivan said.

"She shouldn't feel anything about killing her uncle. Or Mike. They both had it coming," Misha said.

Stephen said, "We all heard her on the plane struggling against what her uncle used to call her. I think he and Mike were cut from the same cloth."

Ivan looked at him, his anger visible. "That's not even the half of it. He used to kick her in the stomach, calling her a whore. He would tell her he was making sure she wouldn't bring home another mouth to feed. One night, she hemorrhaged and couldn't stop bleeding. Her uncle thought she was having a miscarriage, so he took her to a dirty doctor that would do back-room procedures for cash. The doc did an ultrasound and found scar tissue in her uterus from her uncle's repeated kicks to her stomach. Her uncle was convinced she had gotten pregnant, so he told the doctor to take her uterus. She pleaded with him not to, but she was sixteen. Her uncle had guardian rights over her, so the doctor did it anyway."

I felt my anger rise, as I cursed under my breath. I could clearly see the anger on everyone else's faces too. Misha said, "I still feel horrible about bringing that up. I was just trying to tease her. I had no clue that it would be that horrific." He ran his hand through his hair, his face turning red as he struggled to control his own emotions.

"You didn't know, Misha. She's not going to hold it against you," I said.

"I'm going to hold it against me," he said as he walked away from us. I started to go after him, but Ivan stopped me.

"Give him a minute. This is a lot and we all know he blames himself first," he said.

"Does anybody know who this doctor is?" Stephen asked.

"I haven't been able to find anything so far, but I've been looking into it. I haven't asked Sephie for specifics on where she lived with her uncle, but from what she's told us about her story, I've sectioned off a few areas of the city. I've got people trying to find out in each area if they know of a doctor that used to do those kinds of procedures. So far, I can't find anything," Ivan said. "But I'm not stopping until I find him."

"Good," we all said at once.

A couple of hours had passed and Sephie still hadn't come back down from the penthouse. Viktor called Adrik to check on her. He told us to come up to the penthouse. We weren't sure what to expect when we walked in, but she was curled up, half on Adrik, half beside him on the couch, sound asleep.

He put his finger up to his lips, indicating we should be quiet, but he motioned us to come and sit. "She didn't sleep well last night and after we showered, she said she was really tired. I think her adrenaline wore off. We came in here and it didn't take long at all before she passed out. I don't want to move and risk waking her up right now."

"She's not having nightmares, is she?" I asked, suddenly concerned.

He shook his head no. "Not so far." He pointed to her fingers, which were lightly moving on his chest. "She only does this when she's dreaming happy dreams. I think she's playing the piano, it's always rhythmic when she does it," he said. He couldn't help the smile that crept across his face as he watched her sleeping against him.

"That's quite possibly the most adorable thing I've ever seen," Misha said.

"How was she when you guys came upstairs?" Viktor asked.

Before he could answer, Ivan said, "I told them about her uncle. They know."

Adrik nodded. "She said she feels much the same now as she did with her uncle. Completely void, I think were her exact words."

We all looked at Ivan, who gave us all a smirk. Viktor spoke first, "What does she need from us? We want to make sure that she's okay with what happened today. I don't want it to set her back at all, either in her training or otherwise."

Adrik looked to Ivan and said, "What Ivan said to her seemed to do the trick. I think we might need to remind her of that a few times, but I also think she knows this was the only outcome today." He looked back to Viktor. "Did you tell them what she said right after?"

Viktor nodded. "I think she knows too. I just want to make sure she believes it. We want to make sure she's okay."

Misha spoke up, "She said she missed the gardens at the house when we got her flowers the other day. Maybe she needs a day or two at the house. She seems like she can relax there. I think being able to go to the lake helps her recharge somehow."

Adrik nodded. "We can go after tomorrow for the rest of the week. My schedule is empty the rest of the week. We can still keep working on the warehouse situation from there. Did we ever get a chef?"

Viktor laughed, but looked at the floor. "Nope. That's my bad."

We all laughed quietly. He really did love it love it when she cooked for us. Even Adrik laughed.

"What about Armando?" Viktor asked. "I don't want this to cause problems between you and him. Mike was his guy after all."

"It won't. Armando won't question me and as much as I don't want to take advantage of that, I'll use it if I have to in this case," Adrik said. "I'm more worried about Chris and Keith. How were they?"

Ivan said, "I don't think either one of them will be a problem. They both readily admitted that they weren't at the same level as Sephie. Both said to please start them at the beginning because they both knew Sephie could kick their asses easily."

Viktor said, "Neither of them wanted Mike's position either. At least not yet. They said they were happy to defer to us until they caught up in their training. We can have that discussion with Armando and find out what he wants to do about filling Mike's position."

Adrik ran his hand through Sephie's curls as he thought about what Viktor and Ivan had just said. She made a muffled noise and snuggled into him closer. He looked down at her. "She's probably going to be here a while." He looked at Viktor, "Can you reschedule my meetings this afternoon for tomorrow? I'm not leaving her today."

I couldn't help but smile at their relationship. My mind drifted off, wondering if I would ever find that kind of love in my lifetime. I'd never seen anything like it before, but I knew I wanted the same kind of love.