*Sephie*
“She’s giving him a few days to get a plan together, but she said she’s tired of waiting. She says she can’t stay here any longer,” Viktor said.
“Jesus, she’s dramatic,” I said. “I mean, it’s not her fault, but seriously. Shut the fuck up already.”
They all laughed. “I’ll have the guys at the building try to find out who’s watching the building. I’ll also put a few guys on Armando’s house. He only has a few guys there normally. They might’ve given up since we’ve had him.”
“I want to know who’s working for Martin. It does not make me happy if he has guys in my city,” Adrik said. “I want to wait to see if Martin is dumb enough to make a move against my building before telling Trino about all this.” He pulled me up so he could look at me again. “Do you think you can find the answer to that? Can Misha see if he’s planning on trying to use force to get Giana out?”
I thought for a second before answering. “I need to be around him or hear him to get something from him,” I said. I glanced at Misha. “Do you think we can find him and see what his plans are? We can use Bubba too. Maybe we’ll get sound again.”
“It’s worth a try,” he said.
“I think we need to give it a day or two, though. I’m not sure we’ll get anything useful right now, because he doesn’t know what the hell to do yet,” I said. “And also, I’m scared of seeing him thinking about her graphic text from earlier. I don’t need that seared into my brain.”
“Ewww, gross! Why would you even think about that, gazelle? Now I’m going to be paranoid to try to find him,” Misha said, acting like he was going to vomit.
“You, Are. Welcome. My adorable Russian guardian,” I said, laughing.
“I hate you,” Misha said, trying not to laugh.
We waited three more days for Martin to come up with a plan for getting Giana out. She went silent on him while she waited for him to figure out how to be her savior. We had moved back to the penthouse, as Adrik had several meetings for a few days straight. We’d been able to spend almost the entire week at the house, which felt a little bit like Heaven for all of us.
The messages from Martin came in while Adrik was in a meeting and Viktor was in his normal master of the schedule duties. The rest of us were oblivious until that evening when they came upstairs after Adrik’s day was finished. I was working on dinner, with help from Misha and Andrei when everyone else walked in.
I put everything I had in my hands down, walking to Adrik. His wide smile stretched across his face as soon as he saw me walking toward him. He opened his arms, hugging me tightly to him. He lifted me off the floor, holding me against him as I giggled. I could feel the stress melt away the longer he held me.
Ever since I’d told him about my fear of being away from him, as well as finally admitting that I was terrified when Ivan and I were kidnapped, he’d been even more affectionate with me, if that was even possible. It was like another intimacy level was unlocked for us. We both felt like we were even more in sync with each other.
My eyes continued to change, depending on my mood. So far, I’d been able to hide it from the guys, but it was starting to happen so frequently that I was getting worried I wouldn’t be able to keep it from them for much longer. Although, I had to admit that I loved having a secret that only Adrik and I shared. I loved every single one of the guys, but I was enjoying the extra intimacy that Adrik and I had lately. The secret of my ever-changing eyes was something for him alone. For now.
Once Adrik put me down, I turned to see Ivan’s devious grin. “She’s back?” I asked.
“She’s back,” he said.
“Come on, Papa Bear. Out with it,” I said, pulling Adrik back to the kitchen with me so I could finish dinner while listening to the latest development.
“Martin finally got back to her. She’s been completely silent. He’s sent a few texts to her, checking on her, but she hasn’t responded to any of them,” Viktor said.
“Rude, but not unexpected from her,” I said.
“She’s got serious Tori vibes sometimes,” Misha said.
Andrei laughed. “That’s why you hate her so much. You also hated Tori,” he said.
Misha looked at Andrei like he’d never put that together before this moment. “How did I not figure that out before now?” Misha said.
“Martin said he’s come up with a plan to get her out, but it’s going to take time. He says, and I quote, ‘the security at the building is next level,’” Viktor said, proudly. “He said he’s planning on creating a diversion so he can get her out without too many people seeing it.”
“Please tell me he’s going to walk in the lobby and yell “fire,’” I said.
“He does not specify, but that’s really his only viable option,” Ivan said.
“What about Armando’s house? Did that happen?” I asked, setting the food out for them.
“Sephie, this smells amazing, for the record,” Viktor said.
“New recipe. Tell me if you want it to be in regular rotation,” I said, grinning at him.
“They did clean out Armando’s house over the weekend. Our guys got pics of the guys that did the job, but nobody knows them,” Ivan said.
“Uh oh. That doesn’t bode well for our dear recently deflowered Martin,” I said.
Stephen choked on his food as he was laughing. “Warning next time, Seph. Not while I’m chewing,” he said, still laughing as he took a drink of water trying to stop coughing and laughing at the same time.
“No jokes at the table, children,” I said, sternly, causing more laughter. “How much did they take from Armando?” I asked after everyone had calmed down.
“Everything but the safes. They legit brought in trucks and cleaned everything out. Furniture, everything. It looked like a moving company was there,” Ivan said.
“I’m surprised they left the safes. I would’ve thought they would have moved those, thinking they’d be able to break into them later,” Stephen said.
“Same. I had our guys move the safes here. I’m not above cutting his finger off and popping an eyeball out to get it open,” Ivan said.
I coughed this time. “We don’t use that kind of language at dinner, Squish,” I said, pretending like I was going to vomit. He looked at me, only somewhat apologetic.
“I support this line of thinking,” Stephen said.
“Of course the inventor of enabling would agree with that,” I said. Stephen simply grinned at me. Completely unapologetic for his support of such behavior.
“What about Trino?” Misha asked.
“It’s looking more like I’m going to tell Trino after I kill Martin, given he’s got guys here without my permission. I am curious to see what his plan for getting Giana out of the building is, though. I had planned to let her go after I’m done with Armando. She’s fairly insignificant and I don’t care that she cleaned out his house. But now, she might not survive this either,” Adrik said.
I suddenly had a thought come into mind. “I don’t disagree about killing either one of them, but I think telling Trino before you do anything to Martin will be better than waiting until after. Out of respect, sure, whatever, but I think it has to do more with his guys’ wavering loyalty. Martin disappearing is going to cause a riff with them. Trino needs to have new guys in place before it happens or he’s going to be in danger,” I said.
Adrik nodded, looking to Misha for confirmation. Misha had his faraway look for a moment, then came back to the present moment. “I agree with Sephie. He needs notice about Martin. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to disagree with you. I think they’re still arguing, but his guys are a problem.”
“Totally accountable for that one,” I said quietly, taking a sip of water.
Ivan heard me, laughing. “I think your demons have been hanging out with my demons a little too much, princess. You just showed them for who they really are. You were right when you said if you saving Martin was enough to cause them to question their loyalty, they were never loyal in the first place. Trino needed to know that. It’s going to save him in the end.”
“I still question the sanity of anyone who’s completely fine with chopping people’s heads off but me knowing the future is out of line. Makes no sense,” I said.
“It does, though. People fear what they can’t explain. They can’t fathom you being any different from them and they don’t have anything special about them, so that means you can’t either. At least in their minds,” Stephen said.
“This is why they burned so many villages to get to you, isn’t it?” I asked.
“50/50. Half were insurance scams, the other half were attempts on me,” Stephen said.