*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 up 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, sladkaya,” 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, sladkaya,” 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 clearly 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. 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 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 and 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 that 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 clearly written 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.