*Adrik*
I caught myself standing close to Sephie while she worked on making dinner, with Misha’s help, just watching everyone relax and enjoy a few moments of peace. Before Sephie, I rarely came to the house. Now, I find myself wanting to come here more and more. It’s become a sanctuary for us. A place where everyone could just relax and unplug from everything going on in the city.
Sephie caught me observing, with a small smile on my lips. Her smile stretched across her face. *“We should make it a point to come here more often. Even just for a night. We all need it,*” she said silently.
*“I agree. You do have good ideas. Don’t listen to what Ivan says about you,”* I said, trying not to laugh. She didn’t fall for it. She knows Ivan just as well as I do. Maybe better, at this point.
I heard her laughing in her head. *”I might’ve believed that if you picked anyone but Squish. He’s a very close second to you in how much he loves me.”* She glanced at him, sweetly smiling at the memory she was obviously thinking about. *“We’ve come so far from me thinking he wanted to kill me in my sleep the first few days I knew you guys.”*
I laughed. *“He never wanted to kill you, solnishko,”* I told her, shaking my head.
*“I disagree. I think he totally thought I was the next Vanessa for at least the first day and a half,”* she responded.
*“Would you like to wager?”*
*“Don’t ask stupid questions,”* she said, cutting her eyes at me while she washed a dish in the sink. She waited for a lull in the conversation between everyone else, then looked at Ivan. “Squish, we need you to settle a dispute.”
He chuckled. “What about?” he asked.
She put her hands on her hips, looking at him like this was a very serious matter. “Did you or did you not want to kill me in my sleep for at least the first day and a half that you knew me?”
They all laughed. Ivan thought about his answer for a few moments, then said, “okay, so how technical is this dispute? Because I wouldn’t have waited until you were sleeping if it came to that,” he said, grinning at her. His cheeks were slightly red as he was somewhat worried his answer was going to piss either her or me off.
She crossed her arms across her chest, looking at me triumphantly. “Told you!” she said, matter-of-factly.
“To be fair, it only lasted for that first day and a half. Once you stitched me up in your kitchen, my murderous urges subsided,” he said, grinning at her. “And not just because you’re handy to have around.”
I walked toward her, unable to hide my smile. She really did know him better than I did at this point. It did not surprise me in the slightest. She was still proud of herself for winning our little wager as I pulled her to me. *“We can discuss what I won later,”* she said, wrapping her arms around my waist and resting her head against my chest.
*“I like where this is going,”* I told her.
“What brought this up?” Ivan asked.
Sephie giggled against my chest. “He was being cheeky. He told me I had good ideas and that I shouldn’t listen to what you say about me,” she said. “I told him I might’ve believed him if he’d picked anyone but you. Then I thought back to how far we’ve come,” she said, wistfully as she looked at him longingly.
He grinned at her. “I definitely did not make it easy on you, but I’m very glad you’re as stubborn as you are.”
“I don’t know, Squish. I saw how you acted around Tori and Vanessa both. I think you actually did make it easy on me,” Sephie said, turning around so she could see him, but still leaning back against me. She took both of my arms and pulled them across her stomach as she talked to Ivan.
“She’s not wrong there,” Misha said. “There was literally only one time you tried to intimidate her and even that was half-assed compared to what you normally do.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“The first night we watched her. She had fallen asleep on the couch, so she didn’t know that me and Ivan switched places with Viktor and Andrei. She was expecting them when she woke up, so she made a sarcastic comment before she saw us. She was scared of both of us initially, but then more sarcasm came out of her mouth. Ivan tried to intimidate her because she made a joke about Viktor being on meth. She was scared, but the sarcasm didn’t stop. I saw him trying to hide his smile when he left the apartment,” Misha said, laughing at Ivan.
“See? You totally took it easy on me. Clearly, my soul wasn’t the only one that recognized this relationship,” she said.
“Maybe a little,” Ivan said.
Sephie pulled my arms around her tighter. “Not as quick as this one, but you were a fairly close second,” she said. I could hear the smile in her voice, as well as feel her joy at this conversation.
We ended up talking and laughing through dinner, then for a few hours after dinner. It was nice to talk about other things. We made bets on whether Ilya would call Jessica and how that potential relationship would work out. We also made bets on whether Vitaliy would try to recruit Viktor’s other brother at some point, given that he was so happy with Ilya.
“How is Trino coming with finding a new security team?” Sephie asked.
Viktor chuckled. “He wanted to do it himself, so it’s going quite slowly. He’s trying to recruit from his dealers, but none of them have adequate training. That’s not going to end well.”
“Is he seeing the error of his ways yet?” she asked.
“Maybe. Chen said he had heard that Trino was thinking about coming back to me for help since he was struggling. He’s kept Gus and Oscar with him the whole time he’s been in the city. Everything’s been quiet enough that I haven’t worried too much, but now with the possibility of Niko and Vito coming back, he needs a security team. A real security team,” Viktor said.
“What about Chris and Keith?” she asked, looking between Viktor and Ivan.
“I talked to both of them about it already. They’re interested. They both speak enough Spanish that they could get by to begin with. But then Trino told me he wanted to find his own people, so that was the end of that,” Viktor said, still amused by the situation.
Sephie frowned, trying to think of a solution. Misha had been working on being more subtle when he tried to find outcomes, so no one noticed him searching for the solution. “It’s okay, gazelle. He’s going to come back to Viktor, like Chen said. He’ll take Chris and Keith, too. Chris is going to move his mom to Colombia, even. Once everything is settled, of course. That movie got fast-forwarded quite a bit, apparently,” he said.
“Well, at least we know things will eventually settle,” she said, smiling at him.
“There is the larger question of how much we tell him about everything going on,” Ivan said.
I groaned quietly. “I’ve been thinking about this as well. As much as I don’t really want to tell him everything, I think we need to tell him everything. His new guys too. We need to vet them before he hires them. Chris and Keith included. They don’t know even a fraction of what’s been happening.”
Sephie looked to Misha, silently asking him to confirm what I’d just said. Misha nodded, rubbing his arms after he’d checked. He grinned when he looked at her, then pointed to me. She turned to look at me, her purple eyes telling me everything I needed to know.