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“We stop this, we stop her next. She can’t get away with this,” Andrei said, his anger clearly visible. He looked to Misha, asking, “Can you find her again once this is over?”
Misha shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure. I might need Sephie’s help again, but if we found her tonight, I’d assume I can find her again.”
“Good. She and I are going to have a very difficult conversation,” Andrei said.
“Go. Stop this if you can. Do what you want to her,” I said. “Ivan stays. The rest of you can go.” Andrei and Misha stood up from the couch, following Viktor and Stephen out of the penthouse. Sephie took as deep a breath as she could once they left, still trying to relax. She lifted her head from my neck, looking at me. The tears in her eyes making the colors in her eyes dance in the light.
“Thank you. I’m sorry I pulled you from downstairs,” she said, looking between me and Ivan.
“I think it actually worked out perfectly, princess. Armando is going to do all the work for us tonight,” Ivan said, his devious grin across his face.
I kissed her gently, then moved to the couch with her, pulling her back against me. “How so?” she asked.
“He saw the video that Trino sent. It did not go well for him,” Ivan said.
“He really was still thinking that Lorenzo was coming to save him. His brain was trying to come up with alternative theories on how to get himself out of this situation. It was clearly difficult for him. I was letting him stew in the silence when I felt your panic. When it grew stronger, I made the decision to leave him. Stephen pointed out on the way up here that it would likely serve to torture him even more that we left without a word,” I said.
“He’s not a fan of silence,” Sephie said, a small smile on her face. She looked to Ivan. “You said you felt me panic this time too?”
“Yeah, same time as Boss. I saw him look away from Armando, like he was considering his options. He never loses focus in that kind of a situation, so I knew he had to be feeling the same thing I was and I knew you were the only thing that could pull his focus away from the situation at hand,” Ivan said.
She took another deep breath. I could feel her body starting to tense again. “I didn’t mean to pull you guys away. I don’t want to constantly be interrupting your schedule,” she said.
“You seem to think you’re pulling us away for insignificant reasons. Not once have you interrupted my schedule because you broke a nail, Sephie. It’s always for very important reasons. You are the most important reason,” I said, pulling her closer against me. She leaned her head onto my shoulder, still lost in thought.
“Have you been able to feel anything else from me, Super Squish?” she asked Ivan.
“No, this is the first one. It makes sense though. You don’t panic easily. If you’re panicked, it’s likely because you’re in danger. It seems reasonable to me that I’d be able to feel that before anything else,” he said.
“You’re so logical,” she said. I could hear her smiling when she said it. One look at Ivan told me she was likely grinning at him.
Sephie wasn’t able to sleep until the guys got back. She did relax slightly when Viktor let Ivan know they were on their way back and they had managed to stop the underboss from killing Max. She completely relaxed when they finally walked back into the penthouse.
I looked to Viktor, wanting to know how it went. “We did get lucky that it was tonight that he was planning on killing Max.”
“It was just as we saw it, gazelle,” Misha said. He still looked mostly surprised at what had transpired.
“Except I stopped him before he had a chance to pull the trigger. Max almost pissed himself though. That was satisfying to watch,” Stephen said, an uncharacteristic smile on his face.
“Better to be soiled and alive than the alternative,” I said quietly. Sephie heard me, laughing as she pulled my arms tighter around her with her one good arm.
“What about Tori?” Ivan asked.
“That’s where it gets fun,” Viktor said.
“Misha was able to find her, so we paid her a little visit,” Stephen said.
“Where was she?” Sephie asked.
“Surprisingly, still at the underboss’s house. Apparently, she’s been living there for a bit,” Misha said.
“She will no longer be a problem,” Andrei said. His anger from earlier was still evident on his face. Andrei had the same look every time he killed someone, but this time was different. Usually, he would struggle with it for days. We never gave him shit for it. You should struggle with it. It’s not something to be taken lightly. This time, however, he looked like he was at peace with what happened already. Like he wasn’t going to be struggling with it.
“Bubba…” Sephie said, trying to see how he was handling it. Andrei looked straight at her. “She learned a hard lesson of karma tonight. You wish death on someone else, it comes back on you even harder. Maybe in her next life, she’ll learn to be nicer to people,” he said.
Sephie leaned back and whispered to me, “Can you help me up, please?” I helped her stand up, so she could go to Andrei, even though he was handling this better than I’d ever seen him handle a situation like this before. He was still standing, so she wrapped her arm around his waist while he put his arm gently around her shoulders. “This is why she popped into your mind the last couple of days. You were meant to stop this,” she said.
“It almost didn’t happen. I almost didn’t bring it up to you and Misha earlier,” he said, looking down at her. He had a serious look on his face as he was thinking about the night’s events.
