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“Clearly she does not,” Andrei said. I could still hear the edge to his voice. I hugged his neck a little tighter. He squeezed my legs in response.
“We do have to be careful with how much we talk about this or Adrik is going to come rushing upstairs because he knows I’m mad,” I said, trying to keep my smile under control. Ivan’s mouth fell open, which caused Andrei and Misha to laugh.
“He came to Ms. Jackson’s apartment. He knew she was angry from his office. I’m honestly proud of him for not breaking the door down, but he walked in, basically grabbed Sephie, and walked out. You should’ve seen the look on Giana’s face when he showed up,” Misha said, now completely amused by the situation.
As we walked into the penthouse, Ivan asked, “So he can now feel when you’re angry even when you’re not in the same room just like you can feel he’s angry?”
“Yeah. And what’s weird this time is that I didn’t know I was that angry when I was talking to Giana. I mean, I certainly wasn’t happy with her, but he said my eyes went dark, which they only do when I’m, like, nuclear-level angry. Except I didn’t feel like I was that angry.” I looked sideways at Andrei as he placed me on the kitchen counter. “That’s also why he told you to close your eyes in the elevator. That makes it go away for both of us. I’m really sorry for that, by the way. Nobody wants to watch us make out.”
“Spider monkey, don’t apologize for that. I was teasing you this morning. It’s clear as day you two can’t keep your hands off each other. I’m not standing in the way of that,” Andrei said, laughing.
“Your eyes go dark?” Ivan asked, clearly curious.
“I saw it this time, but I thought it was the lighting in Ms. Jackson’s apartment,” Misha said. “They go from three colors to just one.”
“Which one?” Ivan asked.
“Brown, I think. But not the normal golden brown that’s there all the time. Like really dark brown,” Misha said.
Ivan looked to me, clearly curious about this bit of information. I just shrugged my shoulders. “I clearly don’t know anything about it. Not like I can see them. Adrik said he noticed it that day with Mike. He’s seen it a couple times since then. That night in his office when Andy told us Mike was working for Anthony. It happened a few times that night, actually. He tells me to blink and I can usually make it go away.” I looked at Ivan, not able to hide my smile. “Maybe my demons are taking over now. This is my villain origin story.” Ivan grinned at me, shaking his head as he laughed.
Ivan looked to Andrei. “You’ve never noticed it when you’ve sparred with her?”
“No. We can all see the switch flip when she gets angry, but if her eyes have changed, I haven’t noticed them. But I usually don’t have a lot of chances to gaze thoughtfully into her eyes,” he said, grinning at me.
“I’ve never noticed her eyes changing when we’ve been training either,” Misha said.
“I think it’s different. You guys can make me angry, but it’s still you and I know it’s still you. We train, yes, but I don’t really want to hurt either one of you. Like, you guys pick at surface-level stuff to get me angry. When I’ve gotten so angry that my eyes changed, it’s much deeper wounds those people are poking at,” I said, looking at the floor. I could feel myself getting upset again, so I tried to distract myself by staring at my feet dangling over the side of the kitchen counter.
“Princess…” Ivan said as he moved next to me.
“Yep, still here. Just trying to not be upset right now,” I said, trying to smile through the pain. Ivan didn’t say anything further, but he hopped onto the counter next to me. I felt his substantial arm slide gently around my shoulders and pull me toward him. I leaned my head on his shoulder. I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “Like, it’s not just me, right? I’m not being unreasonable here? Please tell me if I am. I’ll admit I was an asshole right now just to make this stupidity stop.”
“I think you nailed it with everything you said to her, spider monkey. I’m proud of you,” Andrei said.
I smiled at him. “Um, can we talk about how ridiculously cute you were when you threatened her life though? Because that’s a thing.” Ivan laughed, causing me to look at him. “It happened.” I pointed at Andrei. “Adorable.”
We were still laughing and trying to find more things to laugh at to keep me from getting upset when Adrik, Viktor, and Stephen walked in. Adrik still had a worried look on his face, but relaxed slightly when he saw us laughing. Ivan jumped off the counter, so Adrik could have access to me. “I’m okay,” I said, as he stepped between my legs, his hands on my thighs.
He searched my eyes for a minute, then clicked his tongue. “Liar.”
I chuckled. “I’m mostly okay,” I said, smiling at him.
“Tell me what happened,” he said. He was looking at Misha and Andrei when he said it.
“Giana was waiting for us when we got to Ms. Jackson’s apartment. I don’t know how much Ms. Jackson knows about what happened, but Giana definitely put her up to calling us down there. I told Sephie we didn’t have to stay, but I got reprimanded by Ms. Jackson,” Misha said, sheepishly.
“Giana tried to get rid of me and Misha too. Sephie just laughed at her. Why does everyone want to get rid of us, spider monkey? It hurts my feelings,” Andrei said, his handsome smile stretching across his face.
“What did she say to you when she was speaking Italian?” Misha asked.
I scoffed. “She said she owed me an apology, that because I knew so much about brawn, she just assumed I was an addict, then she told me I didn’t understand and that in her family, addicts are the scum of the Earth and she assumed I was one before finding out the truth.”
They all looked at me, somewhat stunned. “I’m even more impressed with the restraint you showed when you responded to her then,” Andrei said.
“That’s quite possibly the weakest apology I’ve ever heard,” Viktor said.
“Was it her first time? Feels like her first time,” Stephen said.
