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“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 pictures 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 and 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.
“Fifty-fifty. Half were insurance scams, the other half were attempts on me,” Stephen said.
After dinner, while everyone else worked on cleaning up the kitchen for me, I pulled Misha and Andrei to the side. “So, I’m really not sure how we got sound last time, but I want to see if we can get sound again this time. Although if he’s speaking Spanish the whole time, it’ll be useless anyway. But let’s give it a go and see what we can find out about the dumbest Colombian to walk the earth,” I said. They both laughed at me, each one taking one of my hands. “I have both hands available this time. Maybe it’ll be an extra power boost.”
It was different this time. I could clearly see Andrei’s thoughts while Misha worked on finding Martin. I wanted to ask if he could see mine, but I didn’t want to interrupt Misha. It took a few moments for Misha to find Martin, but once he did, we could clearly see him and hear him, like he was standing in front of us.
This time, instead of it being a movie playing in front of us, we were in the movie. It was like we were standing in the room with Martin, only he couldn’t see us. He was talking on the phone, in Italian, which was incredibly surprising but ended the call before I could tell who he was speaking to. He dialed another number, waiting for the person to pick up. I vaguely heard Viktor’s phone beep in the background, so I knew he must’ve been calling Giana before I heard her voice answer his call.
They talked briefly, but he told her his plan for trying to get her out. In English, thankfully. She started crying. She was switching between Italian and English while she told him how happy she was and how she couldn’t wait to see him. She started to tell him all the dirty things she was going to do to him once he got her out. Of course, she said that part in Italian, so I was the only one made to suffer through that part of the conversation. I must’ve made a face or said how gross it was to have to listen to out loud because I could hear the guys laughing quietly behind me.
After their conversation, the fast-forward button was pushed and we saw Martin making another phone call. He was in a different location than before, but I still didn’t recognize it. I fully expected him to speak Spanish when the person on the other end of the line answered, but I was wrong. He had a conversation in Italian, but I understood everything. Then, we all heard it. He said Sal’s name. Both guys squeezed my hands when he addressed Sal by name. “Shit,” we all said at the same time. The vision ended shortly after, leaving the three of us in stunned silence.
I felt Adrik walk up behind me, touching my shoulder gently. I think he could feel my emotions going completely off the rails as my mind raced through possibilities. “Sephie?” he said quietly. I instantly knew he was worried about my eyes giving everyone a show. I let go of Misha and Andrei’s hands and turned to look at Adrik, immediately seeing the look on his face that meant my eyes were doing their own thing. I groaned, then put my head on his shoulder, hiding my face from everyone else while I tried to get a handle on my emotions. I felt Adrik’s arms around me, holding me firmly against him. “It’s okay, solnishko. We can show them. I don’t think you’re going to be able to hide it forever,” he whispered to me.
I took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on everything and just concentrate on my anger. They already knew about my demon eyes, so I could show them that. I just needed to let my anger overtake everything else and it would be okay. When I looked at Adrik, he smirked at me. “Demon eyes for added emphasis,” he said, still barely above a whisper.
“I can do this,” I said quiet enough that only he could hear me. I felt the pull in my chest from him as he leaned down and kissed my forehead.
