“Give him a minute. This is a lot and we all know he blames himself first,” he said.
“Does anybody know who this doctor is?” Stephen asked.
“I haven’t been able to find anything so far, but I’ve been looking into it. I haven’t asked Sephie for specifics on where she lived with her uncle, but from what she’s told us about her story, I’ve sectioned off a few areas of the city. I’ve got people trying to find out in each area if they know of a doctor that used to do those kinds of procedures. So far, I can’t find anything,” Ivan said. “But I’m not stopping until I find him.”
“Good,” we all said at once.
Andrei
A couple of hours had passed and Sephie still hadn’t come back down from the penthouse. Viktor called Adrik to check on her. He told us to come up to the penthouse. We weren’t sure what to expect when we walked in, but she was curled up, half on Adrik, half beside him on the couch, sound asleep.
He put his finger up to his lips, indicating we should be quiet, but he motioned us to come and sit. “She didn’t sleep well last night and after we showered, she said she was really tired. I think her adrenaline wore off. We came in here and it didn’t take long at all before she passed out. I don’t want to move and risk waking her up right now.”
“She’s not having nightmares, is she?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
He shook his head no. “Not so far.” He pointed to her fingers, which were lightly moving on his chest. “She only does this when she’s dreaming happy dreams. I think she’s playing the piano, it’s always thythmic when she does it,” he said. He couldn’t help the smile that crept across his face as he watched her sleeping against him.
“That’s quite possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen,” Misha said.
“How was she when you guys came upstairs?” Viktor asked.
Before he could answer, Ivan said, “I told them about her uncle. They know.”
Adrik nodded. “She said she feels much the same now as she did with her uncle. Completely void, I think were her exact words.”
We all looked at Ivan, who gave us all a smirk. Viktor spoke first, “what does she need from us? We want to make sure that she’s okay with what happened today. I don’t want it to set her back at all, either in her training or otherwise.”
Adrik looked to Ivan and said, “what Ivan said to her seemed to do the trick. I think we might need to remind her of that a few times, but I also think she knows this was the only outcome today.” He looked back to Viktor. “Did you tell them what she said right after?”
Viktor nodded. “I think she knows, too. I just want to make sure she believes it. We want to make sure she’s okay.”
Misha spoke up, “she said she missed the gardens at the house when we got her flowers the other day. Maybe she needs a day or two at the house. She seems like she can relax there. I think being able to go to the lake helps her recharge somehow.”
Adrik nodded. “We can go after tomorrow for the rest of the week. My schedule is empty the rest of the week. We can still keep working on the warehouse situation from there. Did we ever get a chef?”
Viktor laughed, but looked at the floor. “Nope. That’s my bad.”
We all laughed quietly. He really did love it love it when she cooked for us. Even Adrik laughed.
“What about Armando?” Viktor asked. “I don’t want this to cause problems between you and him. Mike was his guy, after all.”
“It won’t. Armando won’t question me and as much as I don’t want to take advantage of that, I’ll use it if I have to in this case, Adrik said. “I’m more worried about Chris and Keith. How were they?”
Ivan said, “I don’t think either one of them will be a problem. They both readily admitted that they weren’t at the same level as Sephle. Both said to please start them at the beginning because they both knew Sephle could kick their as ses easily.”
Viktor said, “neither of them wanted Mike’s position, either. At least not yet. They said they were happy to defer to us until they caught up in their training. We can have that discussion with Armando and find out what he wants to do about filling Mike’s position.”
Adrik ran his hand through Sephie’s curls as he thought about what Viktor and Ivan had just said. She made a muffled noise and snuggled into him closer. He looked down at her. “She’s probably going to be here a while.” He looked at Viktor, “can you reschedule my meetings this afternoon for tomorrow? I’m not leaving her today.”
I couldn’t help but smile at their relationship. My mind drifted off, wondering if I would ever find that kind of love in my lifetime. I’d never seen anything like it before, but I knew I wanted the same kind of love.
Sephie
Mike was on his knees in front of me. He could barely see. I think I broke his nose, based off the amount of blood gushing down his face. He still wouldn’t give up. “Wanna reconsider your opinion of me yet?” I asked, giving him one more chance.
He took a shallow breath. I know I broke his ribs. I heard the crack when I kicked him. He used all his breath to spit blood at me. “Fuck you, wh ore.” I knew it was Mike that said those words. I was looking right at him when he said them. But my brain heard my uncle’s voice. He was coughing up his o own blood, in between trying to take shallow breaths because of his broken ribs. He looked at me and said one last thing, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear him. “Sicario.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.