“You’re hungry again already, spider monkey?” Andrei said as he walked into the kitchen from downstairs, catching her eating again.
“I didn’t eat for like two days. I have catching up to do. Leave me alone,” she said, turning so he couldn’t see her, but I could. She grinned at me, hoping she was making Andrei worried.
“You clearly still have catching up to do. You’re still cranky,” he said. “We’re going to have to get you two sandwiches from Vinny’s for lunch.”
“That marriage proposal is still on the table, Bubba,” she said, turning back to him so she could see his reaction. His cheeks flushed, which made her want to laugh, but she was still trying to hold it in. The other guys came to the penthouse shortly after Andrei. Viktor, Ivan, and Stephen had brought their 2/4 computers to try and find more information on Ricardo and Lorenzo.
“You’re still awake, princess,” Ivan said when he saw her.
“I know, right? Andrei makes a mean cup of coffee,” she said, grinning at Andrei. “It also means you have a short translation window, so let’s get this party started before I pass out again.” Stephen and Viktor both set their computers in front of her. “If I haven’t told you lately, your productivity is admirable,” she said, looking over one of the computers as she finished her snack.
Stephen had been looking up information on Armando before he took over as boss of his area of the city. Viktor had been concentrating on Ricardo and Ivan had been looking up information on Lorenzo while Sephie was in the hospital.
“Hmmm. This one is about Armando. It’s old. I’m guessing it’s from before he became boss. Huh. He was arrested in Italy.” She kept reading, but she stopped translating. Her eyes got wider as she continued reading. She finally looked up at all of us. “According to this, Armando isn’t from a wealthy family like he told everyone. He was a poor kid in Italy. He got arrested for petty crimes several times as a kid before getting arrested for murder when he was 16.”
“Do we know for sure it’s the same Armando?” Stephen asked.
She turned the computer around to show us a picture of a much younger Armando, but it was clearly the same man that was going to face a slow, painful death downstairs. “Same guy. His face is now permanently etched into my brain, unfortunately. There’s no getting rid of his face now,” she said. I walked closer to her, trying to provide some comfort, as well as trying to keep my own anger in check. “So, now the question is what family is he pretending to be from?” Viktor asked.
“I’ve always known him as Armando Petrucci,” I said.
“The Armando in this article is Armando Rossi,” Sephie said. Stephen took his computer back to start a new search, so she moved to the next computer. “This one is about Ricardo,” she said as she scanned the article. “It’s more about the boats they found loaded with people. Holy sh*t, this journalist called him out as a human trafficker. See if you can find more articles from this particular journalist,” she said as she slid the computer back toward Viktor.
Ivan was still looking through his search. I put my hands gently on her hips and turned her to face me. I was worried she would be getting tired, but trying to push through because the guys needed her to translate. She looked at me, smiling sweetly, already knowing what I was thinking. “I’m okay for now. The couches might be better though, so I can sit against you. I’m cold again,” she smiled sheepishly at me. “Wait here. I can fix that,” I said. I leaned down and kissed her gently, then walked quickly to one of the spare rooms, taking the blanket off the bed. Her eyes lit up when I walked back down the hallway. “I’m about to be so warm. I’m so excited for this development in my life,” she said as she walked to the couches as quickly as she was able. Andrei and Misha followed her to help her sit while Viktor, Ivan, and Stephen gathered up their computers and moved to the couches as well. She leaned back against me and pulled the blanket around her shoulders. “You’re not going to stay awake for long now,” I said, my fingers lightly running through her hair and over her neck.
“Not if you keep doing that,” she said, leaning her head back to smile at me. Ivan walked over and placed his computer in her lap.
Adrik
“Before you fall asleep again, princess,” he said, grinning at her. She looked over what was on the screen, scanning the article. She got halfway through, then scrolled back up to the top. “This is the same journalist that wrote about Ricardo and called him a human trafficker. We should check to see if he’s even still alive. He seems to be right on the money about Lorenzo and Ricardo, which can’t be good for his life expectancy,” she said as she scrolled back through the article again. “The journalist is still trying to prove his theory about Ricardo, so he looked up information on Lorenzo and found his ties to the business, most notably to the other bosses in the city.” She scanned all the way to the bottom of the article, then leaned her head back to look at me and added, “no mention of your father or of you though.” “Good. My father worked just as hard as I do to stay anonymous, at least when it came to press and business. If that journalist would’ve mentioned my father, I could’ve told you for certain that he was no longer alive,” I said.
Viktor got up and switched his computer with Ivan’s in Sephie’s lap. “This is the journalist, right?” he asked her.
“Oh. Sh*t. Yeah. He dead,” she said. “I’m finding there’s a theme of exploding buildings in this business, for various reasons.”
Ivan chuckled at her. “That doesn’t mean he’s dead then, princess. Even if they supposedly found his body. Fires and explosions are the easiest way to fake your own death.”
She looked at him for a moment. “I stand corrected. And also, I want to know how you know this and yet, I don’t.” She thought for a minute. “Can you find out if he’s really dead or not?”
“We likely could, but it’ll take time. At this point, we already know most of what he’s saying,” Viktor said.
“Unless he uncovered something bigger and that’s why he needed to disappear,” she said.
“Fair point,” Viktor said, taking his computer back. They spent the next few minutes on new searches. I went back to running my fingers through her hair and along her neck while we waited. I was fairly certain she would fall asleep before they found the next article for her to translate. The longer she was in my lap, the warmer she- felt, and the more she relaxed. I shifted slightly and she didn’t move. I caught Andrei’s eye and pointed to her, silently asking if she was asleep.
“Completely out,” he said quietly.
“I knew she was fighting it,” I said, laughing quietly.
“How’s her pain been since we got home?” Ivan asked.
“The shower was excruciating for her. Anytime her arm is out of the sling means horrible pain for her. She tries to hide it, like she’s done in the past, but apparently, that now makes it easier for me to feel it. I don’t know what changed, but I felt everything she felt in that shower, no matter how hard she tried to hide it and act like she was fine,” I said. I was still somewhat frustrated with her trying to hide her pain from me and Ivan heard it in my voice.
“Don’t be mad at her for that. It’s a trauma response. She can’t help it. Until we came along, everyone in her life to that point, had let her down especially when she was at her weakest. When she did ask for help, it got her uterus taken from her. It’s going to take time for her to learn that she’s safe enough to ask for help. regularly,” he said. I thought for a moment, taking a deep breath in which made her move her good arm to find my hand under the blanket. She sighed quietly in her sleep, like she was agreeing with everything Ivan had just said. “See, she knows she can’t argue with me on that one either,” he said, laughing quietly. “The more you can feel that she needs help and give it to her without her asking, the more you’ll reinforce that she’s safe enough to do so on her own. I think your ability to feel her pain now is helping her heal that part of her that still doesn’t feel 100% safe. She says she feels safe with all of us, and that’s true, but there’s still that part of her deep inside that doesn’t when she’s hurt.”
“I think I should make Ivan a vampire too, so he can have enough time to heal the world,” Stephen said without looking up from his computer.
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.