Once again, I spoke to Battista in Italian, telling him we needed a way to provoke this man to anger so we could expose him. He nodded, expertly shifting the conversation exactly in the direction we needed. Since Lorenzo had been killed, many of his human trafficking networks throughout Europe had been exposed. There were a few very high profile people that had been caught having connections to Lorenzo, meaning they were partaking in the particular services that Lorenzo was providing. Battista must’ve had his suspicions about this man before today, as I couldn’t see him bringing this subject up otherwise. The man started to get uncomfortable as we all discussed the matter. He started to sweat when Battista had asked if he’d known one of the people that was currently in police custody for being connected to Lorenzo. Nothing had been outright proven yet, but speculation as to this person’s guilt was running rampant throughout Europe. The man before us decided that coming to the defense of an accused human trafficker and ped*phile was his best option.
It was exactly what we needed.
The conversation got heated on his end, but he wasn’t angry per se. He was scared. Scared of the same fate. Scared of being exposed.
I felt my anger rise to the surface and I finally let it happen, not caring one bit that my eyes were now black. Adrik and Ivan’s eyes were also now black. We watched him squirm in his seat once he saw it. Ivan shared what he could see with me and Adrik. The demon was clearly agitated. I glanced at Stephen, who finally spoke.
“I mean no disrespect, sir, but people are generally only accused of such heinous acts when they’ve actually participated in such heinous acts,” he said. I’d never heard Stephen take that tone with anyone before. It was like he was mocking him. In the most menacing way possible. If I didn’t know Stephen already, it would’ve sent chills down my spine.
Ivan was still sharing what he could see as Stephen revealed himself. We watched this man lose complete control. His demon was now angry and took over, switching his eyes to black as well. The man tried to get up, but Stephen stood up quickly. Stephen was across the table from him, but it looked like Stephen had grabbed him and shoved him back into his seat, without Stephen touching him. He didn’t move after that. His body was completely paralyzed, but Stephen had only barely begun break him. He could still talk; he could still see.
Stephen was s*ipping ahead to advanced levels of control already.
The demon started trying to talk his way out of it, making sick excuses, promising power, promising whatever we wanted. Surprisingly, Stephen let him talk for a few minutes. He glanced at Battista and his associates. Battista didn’t look quite as shocked as his other two associates. He’d definitely had his suspicions before today about this man.
Finally, Stephen had enough. I felt his anger level go through the roof as we watched the man’s light behind his eyes go out. He finally stopped talking as Stephen gave everything back to him that he’d done to his victims. All the pain, all the trauma, all the suffering he’d caused was now given back to him all at once, effectively breaking his psyche.
Adrik’s anger was definitely not needed in this instance. Stephen had plenty of his own this time. Once he was finished, his anger disappeared and he went back to feeling his normal, colder than any human should be self. He sat back down and took a sip of water like this was a normal f*cking
Tuesday.
“Vlad is going to be so impressed with your portfolio, Yoden,” I said quietly to him, in Russian.
He laughed quietly.
I looked at Battista and his associates, who were still somewhat shocked at what they’d just witnessed. “You all heard him tell you everything you needed to know about him in his own words. He was consumed by his demon. He has been for a very long time. He did very bad things to very innocent people and now he’ll be made to suffer for that for the rest of his body’s life.”
“He’s going to stay like that until he dies?” one of Battista’s associates asked. I nodded my head, explaining what we’d done.
Battista turned to the man, saying, “this is why we’re all so willing to help them get Ricardo De Luca. Do you understand now? And more importantly, are you willing to help?”
It became clear in that moment why Battista had set this up today. It wasn’t for his benefit, but for ours.King of the Underworld
Adrik
I was concerned about Sephie and the Wonder Twins. They’d been very quiet both on the way hack to the penthouse and since we’d been back. Sephie refused to show me what they’d all seen. Stephen, to his credit, seemed to be handling it better than those three.
Sephie managed to learn a new trick, where she shut me out completely. I could barely feel her and I couldn’t see anything in her head. I couldn’t even talk to her.
“Okay, I won’t look. I promise. Just please stop whatever it is you’re doing to shut me out,” I said to her as we were all in the kitchen. She still wouldn’t look at me, but she at least let me feel what she was feeling again.
“How did you do that, princess? You’ve never been able to turn everything else off before,” Ivan asked.
“She doesn’t want you knowing what we saw,” Andrei said. Even he looked incredibly troubled. Misha hadn’t said a word in over an hour either. It was likely a record for him.
“I’m not being a s*it. You don’t need to see any of it. Trust me,” she said. She looked at Andrei, asking, “what was your idea at the hotel again? We need help getting rid of this. I’m not gonna be able to handle this for very long and you two aren’t either.”
I could feel her anxiety slowly increasing, but I could also feel all of her emotions were just completely out of control. She was fighting hard to keep it as contained as possible, but this was not a battle she would be able to keep up for very long. I pulled her to me, surprised to feel her body shaking. I looked at Andrei, hoping he had a solution for this.
“Please tell me you figured out a solution. We just got rid of the shaking and now it’s back,” I said, my hands rubbing her back lightly, trying to help keep her calm.
Andrei glanced at Viktor, then to Stephen. “I think Viktor is here to help us as much as he is to help other people. If we’re going to be a witness to all the atrocities in the world, we’re going to need help. I think Stephen can help us get rid of it, Viktor can help us heal from it and make sure we’re not vulnerable. I think Stephen gets the worst of it out of all of us, especially if we dump everything on him to get rid of, so I think Viktor needs to concentrate on him first.”
“How did you help Misha get rid of his anger, Stephen? What do you do with it if you don’t send it back to the person?” Ivan asked. Stephen laughed quietly. “It’s a bit of a process, but I think I can get faster at it. You might think I’m crazy if I explain it in detail.” “Try us,” I said.
He looked at me, somewhat skeptically, but started to explain. “Emotions are just energy, right? Some of the time, when we struggle with emotions, it’s because they’re stuck in our body. This is why acupuncture works so well, especially for Sephie. It opens all the channels so her emotions can flow freely. It’s what helped her master her control. If your emotions are flowing, you’re feeling them the way you should be feeling them. They’re meant to come and go, not stay. We’re all so used to being stuck, whether it’s in anger, sadness, trauma, whatever, that we feel Sephie and we’re suddenly overwhelmed because her emotions are doing what ours should be. Once again, she’s showing us what we should be doing, instead of what we are doing. She lets her emotions flow through her like water. Just like any body of water, you want to keep it moving. When it stagnates, that’s where the issues come in. When I took Misha’s anger, it wasn’t as much about removing the anger altogether. It was more about removing what was blocking it so it could flow through him once more.” He paused, looking at all of us like he was unsure if he should continue. He inhaled deeply, deciding to continue. “There’s a little more to this level up than any of us realized. I’m not sure if it’s ever going to work with anyone else outside this room, but I just had to touch Misha to figure out why he was struggling with his anger toward Giana. Remove that, everything flows again.”
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.