Page 107 of Rise of the Queen

“I don’t know if that will make it better though. It should fix itself, but in the meantime, I’m going to be irritated about it,” I said, pursing my lips together.

Adrik laughed. “Extra cute.”

Vitaliy walked in the penthouse, without Aleksei. He was just as surprised that it was only me and Adrik as we were that it was only him.

“Where’s Alyosha?” I asked.

He had a sly grin on his face. “At his favorite restaurant. Turns out his favorite waitress still works there,” he said.

“That dog,” I said, laughing.

“Where are your men?” he asked Adrik.

“We have two safes from Armando’s house that require his retinal scan and fingerprint to get into. They’ve gone to open them before we send him to a home,” he said.

“Where is Armando’s house?” Vitaliy asked. I could already see the wheels turning in his head. I was fairly certain I could see what he was going to ask next. Adrik told him where the house was. Vitaliy asked, “And it’s just empty now? No one is there?”

“It’s completely empty. Martin cleaned him out. Why? Do you want it?” Adrik asked.

Vitaliy nodded. “You two need your house back. You’ve been very gracious to let me stay here this long. I’ve decided to stay in the city a little longer. I don’t want to be a trouble.”

“You’re no trouble, old man,” I said. “You’re only allowed to take Armando’s house if you promise that you and Alyosha will come for dinner regularly.”

He smiled widely at me. “I could never refuse such an offer.”

Armando had kept one safe completely filled with cash. The other also had cash in it but had even more files. He kept detailed files on everyone. Disturbingly detailed files.

Ivan put down one file in front of Adrik when they came back upstairs. “There’s hundreds more files just like that one in that safe,” he said.

Adrik flipped through the file, his jaw clenching as he turned each page. I could feel him trying to keep his anger in check with each page he turned. My curiosity got the best of me. I walked to his side, looking at the information. It was a file on me. There were pictures of me outside the restaurant I used to work at, outside my apartment, taking Ms. Jackson to the grocery store. He had all the details of my life before I met Adrik.

It didn’t make sense. Adrik got frustrated and closed the file. I stepped to the side and looked at it once more. “It looks like he hired a private investigator to find out what he could on me. No idea why he would need to know anything about me, but here we are.” I kept flipping through the information. “There’s nothing in here about me before I started working at the restaurant. If they were trying to find something they could blackmail me or control me with, they didn’t look hard enough. I can’t think of another reason why they would need that information.” We all stood in silence for a few moments, trying to come up with reasons.

It was Vitaliy who broke the silence. “You said he wanted to sell you when they took you?” I nodded. “He was seeing how easy it would be to make you disappear. It’s what they commonly do, especially for girls they think they can get substantial money for. They take the girls with no families. No one comes looking. He must’ve been planning to sell you for a lot longer than anyone realized.”

“Yep, I’m gonna need a minute,” I said, walking quickly to the nearest bathroom. I could feel the bile rising in my throat as my need to vomit grew stronger. I emptied the contents ofmy stomach into the toilet, groaning after several minutes of retching.

Adrik’s warm hand was on my back. “You’re okay, solnishko,” he said, handing me a towel after I washed my mouth out and splashed water on my face. He kept his arms around me, standing behind me. My emotions were completely out of control.

“That means that if you hadn’t come to the meeting that night, I would’ve been kidnapped and sold,” I said, realizing the full gravity of the situation. I thought my stomach was empty. It was not. I leaned over the toilet, once again ridding my stomach of all of its contents. This time, when I stood up and looked at Adrik, I could see the look of surprise, which meant my eyes had done something unexpected.

“You don’t feel scared right now,” he said, looking at my eyes. He looked closer, inhaling sharply. He said, “They’re not the normal white anymore. This one is different.” He pointed to the mirror to get me to look. “What were you thinking about? Only that they could’ve gotten to you if I hadn’t been at that meeting?” he asked as I looked at my eyes in the mirror.

He was right. It was different. Before, any time they went white, there was still a hint of blue around my pupils and the outside of my iris. This time, the areas that were blue were now closer to black, making the white stand out even more.

I looked at Adrik, who was behind me in the mirror. “It wasn’t just what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come to that meeting. It was also about how much I wanted to make Sal pay for even considering he could do that to me.”

Adrik smirked at me, taking my hand. “Keep thinking about that for a minute more,” he said, leading me back to the kitchen. The guys were confused at Adrik’s expression when we cameback out. “New color. Look,” he said, pulling me in front of him so the guys could see.

“Whoa. That’s slightly easier to take than the normal white though,” Misha said.

“What were you thinking about to make this one happen, spider monkey?” Andrei asked.

Adrik chuckled. “Revenge.”

The guys couldn’t hide their smiles when Adrik told them. Misha looked at me, his wide smile across his face. “Gazelle, I keep thinking I couldn’t possibly love you any more and you prove me wrong each time. I love you so much right now,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and picking me up in a bear hug. I couldn’t help but laugh.

As he set me down, I said, “If you guys hadn’t shown up to that meeting, I would’ve been kidnapped and sold. I’m gonna make Sal pay for thinking he could do that to me.”

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