Page 194 of Rise of the Queen

I laughed, pulling her into my lap. “You might need to stop. Literally everything you do turns me on right now. I don’t want to have to suffer through my last meeting with a boner,” I said, my lips next to her ear. I felt her breath hitch.

“You like it when I’m all bitchy and bossy,” she said, grinning at me.

“I very much do,” I said, as we both heard the elevator doors ding to signal the arrival of my last meeting of the day. I kissed her quickly, then said, “You’re welcome to stay for this one. It’s Neal.”

“I’ll say hello, but I promised Ivan I would help him be even more aware of what’s going on around him,” she said. “The Wonder Twins are going to be my guinea pigs.”

Viktor walked in with Neal as Sephie stood up to greet him. They exchanged pleasantries and after she had asked him a few questions about the building project, she politely excused herself.

Neal sat down across from my desk, a small smile on his face. “Please don’t take this the wrong way as I say it with the utmost respect, but the more time you two are together, the more beautiful that woman gets.”

“I could not agree more,” I said.

On the way to meet with the mayor and DA, we were all very serious, very focused. Stephen had gone ahead with a team of his own and set up across from the building, but once we were in the parking garage, his cover would be limited. We weren’t necessarily worried about Doug or Eric, but we still wanted to be prepared for anything. To the point that even Sephie was armed for this meeting.

We had also agreed to have Kostya on standby. Viktor and Kostya had devised a way to make it happen very quickly, so Viktor just needed to quickly touch both of them and Kostya could fix them. If I was going to rely on these two, I wanted tomake sure I did everything in my power to keep them loyal. I did not want another Henry to deal with.

We’d decided that Viktor was going to check both for weapons when we first arrived. It would be quick; it wasn’t out of the ordinary to do in these kinds of situations, and they likely wouldn’t question it. Kostya could fix them and they would never suspect anything out of the ordinary.

Eric and Doug arrived shortly after we did. They were supposed to be inside the building in a “meeting.” Because the men that Henry had following both Eric and Doug were not well-trained, they never followed them into a building. They would wait outside until the two men emerged and would pick up the trail from there. It was a rookie move. There are plenty of ways to ditch a tail once you enter a building.

Or, have secret meetings, in our case. It did make our lives somewhat easier, so I was always grateful for ineptitude.

The guys were on high alert and didn’t leave Sephie very much space as we walked to meet Eric and Doug. She enjoyed it. She never once got irritated with them for feeling overprotective of her. She would tease me about it occasionally, but only just for laughs. I knew she secretly loved it. She had spent so many years never feeling truly safe when she was with her uncle especially, but even after she had gotten away and was on her own. Now that she had it, she was never letting go of it.

Viktor walked ahead of the group to check both Eric and Doug, making it look like he was checking for weapons. The rest of us watched as their auras lit up while Kostya was fixing them. He made quick work of it. Luckily, neither of the men needed too much work. Doug’s aura had started to heal itself after Stephen had scared off the demon that was trying to attach to him.

We weren’t sure exactly how it worked, but we were noticing that a person could heal their own aura, given enough time. Itseemed to work even if the person wasn’t necessarily conscious of it needing to be done. Dario’s likely healed tremendously since he’d been hiding at the building. We were all surprised to see how strong it was when Andrei showed us, especially given how broken that man was when he first got back from Colombia.

To their credit, Eric and Doug were both good sports about being checked for weapons. “I’m guessing you guys have enough firepower to level this building and you’re still worried about two desk jockeys,” Eric said, laughing quietly once Viktor and Kostya were done.

“One can never be too careful,” I said. “Tell me about your plan for Dr. Moretti.”

Eric had a small smile on his face. “We’re getting closer to figuring out a way to charge him with the back-room procedures. We can’t find anyone else who can recognize him, but we have an extensive victim list, thanks to Dr. Williams at the hospital. That, plus a money trail that we’re slowly uncovering points directly at Dr. Moretti. The brawn as well as his very clear ties to Salvadori will land him in jail for sure. It will buy us some time to find more about the illegal procedures, which should keep him in jail.”

“With what you gave us on the connection to Salvadori and Dr. Moretti, it gives us grounds to look more seriously at the connection to Henry. I know you said he’s mostly been paid in cash, but there are still ways to find details. We’re working on that one as well. It’s slightly more difficult, since Henry is trying to do the same to us, from his position,” Doug said.

I was quiet for a moment, making them think I was mulling things over in my head. They had not told me anything I didn’t already know, so far. “Niko and Vito are coming back within the next two weeks. They’re in need of more cash flow, so they’re coming back to try and force the underbosses to collect taxes.We need the people to stop it. They’ll be informed. They’re the reason the underbosses stopped in the first place. This gives you both an excellent opportunity to appear tough on crime. Dr. Moretti can be the first domino to fall, revealing the other connections to Sal and Henry once he’s in custody. The wild card in that scenario is Henry’s allegiance to Sal. If he uses the police to stop the people, the plan won’t work.”

Eric looked from me to Sephie, who was standing just behind me and between me and Ivan. “How much of this was your plan?” he asked her.

“It was a group effort,” she said.

“That job offer is still on the table,” Eric said. He looked to Doug, both of them thinking over the plan I had just laid out for them. They both nodded in agreement.

“I like it. I do, however, want your word that in the event that we get a judge that’s in Sal’s pocket, unbeknownst to us, and the doctor goes free, that you’ll take care of him,” the mayor said. “I don’t want him walking free in this city ever again.”

“That will not be a problem,” I said.

“Do you know when Niko and Vito are coming back?” Eric asked.

“No specific date yet, but we have people watching them. We’ll let you know as soon as we know. Once they’re here, everything needs to happen quickly. Sal and Ricardo don’t need any extra time to react to what’s happening here,” I said.

“We’re ready to move on Dr. Moretti as soon as you hand him over. We have people working round the clock to find a concrete connection between Henry and Sal. Once Henry goes down, most of the police chiefs go down with him, as well as his girlfriend,” Eric said.

“That does seem to be one of her favorite positions,” Sephie said, mostly under her breath, but still loud enough that weall caught it. We even heard Stephen laughing through our earpieces.

“If anything changes, let us know. We’ll do the same. If you have any information we can use that links Henry and Sal, we’ll be happy to take it off your hands,” Eric said.

---