Chapter Three Hundred Eighteen
Sephle
“We can just call the doctor. We don’t have to go all the way back to the hospital,” I said, knowing full well I was not going to get out of having to go back to the doctor this moming. “Andrei can call him. He’ll tell him my lung is doing better.” I had a mischievous smile on my face, trying to see how they’d react to me being bratty about going to the hospital.
“You do feel better this morning, spider monkey. That’s not a lie for once,” he said, grinning at me.
“See? No need to go to the hospital. Dr. Bubba told me I was okay,” I said.
Adrik smiled at me, instead of being frustrated like I thought he was going to be. “You’re still going, but it makes me happy that you’re feeling better, solnishko. Yesterday was the first day you were awake for more than two hours in over a week.”
“It was a big day. Andrei’s a genius,” I said, laughing when his cheeks flushed.
“No arguments from me,” Adrik said. “I’m happy he found something that helped. I was beginning to have abandonment issues.” He smiled widely at me, causing the warmth to spread over my entire body.
“We all were,” Ivan said.
The trip to the doctor was much easier this time. Not only was I starting to be able to breathe better, finally, but my shoulder was starting to hurt less when it had to be taken out of the sling. The x-ray wasn’t nearly as painful this time.
“I have good news this time around,” Dr. Williams said as he walked into the exam room. “Your lung looks much clearer this time.”
“She’s finally feeling better, but it took until yesterday for her to start to really make improvements,” Ivan said. “Yesterday was the first day she was awake for more than a few hours.”
“How’s your appetite now?” Dr. Williams asked.
“Still not as good as it should be, but she’s been able to keep bone broth down the last two days,” Andrei said.
“That’s a good option. Unfortunately, I want you to continue the antibiotics for another 7 days, which isn’t going to help your stomach. Yogurt helps, broth is great, basically whatever you can stomach, but you need to eat. I can clearly see that you’ve lost weight since the last time I saw you,” the doctor said. He had a chastising tone to his words.
I sighed. “I know. Trust me, I’d rather eat.”
“It’s not her fault. She has a very sensitive stomach,” Andrei said, protectively.
“I can write you a prescription for an appetite stimulant,” Dr. Williams said.
“No thank you. It’ll probably just make me more nauseous. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things tend to react the opposite of how they’re supposed to with me. I’d rather not,” I said.
Dr. Williams chuckled. “You need food to help your body heal. At this point, a candy bar is going to be beneficial for you. Eat,” he said, looking at me sternly.
Adrik could feel my anger at being chastised by the doctor. I realize he was concerned for my well-being, but he clearly wasn’t understanding that I wanted to eat, but couldn’t and I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured by him. Adrik reached across my lap, almost like he was trying to push me behind him. He said quietly, in Russian, “look at the floor.” He then looked to the doctor, curtly saying in English, “we’ll make sure she eats. Is there anything else?”
“As long as she continues to make improvements, I won’t need to see her for four more weeks. Her shoulder will continue to make improvements, but keep it in the sling as much as possible. If there’s an issue with breathing amain, come back right away. Once you’ve had pneumonia, it’s easy to get it
a second time, especially when your lung has collapsed once. Take any issues with your breathing very seriously and come back here as soon as you notice something is off,” Dr. Williams said as he stood to leave the room.
Once he closed the door behind him, Adrik looked at me, immediately smiling when he looked at my eyes. “I knew it,” he said, his expression a mix of Just and amusement at my dark eyes.
“Like I want to not be able to eat for days at a time. I’ll take it from you guys because I love your all, but he can f**k right off with his lecture on my need to eat. I f**king know, doctor,” I said, pronouncing the “doctor” as sarcastically as possible.
Adrik looked at me for a few moments, his smile still prominent on his face. Then he looked at Andrei. “You really are a genius. She’s feeling much
better.”
I motioned for Ivan to help me up. “I am feeling better and I want to be gone from this place,” I announced. “Who’s carrying me out of here so we can
leave faster?”
1 felt Adrik’s arms around me as he picked me up. He looked in my eyes, telling me, “keep your eyes closed until we get to the vehicles. We don’t need any delays.”
“Happily,” I said, as I buried my head in his shoulder and neck until I felt him slide me onto the backseat of the SUV. I opened my eyes as he got in beside me. He was still clearly amused at my attitude with the doctor. He leaned over and kissed me passionately, but stopped much too soon for my liking. I groaned quietly, in frustration.
“I don’t want to risk you not being able to catch your breath again,” he said quietly.
“I know. I still don’t like it, but I know,”
“Soon, love. Soon. Maybe not soon enough, but soon,” he said.
Adrik’s phone rang on the way back to the penthouse. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Trino,” he said, answering it. Because we were in the SUV, he didn’t put it on speaker, so I could only hear one side of the conversation.
I felt Adrik tense beside me, so I knew whatever Trino had to tell him likely wasn’t good news. “When did it happen?” he asked. He worked until his hand was under the sweatshirt and thermal shirt I was wearing and his fingers were running lightly over my bare skin, trying to keep himself calm. “And your guys have no idea where he was headed? Have you checked the private airport?” He paused to hear Trino’s answer, then added, “okay, we’ll do it. Most of the people at that airport are my guys anyway. If that’s how he left, they’ll know something.”
Adrik was silent for a few moments, listening to Trino. I could hear that Trino was angry, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. “No, don’t worry, Trino. We actually expected this. Sephie called it when you delivered Anthony and Lorenzo. She’ll be happy to hear she’s won the bet pool,” he said. Sal’s finally decided to run. I could hear Trino talking again, then Adrik said, “We’ll go check out the airport. Come to the building this evening
There’s even more to this.”
The conversation ended soon after. As Adrik was putting his phone back in his pocket, Ivan said from the front seat, “so Sal decided it was best to
run?”
“Trino said he must’ve had tunnels under his house, because his guys haven’t seen anyone leave in two days. It felt off, Trino sent a team in to the house. There’s been no movement or any signs of anything in the house for a couple days. They were all gone. They’re currently looking for how they got out of the house. Since we don’t know when they left, he could be anywhere by now, but my guess is he took a plane out of here,” Adrik said.
“Do we know where Ricardo is right now?” I asked
“Since we got Armando, he hasn’t been seen in the city. We didn’t have anyone on him, because we didn’t know to have anyone on him, so the short answer is no. We don’t know where he is,” Viktor said.
“I would bet all my earnings from Sal’s bet pool that he’s going wherever Ricardo is,” I said.
Adrik laughed. “Don’t say that in front of Trino. I did not peg him as having a thing for women who like to gamble.”
“He is a complicated man,” I said.
The guys dropped me, Adrik, and Misha off at the building while they went to the private airport to see what they could find out. Once upstairs, Misha and I both looked at each other. “Do you think we can find him?” he asked.
“It’s worth a try,” I said.
Adrik clicked his tongue. “How much does it zap her when she does that?” he asked Misha.
Misha looked at me, pondering his answer. “It really zapped her the first time, but since then, I don’t think it’s been a problem, but it’s hard to tell because she’s been so si ck otherwise.”
They both looked to me. “Don’t look at me. I don’t even know what day it is, much less what makes me tired. Existing makes me tired lately. I mean, it’s a lot of work to be this f**king awesome, granted. But still.”
They both laughed at me. Adrik looked to Misha again. “Do you need her for it to work or can you use someone else?”
“It works best with her, but it worked with you when we were looking for her and Ivan. It might work with someone else the same way, too. It’s just clearest with her,” Misha said.
“Let’s wait until they get back from the airport. You can try it with me again or Andrei. If we don’t make it clear enough, then use Sephie. I’d like to not zap her very small supply of energy right now,” Adrik said.
“I can help with that too,” Misha said, getting a bowl from the cabinet so he could make me another bowl of broth.
“Do we have any eggs?” I asked. They both turned to look at me, clearly shocked. “I’m as shocked as you, trust me,” I said, laughing at their response to my question.
“How many do you want?” Adrik asked.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. One is plenty for now.”
“Instead of broth or in addition to broth?” Misha asked, pausing the heating process.
“In addition to,” I said.
Misha looked at Adrik. “I feel like the other four should be here to witness this. Should we call them? Video it? What do we do here? We can’t make her wait until they get back. The hunger might pass. This is so stressful,” he said, his hand running through his hair. I couldn’t do anything but sit and laugh at him.
“Misha, you’re my favorite. Don’t tell the others.”
“Oh, I’m telling them. That’s the first thing I’ma tell them when they get back,” he said, grinning at me.
King of the Underworld
