King of the Underworld by RJ Kane

Chapter Three Hundred Twenty-Right

Adik

taber that night, once we were alone again, I asked Sephie about her and Andre’s silent exchange that morning. She laughed, telling me the was starting to understand Stephen’s aversions to being read. “Bubba picked up on the getting scared by not being able to catch my breath. He and Misha winced me to tell you I didn’t want to at first because I the ou’d be worried about touching me at all and I didn’t want that. They gave me

the male perspective, which was helpful”

“Tm glad they convinced you to tell me. Although I don’t know how I feel about Andrel’s ability to read you. It seems to be working best on you right now,” I said, helping her into bed.

“I don’t think it will always be that way. He’s getting his confidence from ne right now. Once he’s more confident, it’ll get better with everyone, but he’ll also have to learn how to turn it off. Like with Stephen, I know insanely private, so I tend to turn it off with him. Only little things here and there with him.”

I thought for a moment. “He is much more private than even Ivan is now that you say that.”

She sighed. “Ivan is private because he just doesn’t want to drudge up the past. It’s over and done with and he doesn’t want to have to relive it by telling someone about it. But he’s also handling it. Like, it doesn’t bother him day to day. When big stuff happens, it comes back, but he’s learning new ways to cope and it’s helping him overall.” She waited for me to lie down, then she rolled over to face me. “Stephen, though. He has something in his past that’s just as dark and traumatic as Ivan, except he’s not dealing with it. Something happened to him as a kid and he’s kept that part of his life locked up tight. It’s partly why he turns so sadistic and violent when he gets pushed past his limit. It’s one of the universe’s little jokes on us, When you ignore something, instead of it going away, it gets stronger. Hy shutting that part of his life away, he’s basically been feeding the monster inside him. It’s grown. He’s going to have to deal with it at some point or the monster will consume him. For now, he can control it and we only see glimpses of it when he’s angry, which rarely happens. But if he doesn’t make fjends with his beast, the beast will take over.”

I inhaled, thinking back to what the acupuncturist had told me about Ivan, Sephie, and me. “The acupuncturist told me that you, me, and Ivan were older than the rest of them. Misha is in the middle. He’s older than the other guys, but not as old as us. Knowing Stephen, he signed up for the hardest lessons first.” She giggled, nodding her head in agreement.

“Andrei’s the youngest,” she said. “She told me the same thing. She said nobody expected Andrei to figure out he was like me in this lifetime, but he did. I think that’s also partly why he’s more attached to me right now. He might’ve scared himself.”

She told me they all have gifts

curious. “When did she tell

me all this. She told me you and Ivan couldn’t hear us. It was like

Ivan.”

trick,” she said,

was showing me where you needed help by allowing me to feel your pain. And that you still

know how to stop

why I couldn’t feel anything from your lung. But I can feel

hospital from my lung. You’re not missing anything,” she said, smiling sweetly at me. She

it scared you, though,” I said. “You’re still able to hide that one from me, but luckily, I have backup now. What you can hide from me, you won’t be able to hide from Andrei.” She giggled, burying her

deep sh it now,” she

off the cliff Massimo pimped on his own, trying to get away from the flames that engulfed him. I shared the video with

ask about Martin and to give him an update on tal and Picando We’d had people in Italy watching them for us. Niko and Vito were

Trino” I asked after we had

“I thought we were okay when I first got back. He was nervous about almost not making it out of Mexico. I thought it was going to be enough, but he’s back to thinking there’s another way of dealing with them. He’s been

this, but he needs to remember his place. He’s either going to go back to the Mexicans and get himself killed or he’ll try to split from you and run his own business.