Page 44 of Soulmate of the Mafia King
She eyed me suspiciously. I focused all my energy on looking angelically innocent.
“Fine,” she said. “But I’m telling Paige it was your idea.”
“Deal.” I closed the door between us and hobbled back to bed to catch my breath. I might not be in the best shape of my life, but having a conversation certainly wouldn’t kill me. I grabbed my phone and texted a series of people.
Miranda opened the door. “Your laptop.”
I took it from her. “Can you knock next time? I might’ve been changing.”
She ran her gaze down my body. “Okay.”
I pushed all thoughts of her from my mind as she walked away. My phone vibrated wildly with affirmatives. I wandered to the closet, winced my way through putting on my most comfortable suit, then depressed one of the false stones in the floor. It popped up to reveal the emergency ladder underneath. With a small smile, I hefted the ladder, walked out onto the balcony, and hooked it to the railing. Miranda could keep me in my room all she wanted. She just couldn’t keep anyone out.
When everything was set up, I sat on the couch at the foot of our bed and waited. Before long, Stan hoisted himself onto the balcony, puffing.
“What the fuck?” he wheezed. “If you’d included this in the job description, I’d have turned you down.”
I waved his complaints away and typed something else into my laptop. “I’m under room arrest. Paige’s orders.”
Stan guffawed. “Hell of a lady. I wouldn’t go toe-to-toe with her either.”
The rest of the men filtered in slowly, a combination of my top guys and the ones I’d left behind to hold down the fort. There wasn’t much sitting room, so they stood in clumps.
“Thank you all for coming,” I said when they’d all arrived. “And apologies for the setting. I want to get back to work as quickly as possible, and that means making some allowances.”
Stan smirked. Everybody else nodded.
“So.” I looked over the top of the laptop. “I’ve got the spreadsheets here, but I want it from the horses’ mouths. How are things?”
As I’d seen, the warehouses were all running smoothly. We’d finally finished whittling out the crap partners left over fromthe fuckers we took the places from, so a shipment hadn’t even gone sideways in a while. The training program I’d implemented before leaving caught on like wildfire, and our guys were in better shape than ever. No one had tried to step on my territory.
“Uh, there is one thing,” Lyle said.
I turned to him.
“Well, people have been, you know, asking about the women from the Mansion.” He shrugged. “When they’re going on sale.”
I looked around the room. Nearly a dozen men, all of whom I’d trust with my life, stood before me telling me my business was running damn near perfect. The biggest bastard who hurt Paige lay dead in Egyptian soil behind us. The biggest bastard in this city lay dead in mundane Philly dirt. What the hell did I have to fear?
“Let them ask,” I said.
Murmurs of affirmation, of confidence, circled the room. They felt the same thing I did. Other syndicates needed to worry about us now.
“All right,” I said. “I’d offer you booze, but it mixes badly with my pain pills. So all I have for you is my hearty thanks and my promise you’ll be able to take stairs to the next meeting.”
My guys chuckled as they started to file out. On instinct, Stan, Carp, Teddy, and Lyle stayed behind. Just like I wanted.
“For you guys?” I blew out a long breath. “Is there a word bigger than thanks?”
Carp snorted. “I’ll take the booze, you fucking invalid.”
I shook my head. “Next time. I seriously can’t get up long enough to get you anything, and there’s a very small, professionally trained chef who may kill you—or me—if she figures out what I’ve done.”
Carp stood. “I can take a chef.”
“And if she doesn’t get you, Paige will,” I added.
He sat back down. “Noted. Next order of business?”
