Timur flashed a quick grin at his brother. “If Evangeline hadn’t been so sweet, Meiling, I think my brother would still be standing out in the back alley with his hat in his hand and that silly-hopeful-desperate-pleading look on his face.”
“I have a gun, Timur,” Fyodor warned. “I’m not opposed to using it on you. Someplace your wife won’t get too upset with me shooting you.”
Gedeon’s eyebrow shot up. “She would be okay with you shooting him?”
“Ashe wants to shoot him half the time,” Fyodor explained. “Don’t you find him annoying?”
Meiling’s laughter slipped out. “I think you’re all a little bit crazy.”
Heads turned toward that sound. Conversation ceased again. Meiling didn’t seem to notice. Gedeon despised all those hungry male eyes on her. He rubbed at her thigh, needing the connection with her more than she needed it with him.
The men at the table looked at one another. It was Elijah who answered for all of them. “That’s true. We probably are a little insane. But that’s because we married women who won’t do a damn thing we tell them. Before Siena, I was perfectly sane. Unhappy, but perfectly sane. She does things without consulting me first. Just does whatever the hell she feels like and damn the consequences. Think about that, Gedeon, before you ever decide happiness wins out over sanity.”
“What did she do without consulting you?” Meiling asked.
Her feathery lashes covered her dark eyes and then were back up, making Gedeon’s heart ache. He could fixate on her lashes if he let himself, which was odd. He never missed little details, but he didn’t let them occupy his mind to the point that he was consumed recording that image in his brain perfectly—especially right in the middle of a room filled with potential enemies.
The other thing he found very odd was Slayer, his leopard. In a roomful of shifters, Slayer would normally be insane, fighting for supremacy, wanting to tear everyone apart, especially after Meiling had been threatened. Not now. His violent, dangerous, scary leopard was rolling around as if he were a kitten at playtime, nearly purring. It made no sense.Hemade no sense, and his leopard made no sense.
“Yeah, Elijah, give us one of the many things Siena dared to do without consulting you,” Timur urged. There was laughter in his voice.
Gedeon glanced over at Joaquin and Tomas, the two men who probably knew more about Elijah Lospostos thananyone else. They had known him since childhood and had been his bodyguards for years. Normally, it would be impossible to tell what either man was thinking, but even they had matching ghosts of grins on their faces, even if it was just for a moment.
“She decided to have triplets. That would be three babies, Meiling. To make matters worse, all girls. Daughters. Can you imagine me with daughters? I’ve doubled up on the guards for now, but those girls become teens and I’ll have to quadruple the bodyguards. It’s a fucking nightmare. Everyone thinks it’s funny, but my little girls have a way of twisting me right around their little pinkie fingers. I give them my sternest stare and they tear up and it’s game over. One starts to cry and all three of them cry.”
Meiling pushed at her hair and regarded Elijah with her dark, velvet-soft eyes. “She decided on having triplets all on her own, did she? And she gave you daughters on top of that very bad decision.”
Elijah frowned. “I wouldn’t call it a bad decision. I never said it was a bad decision, only that it makes me a little insane. Siena scares me. The pregnancy scared me. Carrying that many was tough on her body, and she wouldn’t even hear of doing anything but carrying them. I tried to tell her that she was important, but that woman can be so damn stubborn. Then girls. What the fuck do I know about girls?”
“I imagine you learn fairly quickly if you want to,” Meiling said, giving no quarter. Her voice was very low. Her palm dropped over Gedeon’s and then the pad of one finger traced his knuckles, the only indication that she found the conversation difficult.
“It isn’t a matter of reading a few books,” Elijah objected. “Not if you want to be a good father. I was born into a certain position. In the business I’m in, women are used as commodities. Bargaining power.”
“For what purpose?”
Elijah shrugged. “To acquire more territory. Power. Secure a truce. Any number of reasons. I know it’s expected. I already have other families reaching out to me in the hopes of securing an alliance.”
Meiling’s hand tightened on Gedeon’s beneath the table, pressing his palm deeper into her thigh. He felt her shock. She wasn’t the only one. Fyodor and Timur stared at him, just as shocked as Meiling that a man they called friend would consider such a thing.
“They’re just babies,” Timur murmured, scowling.
Elijah nodded. “It’s expected in this business. I’ve had very lucrative offers from families in South America and Europe.”
Meiling shook her head. “How does your wife feel about these offers?”
Elijah shrugged. “I don’t worry her with things like that. She doesn’t need to know crap that will never touch her. No daughters of mine will ever be used for such things. Siena should never have to worry, and neither should the girls. My men know they won’t be used in this manner, and they’ll guard them for me as if they were guarding me.”
Elijah rubbed his forehead and then pushed back the dark hair falling nearly into his eyes. “The biggest problem with having treasures is it makes you vulnerable. An enemy manages to get his hands on them—”
“You call us,” Gedeon interrupted. “It’s what we do.”
Elijah smiled. “I guess it is. And you’re damned fast. Timur said you were ready to go in two hours.”
“Just under two hours,” Timur corrected.
Elijah shook his head. “I detest that those guilty were from my lair and specifically from within my organization. Not the four of them. Their parents. They worked outside the organization. I didn’t recommend Georgi Chaban or, for that matter, Lola Morales, to anyone. If I don’t know them personally or feel they do a good job, I would nevervouch for them. Georgi quit every job he’s ever had since he graduated from college. His parents paid for his education and then pulled strings to get him jobs, but he never worked for more than a few weeks before he quit, disgracing his parents. They pay his lease.”
“It must be difficult being the head of a massive organization and trying to know everyone in it so this type of thing doesn’t happen,” Meiling said.
