Page 15 of Odin

“Odin, stay," he said, waving at me from behind his desk. "Take a seat, boy."

"I am not your boy." I only accepted being called boy by one man, and Giuseppe Lombardo wasn't him. Turning back towards the door, I shared a quick look with the other men in the office. They'd stopped when they'd heard the Old Man. I was near Lorenzo when Giuseppe tried again.

"Odin, stay and take a chair." His tone hadn't changed. He expected me to stay.

"He doesn't know the word please," Lorenzo whispered to me. He faced his father and walked back towards the seats in front of the Old Man's desk.

"Not you. I want to speak to Odin. Alone."

I stood in place and waited for them to leave the room. They closed the door behind them, and I took a seat in the chair.

"Has my granddaughter put out yet?" he asked it with a straight face and matter-of-fact tone. I wanted to kill him for that comment, but I'd never get approval for the hit.

"That's not your concern." I was trying to make this as quick as possible, but he wouldn't speak about Serena like that.

"I'll take that as a no." This time, he smirked. I didn't find him funny. In fact, I was mentally redecorating his office with his blood by banging his head repeatedly against the wall.

"It's not your concern, and I have no problem seeking reprisal if you slight my wife again." I was cool as a cucumber, but I smirked on the inside at the thought of the kill.

“What are you really doing here?” He leaned forward. It might have worked on his actual family, but I thought it just made him look desperate.

“I could ask you the same thing.” I wasn't backing down.

"I've looked into you. You're a doctor, but you have no practice and no employment." Was that supposed to shake me? Better men had tried.

“I don’t work well with others.”

“Do you even practice medicine?” He pointed at me.

“You need to fire whomever does your background checks," I said, as I crossed my leg over my knee and grabbed my ankle. "My board certifications should have been one of the first things they found."

Giuseppe's face turned red. He'd started it, and I wasn't letting him off the hook.

"If you honestly care, I'm Mr. De Angelis's private physician. I didn't realize your memory was so short, since he vouched for me when you arranged the marriage. I also do discreet home appointments in my spare time." The Old Man was on a fishing expedition, and I wasn't giving him anything he could hang me with. I hadn't lied when I'd said I was a Deviant, but I hadn't told him I was a part of the Silent Syndicate Division. We were regular men by day and paid hitmen by night. If given the chance, I would make sure he found out personally that I could use my skills to kill creatively.

"So you said." The Old Man couldn't win, and now he needed a way out of this.

I should have given him the respect his position was due, dropped the conversation, and quickly made my way to the door.However, I aimed for the jugular. "Why are you bankrupting your son with excessive inventory that you can't push?"

"Who says that? Lorenzo? Probably, Sergio. That boy is lazy."

I raised one eyebrow. "I don't have to explain this to you, but since your memory is waning, I'll indulge in this little game. You really should go get that checked out for a man at your age. I can give you a recommendation." Now, I let my smirk form, as he was getting redder by the second. "As your Underboss, Lorenzo is in charge of your purse. You get paid. The men get paid. The staff gets paid. After all of that, there’s not much left over because you keep ordering beyond what you’re actually selling. There's no new deal coming in to generate cash. No one wants to be in bed with the Italians, except Mr. De Angelis, and if I had to guess, he's waiting for you to fail so that he can take over completely. All of this means that Lorenzo doesn't get paid."

His face was now bright red.

“If you want to see if I am an actual doctor, just hyperventilate.”

He became even angrier with me. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“The man married to your granddaughter.” I was intentionally being obnoxious. Would he slip and tell me something I needed to know? He wouldn’t kill me. If he did, he’d have a war on his hands that he couldn’t win. Mr. De Angelis would have to avenge my death because I was a Deviant and, ironically, not because I was a Silent Syndicate.

“You’re all the same, you stupid son of a bitch. You think I can’t handle business, but I have been in business longer than you’ve been alive.” He slammed his fist against the wood grain of the desk. It made a thunderous noise inside the office.

“Yet, you’re not retiring because of your own dumb ego. Lorenzo is more than capable of running your empire. You’vegroomed him for it, and yet, you won’t turn over the keys to the castle. Who’s the stupid son of a bitch again?”

It was like an intervention from God. My phone rang.

Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I made a show of screening the call, but I knew who it was based on the phone number.

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