Page 24 of Room Twenty-Four: Under Their Hands

She eyes us suspiciously. “What is going on with you guys? What’s up?”

“Nothing.” But she doesn’t believe us and I can see that we’re hurting her. She thinks we’re lying to her.

“Alright. We had some work to do with the business. I hate to say it because I know that it’s gonna piss you off. We used to sell drugs.”

Her eyes widen and darken to pools of hurt. “How…how could you?”

“Baby, we don’t sell to kids or anything like that but as soon as Seth told us what happened with your ma, we sold out of that side of the business.”

“I hope you don’t think that that makes it alright.” Her back is ramrod straight.

“No. But, baby, we would never do anything to hurt you. That’s why we made sure to get out of the business as soon as we heard. It would just be cruel to you.”

“I get that. I just can’t believe you that you thought that was okay.”

“We’re not good guys, princess. We’re made men and for what it’s worth, we’re made men that love you so much that we’re willing to become the laughing stocks of mob bosses. No one else will do what we’ve done.”

“Sweetheart, you’re our whole world, we’d make ourselves look like assholes over and over again just to keep you happy,” Marco says, his dark eyes locked on her.

She wilts and she knits her hands together. “I need to think about this.”

“Alright. But you’re still going home with us. We already got rid of your apartment.”

“Jesus,” she groans and falls back on the bed, throwing her arm over her eyes. “Fine. But I want some time to myself.”

“We’ll let you alone after we get home and you can just rest and unpack. We’ve put your things in a suite of rooms that we’ll share with you but for now, we’ll stay in the other master suites.”

“Good.”

I don’t know what to think but I hope that she can move past this because I love this woman. I know my brothers do too.

But we carefully help her into the wheelchair and Marco pushes it, glaring at the orderly who wants to help her.

“No.”

The man steps back quickly when it looks like Marco might flatten him.

Cannon holds the door open for her and she smiles at him, making me want to flatten his sorry ass no matter how loyal he is.

“Thank you, Cannon.” I can tell that Seth and Marco are ready to tear him apart too.

At the house, all of us jump out quickly to make sure she doesn’t smile at him again when he opens the door.

But she doesn’t smile. Just walks in the house with her head held high. Even with a black eye, split lip and swollen, bruised face, she still manages to look like a queen. I can tell the guys think she is one. Somehow all the guys are milling around inside and they break into clapping when she walks in the door. She startles and stares around at them.

I stand next to her. “They know that you’re the queen of our family. They’re very excited to meet you. I should also mention that you could do a lot to change things for this family and our men. No pressure though.”

She shoots me a look that tells me she knows what I’m doing but I can also see that she’s thinking.

Each of the men come up to her and nod at her, their hands close to their sides since they know that we’d kill them for looking at her cross-eyed.

“How is my business going?”

Seth comes over. “I have been going in and helping Alexia run it. She’s very good and everything looks good.”

“What about the board?”

Marco grins. “They’ve decided that they love you as the head of your own company. They’re ecstatic.”

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