I looked at Sophia Rossi, the head of Rossi crime family. Her offer had somewhat surprised me, and alarmed me. Her powers let her generate the kind of self sacrificial devotion in men attracted to her. This may be a plot to bypass my defenses. I may need to end this threat before it jaws close over my head.

I took a second to assess I had just contemplated the cold blooded murder of a beautiful woman who was making a pass at me. Ah, I was still running ‘Cold Shower’.

I let my endocrine system return to baseline levels and suddenly found myself ‘at attention’.

“I do believe my rooms are literally yours.”

We strolled into the room and I moved towards the bar to pour some drinks. When turned around, glasses in hand, my brain locked up. I thought the dress she had been wearing was designed to hug her curves and accentuate her assets. I was wrong, so very very wrong. The dress had been fitted to downplay how mind boggling sexy the woman truly was.

I did a quick check to see if I was under assault from her power and found the chemical attraction was all natural. Long tan legs lead up to wide swaying hips. A steep transition to a narrow waist and washboard flat stomach. All supporting the most perfect pair of breasts I’d ever seen. Large and firm, her lacy black bra was doing the work of Atlas. Her delicate slender neck left exposed by her shorter hair belonged on a marble bust. Her face would serve as a muse for a generation of artists.

Man, it really has been a while since I've gotten laid. I set the glasses on a table as she approached, she slid into my arms and popped the button on my shirt.

“ We can drink later.” she whispered.

——————————————————

I woke up alone in bed, the first few rays of sunshine poking out of the curtains. Her spot was still warm, so she hadn’t left long ago. I heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and Sophia strode out dressed only in a fluffy hotel robe.

She deftly slipped the robe off and joined me under the sheets. She straddled me leaning forward so her large breasts pressed into my chest.

“Good morning lover.” she said cheerfully.

“ I hope you didn’t think I just ran off?”

“ I wouldn’t blame you, you are a busy woman after all.” I replied, well and truly distracted again.

“ Oh not so busy I’d miss what the morning has to offer.”

The hero,rapper and poet Ice Cube once said “ any day that does not require an Ak is a good day.” I’m of the newer opinion that any day that begins with Sophia in a mating press is an amazing day.

Our morning fun seen to, we both got dressed. Luckily my luggage had been delivered sometime yesterday so I didn’t have to perform the walk of shame home. She had clothing delivered discreetly while we were in the shower.

I used the small kitchen adjacent to the bar to cook a small breakfast of eggs and bacon. Sophia for her part handled a few phone calls she had put off for our escapades.

“ No, I don’t care what color the fucking rug is, just get one that matches the size listed.”

She was getting heated with the guy on the other end of the line. Then, she looked at me.

“ On second thought, forget the rug. I don’t need it.” She hung up with a firm press to the touchscreen of her phone.

“Hey lover, would you mind doing me an itsy, bitsy, favor?”

I sighed

“Where’s the body?”

“They are in a walk in freezer downstairs”

“ Can it wait till after breakfast?”

“ I can make it so.” She sat at the bar in the chair across from where I was standing as I slid her a plate.

“So” she said. “ This isn’t exactly a standard relationship arrangement nor casual enough for a fling.” She said it with none of the awkwardness that typically comes with the ‘what are we’ talk.

“I’m inclined towards a business partnership with benefits.” she continued. “I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since a man has been attracted to me without my power having a play in it. But I can ill afford the distraction a relationship would be while i’m solidifying my hold over the family. I can, however, very much afford to take pleasure with my business.”

“Okay.” I replied. “If we are taking that to be the operative guideline, we should lay out boundaries and contingencies. It’s a bit late to ask this, but are you on birth control?”

She gave a throaty laugh at that.

“ A bit late indeed. I am, though not to prevent pregnancy. My power has an internal effect and the hormonal override of birth control quells it to a degree.”

“Convenient, then I only ask that aid given be reciprocal. I’m willing to allow you to lean on my greater experience and access to the league if you are willing to grant me access to your more extensive contact network and let me use a fake gambling addiction to ‘dirty’ money.” I replied.

“I think that’s perfectly agreeable. Though I do have one addendum. We will need to meet in a third party location. As much as I look forward to our private rendezvous, it’s less than beneficial if you are seen with me while I'm here.”

“Need the world at large to think I'm some schmuck you seduced once for effect?”

“ Something like that. You understand that if I’m seen publicly relying on you too often the question of who manages what will rear its ugly head.”

I nodded my head. Ah the joys of being a woman in business. I did not envy the position.

“That said, the mayor is hosting a small get together weekend after next.” she continued. “Would you like to be my arm candy for the evening?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Oh his little socialites and pillars party? I get the invites but usually decline. I’ve got half of his staff on payroll and the other so thoroughly blackmailed he really only hears what I want him to from his advisers.” I said it off-handed but honestly I had the leverage over the mayor to make him sign anything I wanted him to, cabinet be damned.

“While that is unbelievably attractive, that night is going to be attended by the less upstanding members of the community. It would be a good chance for networking.”

“Then I would be delighted to be your date for that evening.”

She stood from her chair and stretched, showing off her form nicely against the modest blouse and charcoal slacks she had selected for the day's work.

“I need to hit the office to arrange some things. If you don’t mind, I'll have someone take you to the cold storage so you can do me that favor.”

I took the dismissal with a nod as I cleaned up the breakfast mess. She left after a long, heated, kiss that nearly saw us back to the bed. Shortly after there was a knock on the door and a well dressed italian man with slicked back hair was waiting patiently in the hall.

“Good evening Mr. Wells. I’ve been instructed to take you to the cold storage area.”

I stepped forward and closed the door.

“ready when you are Mr.?” I let the r in Mr. linger as a way of asking him name.

“Please refer to me as Mr.Smith or simply John if you’d prefer.” Right, the hotel's rules for managers seemed to apply to its family members as well.

The short elevator ride and brisk walk down a hallway in the basement took us to an industrial meat storage complex.

“The cold storage area handles the needs of the resort when it comes to fresh meat preservation.”

What a quaint way of saying that. Freezing the bodies of your victims may seem silly but it has its values. If nothing else it stopped the body from stinking up the place while you waited for a chance to dump it. It also threw off time of death estimates making placing the time and place of the murder rather difficult.

‘John’ opened a false panel that concealed a room with slide out shelving that looked like it belonged in a morgue. He quickly pulled open three of the doors and slid the bodies out on the rails built into the shelves.

“These are the spoiled cuts that Lady Rossi has requested to dispose of.”

He moved aside and behind me. I had a watch on him with my guesswork, but I didn’t take action yet. I looked at the three body bags and guessed at the identities of the occupants. All members of the family who were purged in the takeover. I waved my hand ,for the theatrics and for the implication I had to, as I reduced the corpses, bags and all, to a fine dust and a short bloom of heat muted by the chill air. I heard the distinct click of a cocked back hammer on a semiautomatic pistol. I slowly turned around to a scared looking John. Scared because he didn’t understand why the gun he had silently drawn on me was now pointing to his own temple. I guessed at his motivation and discovered he was simply jealous of the attention I had received from the lady of the house.

Jealousy is an ugly beast when it reveals itself. With a sigh, I disintegrated John, gun included, and went back to the hallway. I let my power guide me and opened the first door to my right. There I found the janitor's closet including the hand broom, dustpan, and trash bag I needed. I went back and swept up the remains. I deposited the surprisingly light trash bag in a dumpster and went back to my room. I didn’t really have plans before, but now I needed to go to the league as Oddball and expedite Sophia’s induction. Then I would need to ensure either I or Zeus could mediate the transfer. Mr. Night played the game straight as an arrow until he thought he could get away with it. His odd space warping powers that I believed to be gravity based meant only the top heavy hitters with powers that circumvented direct power confrontation could reliably keep him in check.

I wrapped myself in invisibility, reduced the chances of midair collisions to zero, and took off for home. I slipped into my Odball outfit after a short uneventful flight. I then pulled the same trick to arrive at the leuge headquarters. I walked to the office of The Clerk and strode in. The Clerk had powers that smoothed the bumps in bureaucracies. Needed forms were always at hand, errors in accounting always seemed to cancel eachother out, and seemingly unprecedented cases still found their way neartly to a process that could handle them. Her powers were awesomely frighting in a way that made her invaluable and worrisome. Perfect for an organization that cared about keeping score but didn’t care how the sausage got made. Her sister, The Train Conductor, leveraged a similar power to keep the cities logistics functioning like a clock.

As I walked in a breeze deposited the exact forms I needed, seemingly already filled out on the counter before me. The Clerk’s powers and mine had some potent synergies when our goals aligned.

She looked at me through her half moon spectacles and hurmphed. She pulled out a large stamp, glanced over the paper, and stamped it. She moved it to a box and waved goodbye, I waved goodbye as well.

That errand taken care of I moved on to the next part of my day. I went to Zeus’ office. Zeus was the lynchpin of the mutually assured destruction policy the league relied on to keep civility. I locked the door and took off my mask before sitting across from him. Zeus didn’t have powers of lighting and immortality. He had power over anyone belonging to a heiracy below him. That power collection was more efficient if the hierarchy was thematic around him. A condition of joining the league was that you were okay with him knowing your identity. The counterbalance to his control was that the rest of the twelve only needed a simple majority of six to strip him of his official position and thus power.

He looked me over and said

“This is a plesent surprise Oddball, what brings you in?”

“I need you or me to mediate a hostage exchange involving Mr. Night. I can do it but it would be inconvenient and hurt the image of impartiality if discovered.”

“Done, send me the meeting maker.” he said at the same instant the ping of a new meeting in Outlook played from his computer.

He looked at it then at me and sighed.

“If you and The Clerk put your minds to it, how long until you can claim the whole city’s infrastructure?”

“What makes you think we haven’t already?”

“I suddenly don’t want to know, deniability and all that”

I let off a small chuckle at his antics. We both knew who ran the top cover for the league when members drew too much attention for comfort.

I said my goodbyes before putting the mask back on.

“Don’t forget we have a full meeting of the twelve in three weeks. Brian has requested you stop fucking with his sensors during your arrivals, they are apparently very hard to recalibrate.”

“I can do that, I just like keeping him on his toes. He’s getting worse.”

“He’s told me. He asked that the watcher protocol be prepared just in case.”

“Damn, he still won’t let me try then? He’s a prick but he’s a mostly stablizing influence on the league. I don’t want to see what happens when his seat opens up. Goliath cleaned out a lot of the clear leaders when he went for the last vacancy.”

“Yes well his ability to comple leathal duels he can only loose to people named david makes it really hard to go against him.”

There, at one point, was a hero named David who used a sling as his weapon of choice. Said hero slipped in his bath and died when his head hit the side of the tub. Goliath still owed me for that.

“ Still, if it gets worse, suggest that you have a favor banked with me you’d be willing to burn on getting him better.”

“If he’ll let me, I will. see you in three weeks.”

I walked out of the league headquarters mostly ignoring the frightened glances being shot my way. I only had to vaporize one opportunist who thought he could invisibly garrote me.

My return home was short but I did learn that Barry and Dr. Malevolent had apparently wasted no time reuniting. I went back to the resort to kill some time looking into business that cropped up during the off day. I received a text from Zeus letting me know Sophia’s membership was approved. I laid down my work laptop and stretched. A short knock at the door broke me from my reprive. I guessed who it was, an energy cost identical to walking over and looking through the peephole. A messenger from Sophia. I opened the door and gestured for him to lead on as I walked past him. He half jogged to keep up. We entered Sophia’s office that was surprisingly modern corporate instead of the Marlen Brando godfather style I had pictured. She looked at me and simply said

“I’m facing something of an emergency.”

The dead body of the probability manipulator from poker night whose brains were adorning the wall behind me agreed.

Never a simple day, but what a way to live.