Beyond Control (33 page)

A mirthless smile twisted her lips. "How many horny, desperate bastards are there in the city?"

His heartbeat sped. "I'm only interested in one of them right now. Gareth Woods."

The tiny wrinkle in her brow smoothed. She approached the table, lifted the whiskey, and began to pour it. "Interested in him, or in his painful demise?"

"In causing it, mostly." He settled back into his chair and watched her. "What do you really want, Cerys? You'll never be satisfied sitting on a porch swing and counting your money. For once in your life, speak truth to a man. Maybe the results will shock you."

She drained a shot and poured a second before answering. "Do you have any idea how exhausting it is, catering to men? I don't promise to take up knitting or raise cats in my old age, but believe me, Mr. O'Kane. I wouldn't mind being able to tell a few of you fuckers exactly what I think of you."

Dallas laughed as he picked up his own glass. "Now that? Is a motivation I believe. So maybe we can find common ground without giving up hating each other."

"I like the sound of that," Cerys said with a smirk. "I think Lex will, too."

"Why don't we try a deal without Lex first? We both have something the other wants, don't we? Let's start with an alliance of neighbors."

She clicked her shot glass against his. "Agreed."

How to phrase it? No outlandish lies, promising things she'd know he'd never deliver. Just the right amount of opportunity and reluctance. "I'll bring your proposal to my woman. I'll even do my best to see she considers it. But I want a show of good faith in return."

"What you want is Gareth Woods on a silver platter. I understand."

"Access to him." He studied her over the edge of his glass. "He knows I'm hunting him. He's played a good game at staying out of my way, but I only need to find him once."

"I can make that happen," she assured him.

"How soon?"

She considered it as she finished her second drink. "It'll take a little time. Be patient."

Be patient.
Words he hated, but they'd be worth it if he could put a bullet in the head of the man who'd been responsible for Lex's near death. Oh, he'd have to let Jasper come along, since the assassin had been gunning for Noelle. But that kill, that retribution--it would balance the scales. It would be the ultimate proof that no one crossed the O'Kanes and lived. Not a scummy sector leader like Wilson Trent, not a councilman straight out of Eden.

Hell, if he played his cards right, Lex might not ever have to know. Not about the kill, and not how he'd agreed to pay for it. He just had to snatch the bait out of Cerys's trap without letting himself get snared by the promise of power.

"All right," he agreed. "I assume you have a contingency if I can't talk Lex around?"

"She's not my only possibility." Cerys set down her glass and retrieved her fur. "Merely my first choice."

She didn't seem worried about going out on a limb without a guaranteed return, which could mean anything. That it wasn't a limb. That she wanted Gareth Woods dead for her own reasons. Or that she really did believe he had Lex under his thumb.

Or that she was planning to betray him. Dallas had to figure that possibility into his plans. "How far in advance can you send me a location and time?"

"Far enough that you'll be able to get your men into place."

But not so far that
he
could betray
her
. He screwed the top back on to the whiskey bottle and held it out to her with a grin. "Why don't you take it with you? That stuff you call liquor in Two could use some bite."

Cerys threw back her head with a laugh. "Thank you, but no. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd like to be able to deny I was ever here."

That made two of them.

For the ruthless kingpin of a bootleg liquor operation, Dallas O'Kane lied for shit.

He was even worse at hiding things, though Lex had to admit that might just be her. She'd spent so many years getting to know him, working with him--and yes, frankly, infatuated with him--that she'd memorized his moods. She recognized the tiny shifts in his expression, the way his eyes seemed to change color depending on his moods.

Right now, his mood was foul. Dark. Lex laid down her fork and studied him over the rim of her beer. "You've been quiet."

Dallas didn't lift his gaze from his steak. "Have I?"

Evasion--yet another sign something was wrong. "You have, and I'm starting to think it's about me."

That goaded him into addressing her, but his too-charming Dallas O'Kane grin seemed hollow. "You make me a lot of things, love. Quiet ain't one of them."

"Uh-huh. Gonna tell me what's on your mind?"

"I wasn't planning on it." Sighing, he let his fork clatter to his plate. "Which probably makes me a damn fool, thinking I could pull this off."

She forced herself to relax her fingers and set down her beer bottle. "You're starting to scare me, Dallas, and I don't like it."

"It's not--" He swore and shoved back from the table. "I didn't want you to have to think about it. You've got enough to deal with, helping with the recruiting efforts."

Or he just didn't want to tell her. "What is it?"

Dallas met her eyes, and she knew from the tension in his gaze that the words would be bad. She just didn't realize how bad. "Cerys came to see me a few days ago."

Lex crossed her arms over her chest. "What the hell did she want?" Even as she spoke, she suspected she already knew.

"What did she want, or what did she say she wanted?"

Cut the shit.
Lex bit back the words and shivered. "She did it, didn't she? She brought it to you."

He frowned. "If you mean she offered us her sector on a silver platter...yeah. But shit, Lex. I wasn't gonna fall for it. Nothing in life is that easy."

"That's where you're wrong." She shivered again, her chill subsiding into a strange sort of numbness. "What if it
was
that simple?"

"What, if we could just take over Two and own all of it?" He snorted. "Sure. In that world where puppies shit rainbows, I'd be stupid not to take it. I'd know all the dirty secrets about every bastard in Eden, and you'd have the resources to rescue people from dawn 'til dusk. At least until the other sector leaders wiped me off the map for thinking I could own three territories."

And they'd be right about one thing--he'd be thinking
he
owned it, not Lex.

She blinked at him, struggling to work through his offhand words and her own raging thoughts. "You say
we
, but you don't mean it.
You'd
take over,
you'd
own three territories. You."

Frustration twisted his features as he pushed himself to his feet. "Fuck, quit nitpicking my words. You're taking my ink. What I own, you own."

"Horseshit." Lex lashed out, knocking her beer bottle over to crash into his plate. "What I own, you own, and you can't turn that around on me. I'm not willing to sell your soul for some damn power."

"Back the hell on up, woman." Ignoring the beer spilling over the edge of the table and onto the floor, Dallas clenched both hands around the back of his chair. Wood creaked, and his knuckles stood out stark and white. "I didn't trade your soul. I didn't even put it on the table."

"Only because you don't think you could get away with it." She stood and held his gaze challengingly. "But you would if you could. You said it yourself--you'd be stupid not to."

"In a world without consequences," he snarled. "You wouldn't be tempted? Not even a little? You could decide how the houses run, and you wouldn't have to be my queen. You could be queen all on your own."

They sounded like Cerys's words from his lips. The perfect justification for why it would all be in her best interests as well as his. She could help, change things. Pretty lies, because no one really wanted things to change. The men in power benefited from the situation, and the women in Two knew nothing else. The only way to really change it would be to burn it all to the ground.

Pretty lies. Dallas had to know that on some level, but he'd still considered Cerys's offer, honestly
considered
it, and Lex's anger died, choked out of existence by the misery that overwhelmed her.

She focused on a thin sheen of bubbles tracking across the table. "I was fifteen when I left Sector Two. One of the maids told me Cerys had found my buyer--sorry, my
patron
. So I ran. I lived on the streets. I starved, I stole. I did everything but sell myself because I saw how that went down and I swore it wasn't worth it. Even if I died instead, it could never be worth it." Her eyes burned, and her vision blurred. "Shows what I know. I did it anyway, right? Sold myself."

Dallas exploded.

That was the only word for it. The chair shattered under his hands, and he flung the pieces away, upending the table in the process. Plates crashed and shattered, the bottles clattered and rolled, spilling beer across the carpet as Dallas bit off one word at a time. "You are
not
a whore."

She stood there in the mess, bits of food and broken glass on her shoes, as the first tears fell. "No, I'm worse. I didn't give you anything as simple as my body." He had her heart, her soul,
everything
.

Glass crunched under his boots as he took a step toward her, but he stopped with a jerk when she backed away. A scowl twisted his features. "Don't you fucking do that."

It wrenched a laugh from her. "Do what? Cry like a girl?"

"Don't twist everything." He took another step, slow and careful this time. "Don't back away from me like I'm some dangerous animal. You haven't even seen me scary."

She wasn't worried he would harm her--partly because he never had, and partly because no blow could ever hurt as much as his words had.

And if she told him that, he really would lose it. "How?" she asked instead. "How could you ever want to ask me to go back there?"

"Because it's not the same," he snapped, and finally it was honesty pouring from his mouth. Painful, brutal honesty. "You'd have the power over all of them. You'd be my equal!"

The icy chill seized up, solidified, leaving Lex frozen. Her wrist itched, and she absently rubbed her thumb over the ink marring her skin.

His equal. Someone who brought enough value to the transaction, who was good enough for him. If he'd made those kinds of judgments about her before, he'd never admitted them. But maybe now was different, now that he wanted to do more than collar her.

The leather was suddenly constricting, unbearable. She couldn't breathe, couldn't even think until she reached up and unbuckled it.

Dallas's teeth clacked together. "What are you doing?" he asked too quietly.

The collar fell away in her hand. "If grabbing at power just to have it is what it takes, I'll never be your equal."

"You're doing it again." He wasn't looking at her, not anymore. His gaze was fixed on her hand. On that scrap of leather. "You're looking for a fucking excuse. You're chickening out."

"Oh, honey. I wish I was." She could get angry, yell at him about this like she had the party for the prospects from Three. But she'd hate herself for giving in, because it would only happen all over again. "You have no idea, Declan."

He growled, his hands curling into fists. "So you're gonna walk away over something I didn't even ask you to do? What the hell else would you call that?"

"Don't act like you were thinking about me. You were just trying to figure out Cerys's game." Her voice cracked, and she steadied herself. "Here's the hard truth. It may not be a game. It might be legit. Can you still say you wouldn't ask me to do it?"

He hesitated. Not long, no more than the span of a few heartbeats. But he hesitated, and they both knew it.

The look on his face, hurt and confused, floored her. He still didn't understand, but he would, eventually. He'd know why. But that didn't help as she stood there, collar in hand. Her chest actually ached, which was fucking stupid.

Hearts didn't literally break.

She held out the collar. "Take it. Please."

"No." A storm was brewing behind his eyes, one that would swallow the pain and unleash something far more dangerous. "Not unless you're planning to replace it with my ink."

It hurt so much more, having a glimpse of something perfect only to realize it couldn't exist, that it fell apart when times got hard. "I have to find someplace, but I'll go." Yet another way she'd betrayed herself. It had been years since she'd kept up a place outside the compound, somewhere to go if things went bad. "If you can give me a few days--"

"
No.
" He advanced on her, and she could hear the thunder. "This isn't how it ends. This isn't what kills us. Not stupid, fucking
words
."

"What else could it be?" They'd always lived loud, almost violently. Screaming and shouting. It made sense for their relationship to die quietly.

He stopped toe-to-toe with her, looming over her, taking up all the air, all the light. "Not this. Not her."

"Dallas..." All she had left were harsh words, damning ones, and she had to soften them by lifting her hand to his cheek. "It wasn't her."

Pain flashed across his face, jagged as lightning as the storm broke.

And he kissed her.

No, not a kiss. Nothing as gentle as that. His fingers snagged in her hair, yanking her head back as his mouth came down, forceful and desperate. Bruising.

He'd always touched her with care, even when he gave it to her rough, but not now. This wasn't desire but punishment, not need but some twisted version of it.

Not possession but confinement.

Lex let her hands hang by her sides, and the collar fell to the floor. No matter what, she couldn't fight. A dark thread of longing was already unfurling in her belly, and if she fought him, it would all get tangled up in sex.

His teeth dug into her lip, and he growled. "Gonna pretend you don't feel it? You don't feel
us
?"

Of course she did. She'd felt it the moment she first laid eyes on him, the zing of awareness that hadn't faded over time but deepened into something inescapable, and strong enough to tear them both to shreds.