by Vivian Arend
Dallas shook his head. “It’s necessity. It was one thing when it was just Sector Four, and our biggest threat came from stomping out upstarts. But now we’re spread thin trying to clean up Three, and shit’s falling through the cracks. I don’t care if she’s barely been here a week—Mia’s ours, and that’s always meant something. Add that to the bootleggers...”
The little pissants who thought they could trade on Dallas O’Kane’s legend and reputation to market their own liquor were as good as dead, but no matter. The fact that they’d managed to sell their cheap swill, packaged in fake O’Kane labels, at all was a blow to the gang.
Dallas’s next steps were fraught, vital. He may as well have been tap-dancing on landmines. One wrong move could compromise his gang, his sector. His way of life.
Ford crushed out his cigarette. “So what do we do?”
“We recruit. We circle the wagons.” Dallas exhaled smoke toward the ceiling before pinning Ford with a look. “No more loners, Derek. You’re part of this. An O’Kane. And it kills me to know you hurt yourself worse crawling back here because you didn’t think we’d come for you.”
That made it sound so awful, as if he had no confidence in his brothers. “I didn’t, okay? That’s not why I started back after my accident. It was about doing something instead of just lying there, waiting.”
“And I get that. But I need you to know, man. We would have found you. You don’t have to spend your spare nights rolling through the latest orgy for that to be true.”
Ford snorted. The sex was an undeniable perk—for some—but it was far from the only thing that bound the O’Kanes together. “Yes, sir.”
Dallas rolled to his feet. “Good. And watch yourself with that girl. Lex wouldn’t have thrown her at you if she couldn’t handle your foul-ass mouth and pissy attitude, but women from Two will fool you. Especially Cerys’s girls.”
“Fool you how?”
His leader hesitated, staring at the ash on the end of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and slamming his boot onto it. “When they’re pissed, you’ll know. Fucking hell, you’ll know. But when they’re hurt, or scared—” He shook his head. “By the time they let you see, sometimes it’s too late.”
His personal experience with Lex, no doubt, and Ford softened his next words by clapping his hand on Dallas’s shoulder. “I’m not you, buddy. And she’s not Lex. But I appreciate the advice, all the same.”
“No, you don’t. No one ever does.” Dallas grinned and jerked his head toward the door. “Go rub the puppy’s face in his own piss and see if he can learn. I’ve got to go play barbarian king.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ford pushed out into the main room. The kid had managed to scoot his chair nearly out of the harsh circle of light in the center of the ring, but it didn’t matter. He’d be out of it soon enough.
The cage door clanged loudly as Ford hauled it open. “Moment of truth, son. You ready to go?”
His eyes rolled briefly toward the distant exit, as if he was trying to tell himself go meant leave, but snapped back to Ford as he climbed into the cage, hiding a wince as one awkward moment put too much weight on his bad leg.
He didn’t hide it well enough. Shrewdness entered the boy’s gaze as it dropped to Ford’s healing leg. “I’m supposed to fight you?”
“You are.” He loosened the chains and dragged them free with a clatter. “Don’t get too cocky, kid. I was grinding punks like you into the dirt when you were still shitting your pants.”
His opponent was on his feet in an instant, shaking blood into his arms as he circled to the side. “Yeah, when was that? Fifty years ago?”
“Close, smartass.” Ford watched him. “Go on, get the feeling back in your arms. You’ll need it.”
The kid kept moving, even more confident now—which meant he was dumb as a goddamn rock, after all. Even if he’d had a chance of smacking Ford down, he didn’t have a chance in hell of making it off the compound, much less beyond Dallas’s reach. Any cunning he had was immediate, animal instinct without a thought to what came next.
His attack wasn’t subtle. Hell, it was downright predictable. He darted in from too far away, not even bothering to feint. He drove his foot straight toward Ford’s injured leg like it was the brightest idea anyone had ever come up with, and it was almost a shame to take him down.
Almost. Anyone who would go for a weak spot that quickly, that easily, was a bully, plain and simple. Ford caught him by the foot and hauled him off his feet, letting him fall to the concrete flat on his back.
The kid wheezed, rolling back and forth as he tried to catch the breath the fall had driven from his lungs. Ford knelt over him and grabbed him by the hair. “I’ve been nice so far. That can change real easy.”
“Fuck—fuck you—” Thin and breathless, but he spat at Ford and swung wildly, crashing both fists into the arm holding him.
“This? This is nothing.” Ford pulled his semiautomatic pistol from the small of his back and pressed the end of the barrel hard against the kid’s forehead. “Is this what you did? You like how it feels?”
He froze. The blackness of his pupils seemed to swallow his irises, but staring death in the face didn’t make him humble. It made him defiant. “If you were a real man, you wouldn’t have stashed your piece of ass in a dump on the edge of the sector. You’re the one who put her in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“There you go again, with your shitty assumptions.” Mouthing off, because he already thought he was dead. Even with his rage leashed, Ford had no desire to correct the kid’s mistaken fatalism.
He bit out another curse, another insult, probably, something slurred and incomprehensible as he struggled so hard to twist away that he almost left a clump of his hair in Ford’s fist. When he couldn’t get away, he spat again. “Just fucking shoot me already. I knew you couldn’t fucking fight fair.”
“Hosing your brains out of the cage before the next fight night? Nothing would make me happier.” Ford put the pistol away and leaned back. “But O’Kane doesn’t operate that way. Make sure you thank him for my restraint, because he’s the only goddamn reason you’re walking out of here instead of hitching a ride in a garbage bag.”
The boy almost pissed himself as he rolled away, shaking from adrenaline and relief. After a moment on his hands and knees, panting, he lifted his head to stare at Ford. “Does that mean I can go?”
He snorted. “Hell, no. But you can accompany me out to Walt’s place, show me Dallas made the right call.”
Obviously not what he’d wanted to hear, but Ford had to admit the kid faked it as he staggered to his feet and tried to pull his tough-guy demeanor back around him. “Sure, whatever.”
“Uh-huh, whatever.” Maybe the kid could learn. Maybe, eventually, he’d even figure out that Dallas had saved him from more than death.
Dallas had saved him from becoming part of the problem.
Mia couldn’t imagine meeting Lex and not feeling awed, but it was a hundred times more intimidating to face her like this.
Presentation was everything, and the woman who ruled Sector Four at Dallas O’Kane’s side knew that. She was flawless. Not in the ways an outsider might notice, but in all the ways that mattered, the ones that sent a silent message about who she was.
What she was.
It started and ended with the tattoos. Ink wrapped her wrists, the O’Kane emblem framed by a pattern of delicate, beautiful lace. Except when you got close enough, the lace was made from delicate strands of barbed wire, sharp and deadly, as if someone had distilled what an Orchid should be into a single, compelling image.
There were more. Dallas’s name swooping just below her belly button, so casually visible Mia knew the corset and jeans had been designed to frame it. The mark around her throat was the same, a crowned skull in colors so vivid, no one would ever forget who they were dealing with.
No, Lex was perfect from the top of her upswept hair to the chunky heels of her expensive leat
her boots, and Mia was painfully aware of the messages her own appearance sent. Tangled hair that hadn’t seen a stylist or a bottle of conditioner in a month, chipped nails and unmoisturized skin—
And Ford’s clothes. His shirt, hanging to her knees, and she could protest all day long that she’d pulled it on out of necessity. It wouldn’t change the possessive message, and Lex wouldn’t miss it, even if she chose to ignore it.
“Primped, polished, and waxed, and all without lifting a finger,” Lex murmured, raising one eyebrow. “That’s damn near the only thing I ever missed about Sector Two.”
Mia managed a shaky smile. “I wouldn’t mind a visit to the spa. The hot pools, especially.”
“I bet, honey.” She held up the folded stack of clothing in her hands. “Ford said you needed a change of clothes. One. Because he’s a man, I guess, and they’d all live in the same T-shirt and jeans forever if they could get away with it.”
From what she’d seen of his wardrobe, Ford practically did. Oh, he might change the actual item, but the T-shirt she was wearing had a twin tossed over a chair and another couple folded up amidst his clean laundry. She reached for the clothes with a relieved smile. “I appreciate it. I feel like I’m forever saying thank you to O’Kanes, and it’s not enough. But thank you.”
“We’ll get you more stuff, first thing.” She tilted her head. “Well, almost first thing. We need to do your hair.”
“The trainers would be horrified,” Mia agreed, lifting a hand to the rough strands. “Blow-drying it straight hasn’t exactly been my top priority.” Or possible.
“Why would you?” Lex stepped up and pulled her hand away from her hair. “Leave it natural. We can pile it up on your head, maybe. Something messy but put together.”
That’s not how it’s done. The words hovered on her tongue, damning and depressing. She didn’t have to speak them—Lex would have caught her flash of confusion, and Lex would understand.
She met the older woman’s eyes. Lex knew how a lifetime of lessons could wiggle under your skin, and that the things that hurt the worst weren’t the ones everyone expected. They tiptoed around the women from Sector Two, whispering the word whore as if it was bad, as if being expected to sell their bodies was the worst thing that had happened to them.
“It gets easier, right?” She turned her hand and caught Lex’s. Tried not to cling. “Remembering to have choices.”
The woman’s dark eyes gentled. “Eventually. But I’m not going to bullshit you. It took me a good, long while, and sometimes I still forget.”
She didn’t need it to be fast, as long as it was possible. Mia squeezed Lex’s hand again before dropping to the edge of the bed. “It’s not the worst thing in the world. Forgetting, I mean. Because every time I remember, it’s like getting high on freedom all over again.”
“Sounds like a good deal to me.” Lex ducked into Ford’s small bathroom, then emerged with a brush and a small bottle in her hand. “Knew he had to have some in there somewhere.”
Conditioner, so new it still had a wrapper around the top. Not the custom handmade kind that was popular in Sector Two, but the kind produced in the factories of Sector Eight—where Ford had come from.
Mia felt a smile tugging at her lips. “I kind of crashed on him last night. I’m surprised he dealt with it as well as he did.”
Lex settled on the bed behind her and tore open the seal on the bottle. “Ford’s no stranger to crisis. I think you might be his first damsel in distress, though.”
“Really?” With that big heart beating under his grumpy exterior, Mia would have figured he’d have distraught women tossing themselves at him even without the handsome face and beautiful body. “I know he likes to scowl and snap, but it’s just an act. Isn’t it?”
“You may be underestimating the influence of your big eyes, honey.”
Easy words. Mia turned them over, teasing apart the undertone. It hadn’t sounded like an accusation, but her self-consciousness prompted a response. “I wasn’t trying to play him. Not like that.”
“Hey, I get it.” Lex smoothed a tiny bit of the conditioner through Mia’s hair. “A man like Ford? You can’t play him with all those tricks Cerys teaches.”
Lex’s touch was gentle, soothing. Familiar, though she’d never known Lex personally. Mia could close her eyes, or even just squint a little, and it was like being back in the training house, relaxed in a way she could only be with her house sisters. Fixing hair, trading gossip, reveling in the rare liberty of not having to be perfect.
Maybe that was why it was suddenly easy to ask revealing questions. “What kind of man is he?”
“Stone cold,” Lex answered without hesitation. “People get this idea in their heads of what that means—crazy, maybe. Can’t feel anything. What it means to me is someone who’ll do what he has to, no matter what.”
Ford could feel, of that Mia had no doubt. But he wore that coldness like armor, and she could understand all the reasons a man might do that. Especially a man who felt vulnerable. “Like walking all the way back to the sector on a broken leg?”
“A damn fine example. Hand me that brush, would you?”
Mia passed it over her shoulder absently, her mind still struggling with the heartbreaking image. Derek, torn and bleeding, dragging himself back to Sector Four one agonizing step at a time. Stubborn as hell, but smart, too. She’d seen that intelligence. Not just in his eyes, but in his files. Paper was barbaric, but the things he’d written on it had revealed a cunning intellect and an ability not just to see the big picture, but to synthesize data and trends and extrapolate the least risky paths of expansion.
She could help him with that. Give him tools to automate the process, formulas that would unearth surprising patterns. Useless without human intelligence behind them, but the tech could do the tedious parts.
“I can assist him,” she said, closing her eyes as Lex worked the brush through her hair. “I get what he’s trying to do. Once I really understand the liquor, I can help.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I want to be like you.” The words slipped out, honest and awed, and warmth rushed to Mia’s cheeks as she tried to modify the clumsy slip. “You and Jade, I mean. You’re here, on your own terms. You’re free. Where else can I be that?”
Lex chuckled. “I don’t know, honey. Maybe a thousand places. Can’t say for sure. But you’re welcome to stay here.”
Her next words couldn’t be clumsy. They had to say the right thing—and mean the right thing. “Does how Ford feels about my big eyes matter for the job?”
“That depends. Do you like him?”
Another layered question. In Sector Two it covered a world of sins. I like my patron could mean tolerance, or contentment, or—in the rarest of cases—even honest affection. Or it could be a polite lie. “I like him,” she replied carefully. “He’s brusque, but that doesn’t bother me. I think there’s kindness in him. I’m...fond of him.”
“Fond. Right.” Lex patted her hip. “Turn around here for a second, huh?”
Tucking her leg up under her, Mia shifted on the bed to face Lex. The other woman was polished, perfect—and giving her an unmistakably knowing look. “Look, I’m the last woman to tell you not to get involved with an O’Kane. I am an O’Kane. But it’s a hell of a hard road to walk. I’m not going to lie to you about that, either. So be sure you know what you want, okay?”
It was a warning, but it wasn’t disapproval. Lex would never treat her like a broken doll in need of rescue. She’d lay out Mia’s options, sometimes sharp enough for the edges to cut deep, but always honest. And then she’d stand back and expect Mia to use her brain and make her choices. Not just parroting the one Lex preferred, but having the spirit and stubbornness to go for what was best for her.
And Mia already knew what that was. “I want to prove myself. I don’t even know what I can do, because no one’s let me try.”
“Dallas will.” Lex said it with a steely conviction, not a sh
red of doubt intruding upon the words.
“And Ford?”
“What do you think?”
She’d seen the appreciation in his gaze at how easily she’d broken down his filing system and digitized the bulk of the data—but maybe she’d only wanted to see it. That appreciation could have been for her face and her body and how nice it was to have a pretty girl performing menial tasks. Even Vaughn had recognized the status symbol inherent in an aesthetically pleasing assistant.
Lex was still watching her, so Mia shrugged one shoulder. “I think it’s hard to see people clearly when your heart gets in the way. When you want something to be real, you look for proof instead of truth.”
“So you take your time,” Lex said firmly. “It’s the one thing that doesn’t lie, right? Anyone can keep up bullshit, short term. But it gets harder as the clock ticks down.”
Mia nodded her understanding and took a chance. “I need help to do this right. I think Ford doesn’t want to overwhelm me, but I need to understand the liquor. I need to know all the variables.”
“Then you talk to Dallas and Nessa.” Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “Rachel, too, if you can find her. She’s spending most of her time these days naked and sweaty, right between Ace and Cruz.”
New names, people she’d have a chance to get to know if she found a place here. Dallas might be a little too intimidating for her first foray into the world of bootlegging, but today she’d be proactive. “Once I get myself put together, then, do you think you’d have time to introduce me to Nessa?”
“Sure.” Lex grasped both her hands and peered down at them. “You can chat while she’s doing your nails.”
Mia started to flinch, then forced herself to relax with a wry laugh. “They never really let us see, do they? How much the illusion costs.”
“Never. But, in Nessa’s case, giving manicures is something of a hobby.” Lex tilted Mia’s chin up with one finger. “Let her. The primping looks the same on the outside, maybe, but it’s different. You’re not dressing up to decorate some man. You’re doing it to show everyone else in this sector that you can.”