by Kit Rocha
Finn let the metal drop to the ground and stripped off his bandages, too. His wrists hadn’t entirely healed, and Ace would probably kick his damn ass for the pressure he’d put on the artist’s precious work while choking Dom, but Finn’s ink was whole and vivid. A far more promising symbol than his last words.
He was an O’Kane now, baptized in blood, and the words felt right this time. “Then let’s get our asses home.”
The third time Trix’s hand slipped, making a mess of the smooth liner she was applying beneath her eye, she gave in. Instead of wiping it away, she smudged it roughly, then stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror.
She was a mess. No polished, perfect shows tonight, not for her. But she could work with that. Leather and stiletto heels, mesh to rip away. A whole new kind of performance for a whole new Trix.
Lex sighed and leaned over her shoulder, putting her face squarely in the left half of the mirror. “Honey, you can’t go out there tonight.”
“Why not?” Trix positioned the pencil, rubbed a shaky black line beneath her other eye, then blended it carelessly. “I’m a fucking professional.”
“You’ll make the men cry, and not in the good way. Shit, you’re about to make me cry.” Lex hesitated, her breathing uneven and ragged. “Take the night off, Trix, and see what shakes out. Maybe—”
It was madness, interrupting the queen of Sector Four, and Trix did it too readily. “I got enough maybes from Finn, thanks.”
Lex held her gaze in the mirror for a moment before looking away. “I deserved that.”
Instantly, Trix felt like hell. “No, you didn’t. I just—I can’t do this. I can’t be here right now.”
“So take the night off,” Lex urged.
She hadn’t been talking about the club. She’d actually pulled a bag out of her closet and laid it out on the bed. It was still sitting there, empty, clothes stacked beside it, ready to pack. Without Finn, everything seemed so hollow. She’d only just wrapped her head around the idea that he’d be there with her, sharing her home, and now he was gone. And nothing felt the same.
Trix spun around on her stool, ready to tell Lex as much, but stopped short at the veil of anxiety darkening the other woman’s eyes. Jesus Christ, she’d been so tangled up in her own loss that she hadn’t even thought about anything else. “Lex, I—”
“You’re not the only one,” Lex confirmed. “I can’t sit still, either. Every time Dallas rides out of here, there’s a chance that he…” She trailed off.
“That he might not come back?” The fact that she managed to get the words out at all was its own little accomplishment.
“Yeah. Fuck me.” Lex straightened and propped her hands on her hips. “Come on. Let’s get you some tequila. Lots and lots of—”
“Uh, Lex?” Ace popped his head around the door, his expression tense. “You need to get to the garage.”
Lex snapped to attention, her spine straight and tense as she turned for the door. “What is it?”
Ace’s gaze swung to Trix, and he cursed. “It’s not—they’re not back yet. But Logan Beckett’s fucking wife is down there in her damn nightgown, demanding your presence.”
Lex skidded to a halt and blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he retorted. “A silk nightie and a fur coat splattered in blood. And cool as can fucking be. If she’s not high on something, then I’m a virgin.”
Trix rose, a strange numbness washing over her. “What the hell’s going on over there?”
“Let’s find out.” Lex stalked out the door and rushed down the hallway to the back exit.
Trix followed, shivering in her thin T-shirt. The garage was bright but barely warm enough to fend off the chill—especially when she caught sight of Lili Fleming.
Ace hadn’t been lying. Lili’s virginal silk nightgown peeked out from beneath an expensive coat with a thick fur collar and blood staining the sleeves and front. Her long blonde hair was coiled in a painfully tight knot, and her blue eyes were icy.
That cool gaze swept over Trix without recognition before settling on Lex. “Are you Dallas O’Kane’s…?” She hesitated, and Trix knew she had to be searching for a word that wouldn’t offend, because in Five there were only three possibilities—wife, mistress, or whore.
“I am.” Lex circled her warily. “How’d you get out of Five, and why?”
Lili dipped a perfectly manicured hand into her pocket and pulled out a pistol. Zan reacted immediately, driving her against the nearest wall with iron fingers locked around her wrist.
Not even that altered her blank expression. She let Zan strip the weapon from her grip without protest, her gaze never leaving Lex. “I shot my guard. And then I walked.”
“And why’s that?”
Her jaw clenched, the first and only glimpse of any emotion before she closed her eyes. “I want to speak to the other sector leaders,” she said flatly. “He killed the rest of the Flemings. My family. My mother, my brothers and sisters. The youngest baby. All of them.”
Lex was already asking the obvious question, the reasonable one—who?—but Trix barely heard her through the roar of blood in her ears. There was only one answer, and it terrified her.
Beckett. He wasn’t just a greedy bastard with a hard-on for vengeance. He was crazy.
An arm slid around her. Mad, strong and warm, supporting her even as he looked at Lex. “Should I round up the guys?”
“Take Cruz and Zan,” Lex ordered. “Ace, go upstairs and fetch Doc. And for Christ’s sake, make sure he’s—”
The rumble of an engine cut through her words, and one of the wide garage doors began to roll up. Lex clamped her mouth shut, closed her eyes, and bowed her head.
Dallas ducked under the door before it was more than a few feet up, coming to an abrupt halt when he caught sight of Lili standing near the wall, rubbing at her wrist. His brow furrowed, but he still pivoted to face Trix and jerked his head toward the door. “He’s okay.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. Even when they did, they made no sense. So she stared at him and shook her head.
The doors creaked to a stop. Finn stepped into the light spilling from the garage, looking ragged and bloody. He wore a jacket with no shirt, because he had what was left of his wrapped around his ribs. A split lip and bruises rising on one side of his face made his smile look painful. “Trix.”
The dull, burning ache in her gut wrenched and scattered, sweeping over her in a rush. Every bit of pain and grief she’d shoved down surged up, and she bit her lip until it bled, trying to hold back the first sob.
But no one could contain an ocean, and that’s exactly what it was—deep, endless, and her relief couldn’t counter it. She’d been prepared for his death, for a loss so complete and visceral that even standing there, with him looking back at her, her body refused to accept what she was seeing.
“You…” That was all she managed, because it was too much. Her bereavement had so exhausted her that her joy fell into an empty, hollow place, because she couldn’t process it.
It was too much.
She sagged against Mad, then turned in his arms, hiding her face blindly against his shoulder as she began to cry, giant, wracking shudders that hurt. Everything just fucking hurt.
Mad’s arms tightened. “It’s okay, sweetheart. He’s okay. Looks a little torn up, but most heroes do from time to time.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. She’d soared so high and crashed so hard that she didn’t know if she’d ever recover.
“Trix?” Finn’s voice was closer this time. Low and as hesitant as the fingers brushing her shoulder. “Beckett’s gone. It’s over. For me, for all of us.”
“I’m sorry.” She said it again, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around.
Mad let go. Finn slipped an arm around her, turning her toward his chest. His bare skin was hot beneath her cheek as he wrapped her in a tight hug and pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m s
orry.”
It was the scent of his skin that finally shattered her incredulity. Beneath the blood and gunpowder, he smelled the way he always had—like smoke, leather, and engine grease.
Like Finn.
She sagged and Finn lifted her, dragging her hard against his body as he whispered the same words in her ear, over and over. “I’m here. I’m okay. We’re okay.”
“You’re not dead.” The obvious, but it felt like a revelation.
“I’m not dead,” he agreed.
“You’re not dead.”
He tilted her head back and met her eyes. “I told you I’d come back if I could.”
“But how?”
“Does it matter?”
Maybe it didn’t, and asking was just borrowing trouble. “You came home.” She slipped her arms around his neck and held on tight. “You’re home.”
“I am now.” He kissed her, and she clutched him closer, stroking her fingers through his hair—until they tangled in half-dried blood.
She jerked away. “You’re bleeding.”
He half-smiled. “I got hit in the face by a board. And sliced up a little. I haven’t come out of a fight this uninjured in years.”
“Jesus Christ.” Trix gripped his shoulders and lifted her head to search for Lex. “Doc is upstairs?”
“In the empty room beside mine and Dallas’s.” She nodded. “Go on, get him fixed up. There’s plenty of time, baby girl.”
Trix helped Finn through the back door of the main building and up the stairs, all the while with Lex’s words tickling at the back of her mind. Every now and then, they brushed against something coiled tight, a lingering bit of tension that wouldn’t relax even as the rest of her did.
Plenty of time. The tiniest flame of panic flickered to life. She locked it down and spared only a moment of worry at how damn good she was getting at that.
Dallas
Cerys’s square conference table was starting to feel a little lonely.
Or maybe that was just for Dallas. The sector leaders met as they always did, arrayed around the massive table by sector number. The seat to Dallas’s right had been empty since he’d taken down Wilson Trent all those months ago.
Now the one to his left was empty, too.
The faces around the table were unusually somber. No one had enjoyed listening to Lili Fleming’s dull-eyed recitation of her husband’s barbaric crimes. No one at the table had tears to waste for Mac Fleming, but his wife had been a quietly suffering martyr, and her children…
Shit. Even the coldest of them didn’t sit right with slaughtering babies.
“No more secret meetings,” Gideon declared from the head of the table, before the door had swung shut behind Lili. “You lot took the word of a sociopath as gospel and didn’t bother to ask the one man who might know Beckett was trouble. If we’re going to fracture like this, Eden will snuff us out one at a time.”
“We played into the man’s hands,” Jim agreed, “and the bastard betrayed our trust.”
“Supposedly,” Cerys interjected. “The fact that he murdered his wife’s family doesn’t prove he brought an armed man to the prisoner exchange.”
“Gee, Cerys. I’m sorry I didn’t let him stab me a few times so I could show off the scars.” Dallas leaned back in his chair and pinned her with a look. “I don’t feel too compelled to prove my honor to a bunch of people who violated their own rules. I made a good-faith effort. Which of you can say the same?”
“Enough.” Colby pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “That’s fair, but what’s done is done. The question now is much more important.”
Jim steepled his fingers. “You mean what happens to Sector Five.”
Scott cast Dallas a suspicious look, so he held up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I don’t want the place. Eden’s already watching my every damn move.”
“None of us want it, and O’Kane can’t take it,” Colby observed.
Jesus, the bastards didn’t listen. “Hey, O’Kane doesn’t want it, either.”
“There’s another option,” Jim pointed out. “Beckett was a wild card, but I know how Mac ran his operation. There have to be half a dozen men waiting in line, ready to fight it out to see who takes over. We can wait, watch. See who comes out on top, and deal with it then.”
Dallas had been waiting for it. He’d been waiting for it since the car ride back from Five, when Finn had related the vague, obviously edited story of how he’d taken down Beckett, told with the awkwardness of a man torn by conflicting loyalties.
Is there anything I need to know, Finn?
Jim has a man in Five.
How high up?
Pretty high.
Yeah, Jim knew how Mac had run his operation. No doubt Jim knew who would end up running it next, too. Dallas could have pressed Finn for a name, but now he didn’t have to. In a few months, Jim’s inside guy would be calling the shots, and Dallas would have to decide what to do about it.
So would Finn. But the fact that Finn hadn’t wanted to reveal his name—the fact that Jim’s man might have been the one to save his life—gave Dallas something he hadn’t felt much of at this table in a long time.
Hope.
“I’m with Jim,” he said, meeting the other man’s gaze. “Something had to be done about Three because it was a mess even before it lost a leader. Seems like we can give Five some time to figure this out on their own. That’s how we always did it before.”
Colby hesitated, tapping his fingers on the polished table. “And if they start to break down?”
“Then someone steps in,” Gideon replied. “If any sector can survive a little upset, it’s the one that delivers all the fancy medicine to Eden. The city leaders won’t do anything permanent before we have time to act.”
“That much is true,” Scott conceded.
“So we let them fight it out for themselves,” Dallas said, resisting the urge to poke at Jim. Knowledge was more powerful when no one realized you had it. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to keep my head down for a few months. There’s been too much excitement.”
Jim’s gaze lingered on the empty seat next to Dallas. “An understatement, if I ever heard one.”
Gideon’s smile was downright evil as he glanced at Cerys. “I’m sure we could all stand to stick close to home and clean house for a while.”
Cerys flashed him a chillingly cold smile in return. “We don’t all have the gods on our sides, Gideon. Some of us have to make it work.”
“Not gods. Just the one. One’s enough if you can stand before Him with a clean conscience and an open heart.”
“That’s adorable.” Cerys held both hands out to her sides. “Are we finished here?”
Murmurs around the table came in the affirmative. No one was anxious to linger in Two, not with the cracks showing through Cerys’s pretty façade. It was depressing here, even more than usual, so Dallas was all too ready to shove off and head for the exit. They hadn’t accepted rooms this time—Lex and Lili were waiting in the car with Mad.
Everyone wanted to get the hell out of here.
Jim passed by him on his way out the door. “How did you fare against Beckett’s machinations, anyway? No loss of life, I hope?”
“We’re more or less in one piece.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “More than less?”
Dallas grinned at him. “Someone in particular you’re asking about?”
“No,” Jim answered, his expression mild. Too mild. “I wouldn’t expect you to tell me, anyway. A man has to keep his own counsel.”
“That he does,” Dallas agreed. “Some secrets would be dangerous if they got out too soon.”
“It’s been known to happen.”
Dallas wondered how many more secrets Jim had hiding behind that deceptive face. With his silvering hair and the new wrinkles around his eyes, Jim looked like a pleasant, older businessman. Not the most ruthless leader in all eight sectors—the only one who’d
been around from the start.
A man could build up a lot of secrets over that many years. “You should come to the Broken Circle sometime. I’ll crack open one of the special bottles, and we can chat.”
This time, Jim broke out in a full-fledged grin. “You after my secrets, O’Kane?”
“Hell yeah.” Dallas returned the smile. “I’m just a simple bootlegger. I gotta learn somewhere, right?”
“Right. And I’m just a guy who makes toilet paper.” Jim turned down the hall and tossed a wave over his shoulder. “See you when the next crisis hits.”
Dallas bit back a laugh and headed for the front door. But the urge to smile had faded before he hit the street.
When the next crisis hit, not if. Trouble was the only certain thing about life after the Flares but, Gideon’s God willing, maybe they had some breathing room. He sure the hell hoped so, because Dallas could already feel the next storm gathering.
Eden’s greedy waste. The empty warehouses. Special Tasks soldiers defecting. Sector leaders falling one by one.
The luxury of being a simple bootlegger was long gone. From now on, Dallas O’Kane was a man preparing for war—and not the messy-but-confined brutality of a sector war. In his gut, he knew where the real danger lay.
He paused on the sidewalk and twisted to the west. Eden loomed above Two, the walls and skyscrapers climbing high over the two- and three-story structures in Cerys’s sector.
A man prepared to take on paradise could do worse for allies than Jim Jernigan.
Chapter Twenty-One
It took Finn two days to realize Trix wasn’t with him anymore.
She was present. In his life, in his bed. She’d held his hand while Doc patched him up, and clung to him all night long. But Finn had touched her now. All of her, not just her body but her heart and soul. He’d felt the weight of that responsibility, the power of her love.
And it was slipping away, even when she sat by his side and smiled and promised everything was all right.
He had shattered something precious inside her. Her trust, maybe, or her belief in a happy ending. She was holding back from him, building walls to protect her heart, and he didn’t know how to stop it.