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.
Chapter Nineteen
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.