"Don't feel bad. I'm really fucking paranoid at the moment."
"I meant everything I said, you know. About being friends with your sister, and that you're a legend." The amusement in Jade's voice faded. "I just didn't tell you everything. I know Woods tried to kill one of your people, and I know you're taking him down tonight. I don't want to die in the crossfire."
Lex's heart skipped a beat. It all made sense suddenly, the one thing Cerys could have handed Dallas to ensure he'd consider her crazy fucking offer. Something he wanted more than power or money, more than air. And even, in a perverse way, more than her.
Gareth Woods.
Tonight. Cerys must have come through with the setup. Maybe she was about to clue Dallas in, or maybe he already knew. Either way...
"Can you get me in?" She glanced around quickly, confirming she was alone in the hall. "Tell him you're bringing a friend?"
Jade inhaled sharply. "You don't know what you're asking."
She didn't give a damn. She was tired of Dallas and his excuses. He could claim he was going after Woods to protect her, but it boiled down to plain, old-fashioned vengeance. "Yes or no, Jade?"
"You can't come here. But I could convince my driver to stop on the way, if you can be ready and waiting."
Only one more question, one that dug its claws into her and wouldn't let go. "Is it a trap? Is she trying to get rid of Dallas, or dealing with him square?"
Jade hesitated long enough to cinch fear tight before whispering, "I don't know. But Cerys will win either way. She always does."
"No shit." Lex crumbled her unlit cigarette with a grimace. "Pick me up on the east side of the bridge, near the border between Two and Three. I'll find a way."
"All right. Dress like a rose." A pause. "You remember what that means, don't you?"
It meant she'd be raiding Noelle's closet to get her frilly white dresses and lingerie back. "I remember."
"Five o'clock. Lex?"
"What?"
"If you can't get me out, don't leave me to a slow death. Tonight I want to be free, one way or another."
"Damn, girl. Don't be so morbid." Frowning, Lex hung up.
Jade could still be playing her, counting on her need to one-up Cerys--or, worse, to protect Dallas. It wasn't hard to connect the dots on a foolproof plan to get them out of the picture, and with the perfect justification: interfering with Cerys's rightful business.
And in Sector Five, no less. Woods probably chose the locale because he needed to make a drug run anyway, but she'd have to tread carefully. Mac Fleming would recognize her in a heartbeat, and it could blow everything to hell.
They might need backup. Damn near suicidal backup.
Lex picked up the phone and dialed.
Chapter Twenty-One
She might have underestimated exactly how much money Gareth Woods put in Mac Fleming's pockets.
Oh, she'd anticipated that Fleming probably had a honey hole somewhere that he lent to Woods when the man needed a place to lay low, get high, and abuse some women, but she'd never dreamed he'd let Woods do it in his house. And yet that was exactly where the driver stopped, outside the stately white mansion Fleming had spent years--and a fortune--building.
Lex adjusted the wide bracelets covering her cuffs and clenched her hands in the frilly lace of her short skirt. "You get that Mac Fleming knows my face, right?"
"He's never here when Woods is," Jade replied, staring out the window. Her own hands rested in her lap, clamped together so tightly that her knuckles stood out, pale and sharp. Her ashen face and strained eyes could have been nerves, but Lex had seen people on the edge of withdrawal before.
The woman was about to freak out.
Lex swatted her arm. "Hey, keep it together. What about Fleming's guards? Anyone he might have taken to the summit in Sector Two?"
"No, just Finn," she said after a moment, shaking her head. Her thumb brushed compulsively over the inside of her wrist. "He's the guard who brings the drugs. No one's allowed to handle them but him." She finally looked at Lex with a wan smile. "It used to just be me and Woods in the house for the night, once Finn left. Now he brings guards. A lot of them. He's terrified of Dallas O'Kane."
"He should be." After all, Dallas wanted him dead badly enough to make deals with the devil.
Through the divider, Lex heard the driver's door open and close again. Jade