of us, do what you're fucking told and get in that cage. If you're not, I'll let Bren put two bullets in your head right now. Trust me, he wants to, just to spare me the fight."
Jasper nudged him, and Dom stumbled forward. "Have it your way, O'Kane. I'll kick your ass." He stomped toward the cage.
A queen wouldn't let her king go into a fight without her favors. Lex hesitated for a half-second before curving her hand around the back of Dallas's neck and drawing him close for a quick, hard kiss.
His lips moved against hers, but not in a kiss. In a whisper. "Thank you."
Let them all think the rumors were just that. They'd find no weakness here, no dissension. "Go."
He went, stripping off his leather vest as he walked. The harsh warehouse lights allowed for nothing to be hidden. Not the proud swirl of ink dominating one arm and shoulder, not the scars that marked his chest and back.
He was rough, hard and unforgiving. A force of nature.
And, like a storm, he had no mercy.
The cage door had barely shut when he hit Dom for the first time, smashing a fist into the man's unprotected face. He fought back, but he was no match for Dallas's cold fury.
Lex watched, every breath burning in and out of her lungs. The fight could have been over in a few minutes of brutal punches and well-placed kicks, but Dallas was holding back, almost toying with Dom. Going as much for pain as for victory.
He was putting on a show. Sending a message. Every time Dom staggered to his feet only to be knocked back down, Dallas reinforced the line he'd drawn. You didn't hurt Dallas's women. You didn't touch his people. Not the ones wearing ink, not the ones who worked for him. Because if he'd do this to one of his own men, no one else had a hope in hell of survival.
The fight had started with cheers, but as it dragged on, the warehouse grew still around Lex. O'Kanes watched in solemn pride. The rest of Sector Four watched with a mixture of satisfaction and fear.
Dallas carried the weight of everyone's safety on his shoulders, and he won it with violence and blood, taking one last swing to lay a staggering Dom out before flexing his bruised knuckles.
Dom thudded to the concrete, and Dallas lifted his head to meet Lex's gaze. Frustration. Satisfaction. Heat, as his adrenaline pumped and one sort of arousal melted into another.
He was thinking of his fantasy, the one he'd laid out so bluntly in her bathtub. The one where he celebrated his victory inside her, right there in front of everyone.
Not now, after everything that had happened. But turning away wasn't an option for Lex, either. So she stepped forward and held out her hand. Dallas hopped out of the cage and clasped her fingers. Kissed them.
Then he walked away.
As he neared Jas, he jerked a thumb toward Dom's prone figure. "Strip his cuffs," he said, raising his voice so his words carried back to them. "And then dump him with the trash."
Lex winced. As loathsome as Dom was, stripping tattoos was nasty business. The doctor had lasers, but he saved them for people he liked, or when his work had to be neat. Dom would get acid, and then he'd get turned out into the streets.
"I'll call Doc," Jasper said brusquely.
Dallas took one last look back, and Lex froze. A last look, that's exactly what it was--him drinking in the sight of her, fixing it in his mind because soon it would be gone.
She would be gone.
He turned and slammed through the back door nearest the garage.
Her mind fluttered, struggling to light on why she felt sick inside. She'd known this. The decision had been made. Plans begun. And yet something inside Lex still shrank away from the thought. Her friends, her family--
But that wasn't what twisted a cold knot in her gut. She didn't have to leave Sector Four, or even the O'Kane compound. She could stay right where she was, be as close to any of them as she'd ever been.
But not Dallas.
Her hands began to shake. He'd spent days waiting for her to come around, to tell him it would be all right, but it seemed that now he understood the one thing she needed more than apologies, more than promises.
He was finally letting her go.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The garage was dark, and the slamming of the door echoed behind her.