met Cerys's gaze over the empty seat between them. "You sure you're not interested in expanding operations south?"
She answered first with a barely perceptible shake of her head. "I have plenty to occupy myself at the moment, not to mention the hard facts. In my particular business, establishing a base of operations and a solid clientele could take years." She leaned closer. "Years during which no one would be making any money."
Silence settled around the table as men measured greed against laziness, and Dallas weighed his own ambition against the risks inherent in tackling a new territory. He had enough to keep himself neck-deep in toys and trinkets, enough to keep his men happy and his women independent.
But he could have more. They could all have more, including the sorry bastards dying while Trent's men ripped each other to pieces, fighting for scraps.
"I'll do it," he said abruptly. "If we can agree on a percentage worth the risk I'm about to take, I'll do it. And make you all a fuckton of money."
Colby spat a curse. "This is bullshit."
"This is math." Gideon held up his fingers. "Four makes a majority now. Me, Cerys, Jernigan, and Dallas--"
"He can't vote for himself, for fuck's sake," Fleming snarled. "That's ridiculous. O'Kane should abstain, which makes this three against three."
Dallas wasn't surprised when Scott shook his head. If Colby called the sky blue, Scott would die claiming it was red. "Four in favor. Four against two. A majority by any reckoning."
"Then it's done." Cerys gestured toward the two silent servants near the door. "Drinks, gentlemen?"
"Only if it's some of O'Kane's famous whiskey," Scott said, and from the gleam in his eyes, Dallas wondered if the man was envisioning getting a cut of that along with his share of Sector Three.
He could dream.
As the taller server started toward the table, Colby shot out of his chair, upending it with a clatter that made Fleming jump. "If you're going to waste time celebrating this ridiculous, hollow victory, I'll be leaving. Some of us have work to do in our sectors."
The door slammed, and Jernigan snorted over the glass one server had already slid in front of him. "Someone's got his panties in a bunch."
Fleming met Jernigan's gaze coolly. "You don't have to be ridiculous to think this all happened too fast. Quick decisions make for deep regrets."
"Not for me. If this goes south, I've lost nothing." He smirked at Dallas. "No offense."
Dallas lifted his own glass and faked his way through a barbaric grin. "What could go wrong?"
Chapter Ten
Most people in Sector Two would say Avery had done very well for herself.
It was true--if you judged such things by luxury and opulence. Lex perched on the edge of a damask settee and tried to study the receiving room objectively. The furnishings were expensive in an understated way that spoke of money and taste, never veering over the line between tactful and tacky. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a small but lush garden, and even through the sheer drapes obscuring the glass, she could see at least four gardeners busily tending the foliage.
They had to be finished, after all, before the master of the house arrived home for the day.
Lex would have rather been sitting on a wooden crate back home, getting splinters in her ass.
The servant who'd answered the door reappeared, edging into the room holding a silver tray laden with an elaborate tea set. The delicate porcelain cups rattled on their saucers as she hugged the wall, her gaze darting nervously to Lex--and Mad, who lurked behind her like a dark shadow decorated with menacing tattoos and deadly silver knives.
"Lady Avery will see you shortly," the old woman murmured, scurrying forward to drop the tray on the carved table in front of Lex. It thumped down on the wood from two inches in the air, and the servant was out the door before the cups finished rocking.
"Maybe we're overdressed," Mad said, his tone amused.
"Dangerously uncultured is more like it." The nervous fluttering in Lex's stomach had kicked up into a rolling boil, and she clenched her hands around the edge of the bench. "The knives are a great touch, though."
Mad dropped one hand to her shoulder. For only a moment, long enough to squeeze encouragingly, but that one touch said it all. He wasn't just her bodyguard, he was her brother, her family, bound by ink instead of blood, but bound every bit as tight.
He released her with a chuckle. "The knives are useful.