Dallas backhanded Martel, whipping the man’s head to one side. “Noelle’s one of my people.” He didn’t give Martel a chance to respond before hitting him again. “Why frame Cunningham? What did your boss have to gain?”
“I don’t know.” Martel recoiled when Dallas lifted his hand again, jerking against the chains that bound him. “I fucking well don’t. I shoot whoever I’m told to shoot. That’s my job. That’s all I ever know.”
Jasper believed him, which meant the man was stupid on top of everything else. It was one bit of wisdom Bren had passed along—assassins didn’t ask, didn’t often care about the reasoning behind their jobs. But they always, always knew why, because they couldn’t afford not to.
“This is useless,” Jasper muttered, more to himself than to Dallas. Martel was a dead man already, and only information could delay his execution. If he didn’t have that, he was out of time.
Dallas watched their captive, icy rage gathering behind the blank expression he’d worn since he’d first seen Lex, unconscious and bleeding. “I agree,” he said. “Unless you want to take a couple swings for Noelle, why don’t you go see if Bren’s friend is any smarter than this sorry bastard?”
Jasper shook his head and turned. Even if he had the stomach for it, it wasn’t his style. “Martel’s yours.” He tossed the words back over his shoulder.
“Damn right he is,” came Dallas’s reply, a claim reinforced by the sound of a fist hitting flesh, along with Martel’s pained grunt.
The cries rose into screams, and Jasper closed the door behind him to shut them out. Bren’s friend, Lorenzo Cruz, sat at the square table in the center of the room, his shirt stripped away. Rachel perched beside him, swabbing antiseptic on his shoulder.
Jasper watched as she set the gauze aside and reached for a wickedly sharp scalpel instead. One cut, shallow and slow—and Cruz didn’t blink, showed no sign whatsoever that he felt the incision.
Ace winced at another muffled scream from behind the door. “I don’t know what’s creepier. That guy’s screaming, or the fact that Rachel’s cutting a tracker out of this motherfucker’s flesh without drugs, and he’s not even twitching.”
“I have a delicate touch,” she murmured, then flashed Cruz a reassuring look. “It’s okay, right?”
“It’s fine.” Cruz shared a tight smile with Bren. “I’ve been through worse.”
“He’s being modest.” Bren tapped the table. “We were running an undercover op once. Dipshit here got shot in the leg and still managed to con his way through a sector checkpoint without blowing it.”
“You do what you gotta do to get the job done.” Cruz met Jasper’s gaze. “When it’s a job you can live with. Fewer and fewer of those coming down from on high these days.”
“Or you’ve worked your way too far up the food chain to keep your conscience clean.” Jasper dragged out an empty chair and sat. “Can you connect this guy to Gareth Woods?”
Cruz nodded. “No doubt. Martel’s been tasked to Woods’s security detail for the last six months.”
“Why would Woods want Noelle dead? How did he even know where she was?”
Both of Cruz’s eyebrows swept upwards. “You must not have access to the vid network out here.”
Ace answered with a frown. “Not without patching in, which is usually more trouble than it’s worth. Why, has Noelle been in the vids?”
“Nonstop for the last couple days,” Cruz replied. “Someone leaked a video of her serving drinks at that club of yours, and now everyone in Eden thinks her father’s doing dirty business with Dallas O’Kane.”
It made killing her the perfect way to discredit Cunningham. Everyone in Eden would assume he’d done it to cover up his dealings with Dallas. “How many others would jump at this chance?” Jasper asked. “Even if we deal with Woods, is she still in danger?”
Cruz blinked and glanced at Bren. “Is this guy for real? He’s just going to deal with a councilman?”
“Him? No.” Bren inclined his head toward the door. “But Dallas? Yeah.”
Jasper bit his tongue, but not even that could hold back his vicious curse. “Fuck that. I’m not passing everything off to Dallas, not this time.”
“You can’t waltz into Eden and double tap the guy with a forty-five, either. Hitting Woods is going to take money, planning, and a hell of a lot of favors.” Bren lit a cigarette. “Dallas is the only one who can get it done, no matter how much you want to be the one protecting Noelle.”
“Shit.” Cruz’s face shuttered. “As long as she’s in the sectors, she’s a liability for her father, which means she’s a target for any of his enemies. Cunningham knows that. This morning he put out a press release talking about how he was going to rescue her.”
Jasper bit off a curse. “So the only way to stop the attempts is either to scare the shit out of anyone who even thinks about trying it…or to send her back to her family.”
Ace interrupted for the first time. “She’s inked. Will they even take her back? How much juice does her pop have?”
“He has plenty,” Rachel answered. “At least, he did when I lived there. I’m sure he’ll spin it like she’s gone nuts, but he couldn’t leave her out here, so he brought her home to recover.”
“The trauma of the sectors,” Cruz drawled. “She could strip naked and walk down the streets of Eden, and people would eat up the scandal. If her father managed to bury the original charges, he could play the martyr. The loving father struggling to save his daughter’s eternal soul. Of course, he’d have to ruin the men who originally arrested her…” He glanced at Bren. “But most of the councilmen aren’t above framing good men for their own gain.”
“It’s been known to happen,” Bren agreed mildly.
“There.” Rachel dropped something tiny into a metal bowl with a clink, then smoothed down the edges of a small, square bandage on Cruz’s arm. “No more tracker.”
“Thanks.” Cruz flexed slightly, testing his shoulder. “I guess there’s no going back for me. The Cunningham girl is lucky the rules don’t apply to her.”
“Yeah.” But something told Jasper that Noelle wouldn’t agree.
The door to the back room crashed open, and Dallas stepped through, wiping his bloody hands on a rag. Through the doorway, Jasper could just make out the still, unmoving form of Alistair Martel.
Bren rose. “It’s done?”
Dallas nodded shortly and met Cruz’s eyes. “I know what you gave up to bring us Martel. I’ll make sure we’re square.” Dallas shifted his attention to Rachel. “You and Ace take our new friend out front. Get him something to eat, and anything else he needs.”
They hustled the man out of the room, leaving Jasper staring at Dallas and Bren. “Tell me this isn’t as fucked up as it seems.”
Dallas listened in silence as Bren relayed everything Cruz had told them, and shook his head when the man finished. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you all along, Jas. Politics in Eden are like a vicious, bloody game of chess.” He sighed. “I’d bet my boots a story about the attempt on her life is about to hit the vid network, if it hasn’t already. Noelle’s on the board now, and the game doesn’t end until she’s either back in Eden or dead.”
All that mattered to Jasper was her safety. “I’m going to see what Mad can set up. We need to monitor the situation in Eden.”
“Bren can do that.” Dallas gestured. “Go now. I need to talk to Jasper.”
Jasper wasn’t remotely in the mood, and he told Dallas so before the door even snapped shut. “The pep talk’s gonna have to wait, coach.”