The rooms she'd been given were on the third floor of the building where most of the O'Kanes slept. Every time she turned around someone was up here, hammering or painting or hooking up plumbing in another new room. They were expanding, adding blood to their ranks as Dallas's power grew.
That was why Dallas wanted them all at his weekly parties—so that the new faces would know him, and he would know them. It had seemed harmless enough until Lili appeared obediently at the first one only to discover how intimately the O'Kanes defined know.
Fighting a shudder, she straightened her back and lifted her chin. The drugs hadn't kicked in yet, but she imagined she could feel the comforting distance wrapping around her as she descended to the second floor. The party room sat at the end of a long hallway, but the door was open, and she could see flashes of skin.
That was the danger of being late. They'd already started taking their clothes off—at least the ones who'd worn any to begin with.
Just before she reached the end of the hall, Trix walked out of the room with a cigarette in one hand. The redhead was usually as pristine as Lili had always been, embracing the fashion of Sector Five instead of rejecting it.
Not tonight. Instead of a perfectly tailored dress and crinoline, Trix had a man's shirt slipping off one shoulder and falling to mid-thigh. Her hair was a tousled mess—not the artful tumble Lili had labored over, but the kind of disheveled that only came from being tangled around a man's fist.
In spite of that, the woman was smiling. So Lili did the only thing she could—she smiled back. "Trix."
"Lili." The woman's smile didn't fade, but her expression took on a guarded quality. "Having a good night?"
They didn't trust her. The harder Lili tried to blend in, the more she felt the distance between them. And with her most of all, because Lili knew her father had hurt Trix. Her father had hurt every woman who touched his life.
Trix and Lili were the only two who'd survived the association.
Her smile hadn't worked, so Lili let it drift away and settled for being politely impassive. "I am, thank you."
Trix lifted one eyebrow as she brushed past her. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Faint warning. The things Trix did on stage at the O'Kanes' bar shocked Lili enough, but when Trix's lover won his match at the last fight night, the two of them had—
No, the drugs weren't strong enough to protect her from that memory. And they weren't strong enough to insulate her when she crossed the threshold into Dallas O'Kane's private den of sin.
The sounds were the most visceral part. There was so much skin, but she could unfocus her eyes, stare at nothing in particular. But that didn't protect her from the sounds, and they were still so alien, even after all these weeks.
Laughter. Moans. The slap of flesh against flesh, of bodies coming together with a force that made her cringe inside. Voices rose and fell in and around the cries of pleasure, as if they were gossiping over tea instead of…
Lili didn't even have a word for it.
A couple was kissing just inside the door, the man's hand barely hidden beneath the woman's sheer skirt. Lili jerked her gaze away and scanned the edge of the wall, desperately looking for a safe corner.
There were so many men. More than there were women, so many more. A few of them tried to catch her gaze, but Lili stubbornly refused, though she knew she'd have to give in to one of them eventually. A woman on her own in the sectors didn't last, and Dallas O'Kane hadn't been able to hide his disappointment at learning how little she knew about the inner workings of Sector Five. His tolerance would wear thin soon enough, and if she didn't have a man willing to claim her...
She'd trained to be a wife, but Sector Four didn't seem to have those. She didn't know what they had—mistresses was the nicest word she could come up with. It was better than the alternative. At least a mistress might have some duties outside of the bedroom.
But if she had to be a whore, she'd do that, too. She'd do whatever it took.
A flash of white in the shadows drew her gaze, and Lili's heart shot into her throat.
Amazing how homesick a well-tailored dress shirt could leave her. She didn't miss much about her life in Sector Five, but she had understood the rules there. The man on the couch in the corner was perfect in a way that felt familiar. Not just well-dressed, but refined. His crisp white shirt and impeccably fitted slacks stood out among the leather and denim popular with the O'Kanes, but he didn't appear to care.
In that, she envied him.
She didn't make the decision to drift toward him, not on a conscious level. It simply happened, like it was inevitable. Like he was a magnet, and she was steel instead of ice, tugged toward the only person in the room who was like her.