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Oh, great, now they all just pointedly didn’t look at each other.

“Can we get this meeting over with,” she said, trying to moderate her tone.

Rehv unfurled his arms and sat forward. “Yeah. I’m about outtie to go meet with the council.”

“You want us to come with you?” Trez asked.

“As long as we don’t have any big deals scheduled after midnight.”

Xhex shook her head. “The last one on the books for this week happened at nine and went off without a problem. Although I will say our buyer was extremely nervous, and that was before it came over the police scanner that another drug dealer’s been found dead.”

“So out of the six major subcontractors who buy from us, there are two left? Man, that’s a turf war, right there.”

“And whoever’s pulling this shit is probably going to try to work his way up the food chain.”

Trez spoke up. “Which is why iAm and I think you should have someone with you twenty-four/seven until this shit shakes out.”

Rehv seemed annoyed but he didn’t disagree. “We got any intel on who’s leaving all those bodies around?”

“Well, duh,” Trez said. “People think it’s you.”

“Not logical. Why would I kill off my own buyers?”

Now Rehv was the one getting the hairy eyeball from the peanut gallery. “Oh, come on,” he said. “I’m not that bad. Well, okay, but only if someone fucks with me. And I’m sorry, but the four who’ve died? Straight-up businessmen. No bullshit. They were good customers.”

“You talk to your suppliers?” Trez asked.

“Yup. Told them to hang tight and confirmed I was expecting to move the same amount of product. Those who we lost will quickly be replaced by others, because dealers are like weeds. They always grow back.”

There was some discussion about the market and pricing, and then Rehv said, “Before we run out of time, talk to me about the club. What’s going down?”

Right, great question, Xhex thought. And our survey says? Ding-ding-ding: John Matthew, most likely. On his knees in front of Gina.

“Xhex, are you growling?”

“No.” She forced herself to focus and gave a quick overview of the incidents thus far tonight. Trez reported on the Iron Mask, which he had been put in charge of, and then iAm talked finances and about Sal’s Restaurant, another of Rehv’s holdings. All in all, it was business as usual—considering they were breaking the kind of human laws that got you felony convictions if you were caught.

Still Xhex’s head was only partially in the game, and when it came time to leave, she was the first to hit the door, even though she usually lingered.

She walked out of the office at the perfect time.

If she’d wanted to get kneed in the balls.

At just that moment, Qhuinn appeared at the head of the hall of private baths, his lips swollen and red, his hair tousled, the scent of sex and orgasms and dirty deeds done with finesse preceding him.

She stopped, even though that was a dumb-ass idea.

Gina was next, and she looked like she needed a drink. As in Gatorade. The woman was boneless, not because she was in her deliberate trolling-for-sex mode, but because she’d been worked out properly, and the soft smile on her mouth was far too private and honest for Xhex’s liking.

John was the last out, his head held high, his stare clear, his shoulders back.

He had been magnificent. She was willing to bet…he had been magnificent.

His head turned and he met her eyes. Gone was the shy regard, the blush, the awkward fawning. He nodded once and looked away, composed…and ready for more sex, given the way he sized up another one of the prostitutes.

An uneasy, unfamiliar sorrow rippled through Xhex’s chest, screwing up the even beat of her heart. In her drive to save him from the chaos her last lover had gone through, she’d ruined something; in pushing him away, she’d stripped him of something precious.

His innocence was gone.

Xhex put her wristwatch up to her mouth. “I need some air.”

Trez’s response was straight-up approval. “Good idea.”

“I’ll be back right before you leave for the council meeting.”

When Lash returned from his father’s lair, he gave himself only