Page 24 of Prohibited

Slowly, Lindsay released her. And then like a shot, she moved away from him, turning to the side to pull up her drawers. Then, she tugged her camisole closed across her breasts, causing more than a little disappointment to stir in his chest. She faced him, backing away to the other side of the cell until the backs of her legs touched the cot.

“Who are you?” she said, face twisting with contempt. “Pony?”

“Lindsay.” He dipped his head in a small bow, unaffected by her effort to mock him with his nickname. Only Alex called him Pony.

“Who are you?” She swayed, but still didn’t sit on the cot.

Lindsay cocked his head to the side, studying her face carefully. She was a strange sight to be sure. Beautiful. Looking like a strange nightmarish creature covered in her own blood.

“Lindsay,” he said again, which drew a sound of irritation from her.

“But why am I here?” More anger. And underneath it, a current of desperation.

After a moment of hesitation, Lindsay said, “Let’s get you something to eat. Then we’ll talk.”

“Goddammit,” she said as he pulled out the key to the cell and unlocked it. He looked over his shoulder at her. And while he could see the wild desire to make a rush for the door rioting through her, her better sense prevailed. Lindsay closed the door behind him and locked it again.

Then, she came toward the bars of the cell as he retreated toward the door. He looked over his shoulder again.

Her beautiful brown eyes glittered with anger, a small line appearing between her eyebrows. “Where is Ryan? I want to talk to him.”

Lindsay pulled the door of the room closed behind him, locking it, shaking his head. He moved slowly down the concrete hallway to the main door, insides churning. When Alex and Ryan had told him about their plan, he’d protested vehemently. Where was the sense in involving this woman in their fucking mess? Some tag along of Walter Stanley’s. It wouldn't surprise him a bit if Walter Stanley had forced her into the whole thing to begin with.

But Ryan and Alex wouldn’t see reason. Nothing could persuade either of them that just because she was present didn’t mean that she wasn’t directly responsible for Tommy’s death. It had cracked something inside of Ryan, losing Tommy, and Lindsay often found himself looking at a man who was more and more of a stranger to him. And of all things, this tragedy had brought Alex and Ryan together in a way that Lindsay had never expected. It wasn’t affection. Instead, it was a common bond born of a mutual desire to destroy the thing that had taken their brother from them. And it unsettled him that Alex had shown no more feeling concerning the matter outside of his initial outburst over the fact that Tommy was dead.

Ryan, on the other side of the coin, was steeped in his grief. It consumed him. Boiled off of him like heat. Brightened his eyes with a feverish glow. Drove him tomadness. He’d become withdrawn. More quick to anger. Drank more frequently than he ever had.

The alliance was frankly unsettling, and Lindsay was having trouble working out why. Perhaps because he didn’t want to admit that a small part of him was jealous. Though they’d always been a unit of sorts, the four musketeers, his relationship with Alex had always been separate from his relationship with Ryan. And never the twain should meet. Yet here they were, at all hours with their heads put together, talking in low tones. Looking over maps, drafting letters. Running errands together, or discussing them with one another.

Yes, perhaps he was jealous. He didn’t have the same proclivity for violence as the other two. He’d hurt people who’d deserved it, but he didn’t mete out punishment to every person who crossed him. And certainly not to a potentially innocent woman who didn’t deserve it. All this had earned him was a backseat while the other two sped down the road to Hell.

It wasn’t going to come to a good end for any of them. He was going to have to put his foot down. He wasn’t fundamentally opposed to interrogating her and finding out what she knew. He wasn’t even opposed to using her as blackmail. But he was opposed to subjecting her to these indignities, to cutting her up.

And he was absolutely opposed to her murder.

Lindsay opened the door and stepped out into the main room of the Crystal. Alex was reclining at the bar top with his jacket off. Ryan was standing near him, mouth pressedinto a grim line. Alex looked amused, which was usually never good for anybody.

Lindsay looked between them, a wave of irritation going through him like heat. These two, in cahoots. He didn’t like it a bit.

“Do you have to torment the poor woman?” he said.

“Ryan is the one who beat her,” Alex said, smiling. God, he was gloating. Lindsay did not miss the way Ryan flinched. “And then he left her tied up. I just stepped in to investigate further possibilities.”

“She's asking for you by name.”

Lindsay looked at Ryan, eyes narrowing. He didn’t miss the way Ryan flinched before he mastered himself.

“Oh yes,” Alex said, striking a match to light his cigarette. “The gardener’s apprentice.”

“So?” Ryan said, holding Lindsay’s gaze.

“You really think this isn’t going to complicate your little plan?” Lindsay, for one, did. It was hard to know these days because Ryan wasn’t himself. But he also knew him, had known him for years, and he didn’t know how Ryan would bring himself to kill a woman he’d once been enamored with, no matter how long ago. On the other hand, Alex was starting to rub off on him.

“Yes, Lindsay,” Ryan said in a voice so cold that it chilled him. “I really think this isn’t going to complicate my little plan.”

“He knows where his loyalties lie,” Alex said in an equally chilling voice. “Do you?”

Lindsay swallowed. Then he opened his mouth. Closed it again. “Do you know what Alex did to her?”