TITLE: "DIRTY LITTLE SECRET"

SERIES: THE DEVIL'S CRADLE

CHAPTER: 50. Sequel to "ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME"

FANDOM: "FIREFLY"

AUTHOR: Alison M. DOBELL

PAIRING: Zoe/Wash Kaylee/Simon Mal/Inara

RATING: NC-17

SUMMARY: "The Captain is given a guided tour of his 'prison'.

Zoe finds out who the Shepherd was sending a wave to when

Jerrod's men sedated him and River complicates the situation

with information that makes things even more confusing."

"DIRTY LITTLE SECRET"

A "Firefly" Story

Written by Alison M. DOBELL

* * * * *

The Lady heard her husband out in silence, her expression cold, her words when she responded were chips of ice that seemed to freeze in the air between them. A fury so bitterly contained that the permafrost of her regard even caused him to take stock, though there was no apology or sign of regret. Rather he seemed to savour her reaction.

He shrugged as if it was nothing. "Is business."

Her eyes flashed in depths few had the stomach or wit to fathom. Unafraid he seemed more amused than worried that he had offended her, after all he was the injured party. He liked the fact that she was feisty in her cold calculating way, it burned a slow excitement within him that he had caught and held this strong, enigmatic and sharply intelligent woman in thrall to him for so long. Though she would not agree to such a description it mattered not. She was his and that was fact.

"You are upset."

Her look said he was a fool to state something so obvious then clinically, and precisely the Lady told him just what she thought of his fit of pique. As they walked through the palatial corridors of their mansion house he stayed silent, letting her enunciate all of his failings and short comings as a family man. It mattered not to him, this was a lesson for other eyes just as hers was a rebuke for other ears. Wh