Page 121 of Intent to Kill
“You want to what?” Adam’s voice tightened.
“I don’t think we should do this anymore, I don’t want to lose anyone else,” she said, without any sort of emotion coating her voice.
“It’s too late for us now, the damage is done, best we can do is try to win.”
“We have to give this up, before we’re all found out, before we lose–”
“We’re not going to fucking lose,” Adam said, getting angry now.
“All you do is lose,” she said with venom in her voice.
He stared at her, his anger growing, too, as he watched the hatred in her eyes. Her beautiful gold-brown eyes were a raging red. The same eyes that had looked at him days earlier like she might really love him, were now replaced with demonic aggression. A look that said:I could never love you, not after everything you’ve done.
“Adam Vandemilio?” a voice said.
They both spun quickly, guns in the air, aimed in the direction that they heard that voice.
In front of them stood three women, looking shocked and terrified, with their hands raised in surrender.
Adam’s eyes shuttered as he looked them up and down. Recognizing them as some of Tia’s girls, he lowered the gun. “Oh sorry...I’m a bit...we’re a bit–”
The girls, just as slowly, lowered their hands back to their sides. Not a great start. The red-haired one smiled tightly as she introduced her group. “I’m Lulu, this is AnnaBeth, and Carmela.”
Adam ran his hands through his hair. “Adam—and Mercedes,” he said. When he turned to Mercedes, she glared at him and turned her back. He recognized that she was only pretending to ignore him, and thus the conversation.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Adam said.
Lulu wasted no time. “Tia told me that if anything happened to her, I should come find you.”
He felt Mercedes harden behind him, but he kept his attention forward, to Lulu. “She did? Why?”
“It’s my job to look after the girls, now that she’s gone,” Lulu shuddered. Adam felt he could visibly see the weight that Tia carried around settling down onto Lulu’s shoulders. “And she said you would help me with that.”
“You want my help?” Adam said, genuinely confused and sorrowed. “After this?” He gestured toward Tia’s grave where Dan, Carlos, and Paul were all looking over at them.
“I’m not going back to work for that fucking prick Dorian Blake,” Lulu said. Adam raised his brows. “He killed my friend. He’d kill all of us without a second thought. If we go back to work for him, Tia died in vain. I won’t let that happen.”
“You still want to work with us?” Adam looked back at Mercedes, who was still shielding her face.
“Tia promised me that you were going to take down Dorian Blake. Are you still going to do that?” Lulu asked.
Adam nodded.
“Then if you’re not backing down, neither are we,” Lulu said.
Adam smiled. He was going to make it his mission to keep these girls safe anyway. But...if they still believed in him, if he could, in fact, make it right and protect them in Tia’s honor, then maybe he could move ahead, maybe he could release himself and push forward. “We’re not backing down.”
“Good,” Lulu smiled too. And with that she, AnnaBeth, and Carmela were headed toward Dan, Carlos, and Paul.
Adam started to follow, but Mercedes grabbed his arm. “You’re letting them keep going?”
“You heard them. They want to,” he said.
“So you’re going to let them risk their fucking lives, too,” Mercedes said.
“I’m notlettinganyone do anything,” he said, ripping his arm away from her grip. “Everyone who’s here, is here of their own free will.”
She only scoffed at him.
