Page 122 of Intent to Kill
“What is your problem? You can’t blame me for everything,” he said.
“Why shouldn’t I? Every bad thing in my life finds its way back to you as the source.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Adam said.
“I don’t have to fucking stand here and listen to you.” Mercedes trudged in a staggering stomp back to her car. Adam followed, chasing right behind her, keeping up with her easily as she rounded the bend in the road to where she’d parked her black SUV.
“Why are you doing this?” he begged.
She pulled the driver’s side door open, standing over it with Adam behind her.
“We were getting back to a good place, a place where I thought you could almost lo–” He stopped himself short when she spun to face him, like she could murder him with her eyes and not feel even an ounce of remorse.
“As if I could ever.” She pulled some hair from her face. “After everything we’ve been through, as if I would ever forgive you enough to do...that.”
Adam jumped back a step as she slumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
“Don’t leave like this,” he said, leaning in through the window, bracing his arms against the sill.
She couldn’t even look at him. “After everything you did five years ago, I promised myself I would never be stupid enough to fall in love. Ever. Again. Certainly not with you.”
She pushed his arms out of her car window. “The girl you used to love died back in October 1986. The same day you did.” In a flash of headlights and screaming tires, she left him standing in her dust.
21
THE DAY YOU DIED
OCTOBER 1986
The blunt force of the shoe to his face sent blood flying. Bruised and beaten on the back terrace of the mansion, Adam could barely sit up. He curled in a ball on his side, coughing blood and gleaning the river waters through blurry eyes. He’d never had the privilege of enjoying the views before. Being pummeled and interrogated on the deck of the mansion was reserved for those Blake sentenced to death.
“The quicker you give up the fifth name, the quicker I make this for you,” Dorian Blake said.
“There’s only four of us,” Adam said, insisting through breaths that leaked red spit from his teeth. His eyes half shut from swelling, and all he could taste was the metallic tang of blood that refilled his mouth too quickly after each spit.
It had been only hours since he’d been taken by Blake’s men. But judging from the blood puddles he could see through his one squinting eye, and the pounding already at his head, he knew he wouldn’t last the day.
“That’s going to stain,” Blake said. “You expect me to believe there’s only four of you? Come on, Adam. We’rebothsmarter than that.”
“There’s only four.”
Blake laid a kick into his ribs. “I wonder what your friends would have to say about it.”
Adam’s heart tightened at the mention of his friends. What had Blake done to Dan, Carlos, and Paul? They didn’t deserve it, whatever it was. He had led them on the wrong path. Worse still, what would Blake do toherif he found out she was the fifth? Adam would die before he let that happen.
“What have you done to my friends?” Adam said, blood coating his teeth red.
“We’re keeping them close. Making sure they’re very...uncomfortable,” Blake’s wide smile pushed at his eyes.
“Don’t you fucking hur–”
Another boot to Adam’s face knocked the wind out of him again. He could feel himself fading. The darkness enveloping him. The need to sleep becoming stronger.
A pull at his hair and he was upright, face to face with Dorian Blake. At least he thought so from what was left of his vision.
“Wake the fuck up!” Blake said. “Fuck.”
Adam crashed against the concrete again, vision darkening.
