Page 3 of Intent to Kill
Was that his heart, or the sound of his limbs hitting the concrete? Didn’t matter—his heartbeat was all he could feel—at least it was still there.
The noise around him became just a distant echo. Every muscle in his body screamed when he peeled himself from the ground and squinted to see the onslaught of black sedans still heading their way.
Favoring his left leg, Adam hobbled to the driver’s door of the shattered red convertible, where Mercedes laid groaning, her head resting gently against the seat.
“Come on, baby, come on! We gotta run.” They were no strangers to a chase, but Blake’s men were closing in.
Mercedes cursed and pushed the door open, missing her footing and falling.
Adam couldn’t afford to give her time to recover, he plucked her from the ground, carrying her bridal style as he bolted from the open loading docks into an alleyway to continue their escape on foot.
The bright Ridge City sunlight was lost as they pushed farther into the maze, covering them in a cloud of cold darkness that was completely at odds with the tropical climate of the city. Adam put Mercedes down when she was fully coherent, and hand in hand, they ran.
They ran past dumpsters, over broken bottles smashing under their feet, and through piles of trash that nearly tripped them.
Passing exit after exit, they found themselves confined, scurrying around in an aimless panic like rats trapped in a cage. Some exits blocked by vehicles, others blocked by burly men with guns and all-too-happy trigger fingers, but the message was clear. It was a trap. And they had been caught.
Adam embraced Mercedes again, and they ran as fast as they could toward the last available light source they could see. That exitwasblocked, but only by two haphazard-looking rookies, and Adam easily got the jump on them.
Running out the only way they could, into an open, brown grass clearing along the tracks in the train yard, Adam didn’t dare let himself slow. They jumped and ducked their way across the yard, underneath trains and over the tracks, breath laboring and agility showing its head because they didn’t once trip. They were too well practiced.
They stopped in a fierce panic when they hit yet another dead end, stranded at the edge of the rail yard, standing atop a large concrete overlook. It was a steep drop down onto the train tracks below, an un-survivable jump. Cursing his luck, Adam swore, finding his was running out.
“We can make it,” Mercedes said. “We can do it.”
But the steep concrete edge looked a lot like the end of the road.
Adam looked back at where they had come from to see loads of Blake’s men in the distance, rushing at them, guns in hand, to end it once and for all.
“You can make it,” he said. He bent forward and put his hands on his knees to take a breath.
“What?”
His heart bottomed out, as if it were telling him he knew what he had to do, even as it skipped a beat in denial. “You gotta go, baby. You gotta leave me here.”
“No way!” she said. “In for life, remember?”
“I know,” he said. But there wasn’t time for protests, only action.
Hadn’t he spent enough time already denying his fate? Hadn’t he caused enough damage as it was? Realization settled unpleasantly into his stomach like an undercooked, bloody piece of meat. He could no longer save himself. But maybe he could still save her. He was the only one whom Dorian Blake was really chasing after all.
“Blake will never be ab-”
“Baby! This is bigger than us. Blake already has Paul,” Adam sighed. “And Carlos. And Dan. Three of us already down. He will never stop hunting me. I’m the one he really wants.”
“Exactly!” Mercedes said. “He won’t kill them, but he will kill you. For what you’ve done? You think he forgives that kind of shit? If he catches you, you’re a dead man. End of story.”
“He doesn’t know you had anything to do with this, I can still save you,” Adam said.
“Don’t you dare. Fight your way out of this with me, and then we will go together and save Paul, Dan, and Carlos.”
“We’ve been running for two weeks, baby,” Adam said.
“There’s what? Twenty guys heading our way? We’ve taken down more than that before. Get your gun up and let’s fight.” She frowned and reached into her pocket to grab her weapon, blowing more blonde hair from her face as she gripped her gun with both hands.
Adam looked again at the hordes of men rounding up toward them. A few more minutes and her secret would no longer be protected. He couldn’t let them see her face.
Sighing, he said, “Okay. But first, kiss me.”
