Page 4 of Intent to Kill
He grabbed her by the neck and pulled her in deeply, kissing her hard as the outside world melted away lazily. As always, it felt like they were the only two left in the world. Like it was only ever meant to be the two of them. Their lips parted slowly, letting the hot breeze run between them as they broke away.
He drank her in one last time, knowing that for him she would always be the only sun that could clear the storm.
“I love you,” Adam said, and he knew he was saying it for the very last time.
As he let go, he placed his hand roughly on her sternum. With all his force, he pushed her backward, over the ledge, just at the time that a train was passing below.
She gasped as she stumbled and started to fall from him, her face etched in an unforgettable hue that looked a lot like disappointment. And heartbreak.
She fell almost in slow motion, her legs dangling out in front of her, her hand outstretched above to reach him. Her body getting farther and farther from his with each passing second. She landed with a bang onto the passing train below.
Adam looked on as she slammed into the train car, the echoes of her angry protests whistling back at him as he watched the train grow smaller in the distance, until she was just a speck on the horizon, until he was satisfied that her identity would remain a secret.
Adam lifted his hands to surrender, hearing the click of guns surrounding him and an angry cold barrel pressing into his head. It was finally over. Months of pursuits, struggles for power and wrests for control, all finished. But they hadn’t seen her.Shewas still safe.Shewas going to live. But him? Dorian Blake was going to kill him.
He was right after all, it turned out. Adam Vandemilio died that day.
* * *
FEBRUARY 1991
(Five Years Later)
They were reckless when they were younger. Adam knew that now. There was a time when they would’ve ripped their lives apart and burned the city to the ground just to take what they wanted. There was nothing they wouldn’t have done for each other.
But they were also stupid. When they started a war with Dorian Blake five years earlier, they were doomed to fail from the start. Ridge City was built on a system of crime, it was its lifeblood, and nobody was more powerful than Dorian Blake—head of the Blake Family crime empire. Nobody fucked with Dorian Blake. Nobody challenged Dorian Blake. Nobody looked at Dorian Blake with even a funny kind of side eye and lived to tell the tale.
Adam had known that, but with much more passion than sense, purposefully pushing against every status quo that had been set, he put together his own crew. Himself, sharpshooter Paul, lawyer Dan, drug runner Carlos, and driver Mercedes.
Yes, nobody fucked with Dorian Blake. Nobody could take him down. That’s why it was so surprising when Adam’s team of five came so close to doing just that.
It’d been five years since Adam had set foot in Ridge City. Five years since he’d left behind his city and his friends, swearing that he would never return. Now, there he was, breaking another promise that he swore he’d always keep. He’d always been bad at keeping his word, but he’d been worse at following the rules, even the ones he set for himself.
It was an insignificant Tuesday when Adam drove his car over state lines and back to the place where his heart had always felt it belonged. Doing a happy little flip in his chest, it beat harder, before almost stilling completely when he remembered what he’d come back to do.
The impossible.
Even under a cover of darkness, the city looked the same as it ever did: wet, dirty, and hot, but with a promise of adventure.
Classic Florida.
Strong sandy beaches wrapped around the eastern coast, smoke polluted skies while garbage polluted the nose, and there was a labyrinth of miniature waterways that ran all the way to the west. The southern mansions were still sitting pretentiously high on the hill, surrounded by a moat of pristine ocean.
There were two sides to Ridge City. Tropically paradisiacal yet devastatingly derelict. But the most interesting things never happened in plain sight. The beauty of the city was in what it was hiding.
Adam arrived at the Tropics Hotel at eight fifteen. Exiting his car, he stopped to inhale the smell of the sea and listen to the chorus of waves crashing upon the sand. It was one of the cheaper hotels in town, only two stories and positioned directly opposite the beach with the glow of pink neon lights bouncing up off the pavement. It was nothing fancy. But it would do.
Adam pushed through the glass doors into the lobby and was pleased to find it smelled better inside than it did outside.
“Reservation?”
“No, but I’ll be staying a while, so book me out an apartment. Something long term.”
The clerk placed a key on the counter without even looking up. In response, Adam thumped down a thicker than necessary roll of cash. “I’ll need you to hand over every key you have for this room. I don’t like being surprised.”
That certainly got the guy’s attention. Arching one brow, the clerk finally looked up and took Adam in, almost needing to stretch his neck to see it all.
Adam knew he was intimidating, that’s why the clerk should’ve known better than to look at him for too long. Adam gritted his teeth and the clerk snapped into action faster than if he’d been caught with his hand down his pants.
