Page 7 of Intent to Kill
She wasn’t the only one who had moved on without him, his city and his friends had as well. No one seemed to neither know, nor care, who Adam Vandemilio was, and he could count on one hand the number of people who would ever recognize him if they came face to face. For now, he was a ghost.
Inside the local post office, a small storefront nestled along the beach strip, he settled into a private writing bay along the window.
Catching a glimpse of his reflection, he looked up. He couldn’t understand how the city had forgotten him so easily—he looked the same as he did five years ago. Thick bushy eyebrows hanging over his dark eyes. A rough face with square jaw. Bronzed caramel hair in a choppy cut with more length over the front of his face. Though, where his eyes used to be ambitious, they now looked angsty. Hollowed.
He longed to feel alive again.
Shaking the view, he focused on the task at hand. The snippets from the yellow pages had crumpled slightly when he ripped them from his wall and shoved them in the pocket of his jeans, but they were still legible.
None of his friends were all that difficult to track down. He swore it was as if they were Hansel and Gretel, dropping bread crumbs for him to assure a speedy discovery.
Dan had been the easiest to track down. His law firm had tacky, infomercial-style ads all throughout the book. Going full time for the Blake Family had obviously agreed with him. He had one of the largest offices in the county, with a personal assistant to boot.
Paul was next. He was working at one of the Blake Family’s shooting ranges. A marksman and former hitman by trade, working at a shooting range was a waste of his skills. Instead of making incredulous shots across canyons, he was stuck behind a desk.
Carlos was a little harder to find. It was his job to stay hidden. But that didn’t mean the man didn’t have an address. Carlos was a cooker by trade, but Blake had him funneling supplies of cocaine to low-level drug runners. Again, a waste of his talents. There was much more to Carlos than just managing drug supplies to dealers. He could have been creating the next big hit.
It certainly wasn’t difficult to find Mercedes. It wasn’t as if she was trying to hide, wrapping her arms around Dorian Blake’s neck on page four of the gossip column. Easy to find, sure, but she was the one he dreaded to see most of all.
Exiting the post office with his envelopes in hand, Adam stepped onto the street, the humidity hitting him so forcefully, it was as if he’d stuck his face into an oven.
On the good side of town, he was well underdressed in his black muscle tee. The lusher side of the city was filled with greenery, sparse gardens and glistening turquoise rivers. Classic southern east coast. An enviable place to live for those who could handle the heat, but didn’t mind a city run by criminals. Most couldn’t stomach staying longer than a week. At best. That’s why tourism was a massive industry for Ridge City.
Before jumping into the driver’s seat of his car, Adam slipped three of his yellow envelopes into the mail, holding onto the fourth. He was about to shove into first and pull out when a truck displaying the Blake Family logo turned into his path, freezing him on the spot. With a quick honk it was on its way, slowly pottering out of sight. But Adam clenched his jaw and shallowed his breathing, a familiar bubble of anxiety threatening to rip his guts out.
Just a truck. Breathe.
He would not let his fear get the better of him, but there was a voice in his head asking how long he could push it down without being swallowed whole. Hell, it was already chomping on his side.
* * *
“Carlos! My man, have a seat.” Blake’s calm choice of words was at odds with the venomous tone he paired them with. Carlos assumed that he did it on purpose to give people a feeling of unease.
Carlos stood at attention in front of Blake’s private booth. Nobody would ever guess it was only nine in the morning from the atmosphere inside the Neptune Club. Blacked-out windows and strobing green neon lights hid the time of day. The place was a myriad of unfiltered noise—slot machines spilling in the gaming lounge, bottles slamming at the bar, high-heels traipsing across the stage.
“Scoot over, Shaundi,” Blake said, he and the stripper both sliding up the red leather bench as Carlos reluctantly slipped in beside them.
“You look somber. Why don’t you have a drink?” Again, a nice gesture laced in venom.
“Not this morning. I’m just here to check in,” Carlos said.
Without taking his eyes off his sidepiece, Blake managed a nod. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice the heaving sigh that escaped from Carlos as he placed his duffle bag on the table and zipped it open.
Inside, six bags of cocaine and a roll of fifty thousand in hundred-dollar bills.
Carlos was happy to admit he was a drug dealer, proud of it even. He didn’t think of himself as a bad person—after all, he was a dedicated member of the Hispanic Catholic community and his mom always said he was a sweet boy. Maybe he did bad things, but God would have to forgive him. God had never lived in Ridge City.
“We couldn’t move these?” Blake said. “I’m disappointed.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Carlos shrugged. But he did know, really. Blake’s cocaine supply was weak compared to what was being cooked up interstate. People were trudging all the way up to Darton just to get a hit. “I can try to move it down to some lower players tonight.”
“Or we could have our own fun,” Shaundi said, sticking her acrylic fingers into the white powder and dragging it to her nostrils. Before she could take the hit, Blake snatched her wrist in mid-air and slammed it down onto the table.
“Just because I fuck you doesn’t mean you have the right to touch anything that’s mine,” Blake barked. “Get out of here. Now.”
Whimpering like a wounded animal, Shaundi shook herself out of Blake’s grip and took off.
“You can leave now, too,” Blake said, not sparing Carlos another glance.
