“There’s a driver out there. From Adam’s crew. Good enough to beat T.B.,” Dorian said.
T.B.’s knuckles whitened as his hand tightened around his glass. He was always a sore loser.
“If Dan, Paul, or Carlos were good enough drivers to beat me, I’d know about it. There’s someone else out there,” T.B. said.
“You really believe there’s a driver in this city good enough to beat you, and you’ve never heard about it or seen their face? Please.” Mercedes rolled her eyes.
“There is someone else out there,” T.B. said.
“Someone else who used to work for Adam,” Dorian said. “So, whoever killed Antonio, that’s the fifth guy.”
Well... he wasn’t wrong. Just about the gender.
“We never found out who the fifth guy was.” T.B. raised his brow, as if in challenge.
“And that was the whole point of keeping those idiots from Adam’s team alive.” Dorian smashed his glass down into the fire, causing a wild roar up the chimney. “So there’s definitely a fifth.”
Now huddling over the fireplace, Dorian and T.B. each glanced over their shoulder in her direction, and she realized she had forgotten to flinch at the glass smashing in the fire. An innocent victim would’ve. Whoops.
As if he were now taunting her, Dorian whispered to T.B. for her to overhear, “And whoever that person is, Dan, Carlos, and Paul fucking know about it. And it’ll be my pleasure to pull it out of them…piece by fucking piece.”
* * *
It was shaping up to be a usual afternoon. Drawn together, all of them littered around Adam’s hotel room. Adam smiled at the thought. How the hell he’d managed five years away was beyond him.
At the sink, Carlos’s supply bags closed with a snap as they were packed, while closer to the dining table, Paul and Dan counted stacks of money into itemized piles. On his bed, Mercedes laid back into the lush pillows and dark silk sheets. He liked to see her there, even if she wiggled away every time he tried to join her.
“We are so fucked,” Dan said. “I don’t think Blake believed one word of what we fucking said.”
“He’s been riding my ass,” Carlos said. “Won’t take his eyes off me.” With another snap, Carlos poured cut crystals into mini supply bags.
“We told a good lie,” Paul said.
“What exactly did he say to you?” Mercedes propped her head up on her fist.
“He’s obsessed with finding out who the fifth member of our group is,” Paul said, stopping to frown in thought. He did that a lot, stop to frown off into the distance, like he could see the future ahead and was carefully plotting a path through the obstacles of death he foresaw.
“We’d never say anything,” Dan said, smiling tightly at Mercedes.
“Obviously.” Carlos rolled his eyes.
Mercedes huffed. “I don’t think you’re all as off the hook as you think you are.”
With supply bags hanging from his mouth, Carlos said, “And why is that?”
“From what he’s said to me, I just—I have a feeling... that he knows.”
“He’s got nothing yet, we’re fine,” Adam said, waving a lazy hand to the others gathered in the kitchenette. “He’s got no idea that I’m alive, and no idea that these guys are involved.”
“But he’s suspicious that they are,” Mercedes said. “Isn’t that dangerous enough?”
“We can handle it,” Paul said.
“I don’t like you putting yourselves at risk,” she said, sinking back into the pillows.
“I know, but nobody is forcing us to do this,” Paul said.
She turned to Dan and Carlos, which was fair. In the past they’d been most easily rattled. Dan, especially.
