Unless...
Adam looked up as he realized what they needed to do. The others seemed to sense it, too, from the way they watched him when he jumped up to stand.
Feeling a bad idea forming in his mind sent goosebumps forming over his skin. He widened his eyes and let all his crazy out in his smile. “We’re not killing Blake before the election.”
They were all staring now.
Dan rolled his eyes and started. “How the fuck–”
But Adam raised a finger to shush him as he paced, quieting them so the only sound was that of his marching footsteps.
“No, he’ll be expecting that. He’ll be tense and have extra security in the lead up to the election. We have to get him when he doesn’t expect it.”
“The inaugural ball,” Paul said. Adam turned to look at him. Paul looked no less surprised than the others with what’d just come out of his own mouth. “There are four days between when he wins the election and when he gets sworn in.”
“Four days.” Adam nodded, smiling. The others jumped on the train without a second of questioning.
“Four days to kill him,” Carlos said.
“When he least expects it,” Dan said.
“The inaugural ball is the night before he’s sworn in,” Mercedes said. “Cutting it mighty close, don’t you think?”
“Then we will win by the skin of our teeth, with blood on our backs,” Adam said. “On the night of the ball, Dorian Blake dies.”
An eerie chill swept the room as they formed a circle. More power, more cunning than he’d ever dared access before broke free from within. Sheer will would carry him through this. Because he refused to be afraid. He refused to lose. Herefusedto die. And therefore, there was only one inevitability. To win.
24
THE WINNER IS
JUNE 1991
“Results pending, five minutes.”
It was election day. The day Dorian Blake would be announced the new mayor of Ridge City. Mercedes didn’t need the official results to know that.
A large crowd gathered at City Hall, a podium erected on its front steps to host the live event. Standing in the wings backstage, Mercedes looked out into the throng. Thousands of people were holding up signs professing their adoration for Dorian Blake.
Idiots. Fucking idiots, all of them.
Mercedes looked behind her to where Dorian was pacing in the wings with T.B. standing deathly still nearby. Without Antonio and Yani, Dorian’s operation had been falling apart at the seams. Not to mention, he’d been at his most tense in the days leading up to the election. As was expected, he assumed Adam and the rest of her friends would strike beforehand.
T.B. was no help. He wasn’t built to be the only Second. He was careless and crazy. Where Yani or Antonio would’ve assured Dorian that the fight was over the second he won the election, T.B. had him believing a rogue hitman would be waiting in the wings to cut his head off just before the results were announced.
She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t considered it.
“What the fuck do you mean, this is everyone?” Dorian shouted at the man cowering next to T.B.
“We got everyone we could, but they–”
“But they fucking what? Where is everyone?” He stopped his pacing to stare.
“Lots of men are defecting, sir,” the man stuttered. On edge and a little jumpy, Dorian’s hand lingered near his gun, like he might actually shoot this sap in front of everyone.
Luckily, or unluckily depending on how she looked at it, T.B. tore his attention elsewhere before he could act too impulsively.
“They’re sensing a power imbalance,” T.B. said. “Lots of people are defecting to work for Vandemilio.”
