The farther he went, the more ruffled the radio became. He was almost out of range.
“He really loves you...Tell me, really...It’s always been him...Too bad he’s already dead.”
The click of the receiver didn’t even faze him. He heard the trigger press and didn’t balk as he watched his room explode into the skies. All that remained was a mass of orange pouring out into the open air and brightening the night sky. The explosion leaving the whole hotel incinerated to a crisp, so that only a pit of black remained.
If Adam’s heart hadn’t been thundering in his chest, he might have smiled. The call from Blake may as well have been a warning. What a fucking idiot. Adam would savor every minute of his death.
“Fucking hell,” Dan said.
“He really likes to burn things down, doesn’t he?” Carlos said, eyes wide with marvel.
“Fucking pyromaniac,” Dan laughed, wrapping his arm around Carlos’ shoulder and jostling him.
“Well, you wanted the element of surprise,” Paul said. “Nothing more surprising than coming back from the dead.”
“Again,” Carlos added with a laugh.
Adam pinched his brow. He had known that today would be one of the hardest of his life. He’d expected trouble, obstacles even, but not that Dorian would get such a firm upper hand.
Paul frowned at him. “So, what now? We going after her?”
The words he had to say nearly cleaved his chest in two. He couldn’t look Paul in the eye as he said it. “No...no, we’re going after Blake.”
Paul clenched his fists while Dan and Carlos paled.
“This changes things, but she doesn’t want us coming after her,” Adam said. “And she’s right.”
Adam stared at his feet, his jaw tightening. People scrambled up the beach to get away from the fire as sirens signaled in the background.
“Tomorrow Dorian Blake gets sworn in as mayor. And then he’ll be too powerful to ever stop. We only have one night, one shot to kill him, and it has to be now,” Adam said.
For his team, Adam knew that he had to pull it together. God, that woman was going to be the death of him. He’d get to her. He had to. But not before he finished this.
“The best way to find her is to find Blake first,” Adam said.
Paul looked skyward, like he was praying for the strength not to kill Adam. Then he nodded. Just once. Only slightly.
Adam took two more breaths, pushing deep puffs of air that cleared all pain from his throat, pushed all fear out of his lungs. He growled as he slapped himself in the face and jumped on the spot, hardening until there was nothing left but the face of a monster. The face of vengeance and death. He looked up at his friends, and found them twitching at the sight of him. “Let’s go fucking kill Dorian Blake!”
* * *
Mercedes was left alone, hands still cuffed together around the pipe. The only light being the harsh flickering fluorescents above. Without windows, and therefore no way to tell by the sun, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed. But it had to be close to thirty minutes.
Any second now, some unnamed dick would waltz through the door and shoot her dead without a second thought.
Regardless of whether Adam and her friends were still alive, which she had to believe in every fiber of her being that they were, she had told them not to come for her. Right now, she only had herself. And she’d be damned if some unnamed lowlife would be the one to wipe her from the world.
It was time to bust the fuck out.
“I knew you’d come in handy.” She twisted her wrists and pushed her chest forward to reach into her bra, where her skull and crossbones earrings were still poking into her skin. They’d taken her knives and guns, but even Dorian hadn’t counted on the earrings stashed between her breasts.
The tip of the metal clasp was just sturdy enough to poke into the lock of her handcuffs. She wriggled the earring in the lock, pushing, pushing... until it finally snapped free, and the cuffs fell to the floor.
They really shouldn’t make it so fucking easy.
She rose to her feet.
Being free was one thing, but she was still without a weapon. Pacing the room, she studied the pipe she’d been cuffed to. It ran from the ground up to the wall and across the ceiling of the enclosed space. It was rusted with age and joined in the middle by two sections.
