Dorian’s mansion was coveted and beautiful for a reason. The house was five stories, and the gardens were three. Roman-style pool, Athenian water feature, stunning sun beds,fucking hedge maze, and a sweeping view over the airy river waters that ran parallel to the back of the house—you name it, Dorian’s house had it. Hell, the mansion even had its own private boat dock on the last level, which either held a powerboat or a yacht in its perimeter depending on Dorian’s mood that day. That day it was a yacht, which said in no uncertain terms: I’m not in the mood for murder.
Next to Dorian, his favorite Second, T.B., smirked over a shoulder when Mercedes approached. Smiling wickedly like he had a secret, he tilted his head toward the gardens, taunting her to look.
Mercedes’s heart did a startled flip when she slid along the railing to see Dan, Carlos, and Paul standing next to the pool, with a fresh dead body leaking blood onto the pavement. Grimacing, she watched Paul subtly kick the body over. An unimportant, nameless man. Now faceless, too, and unrecognizable. Paul’s handiwork then. It’d been five years since she’d raced, but this now-dead idiot somehow figured her out and was about to spill it all. That’s why he needed to die.
Even after five years, Dorian had never given up searching for Adam’s driver.
“What the fuck are the three of you doing together?” Dorian barked. “I thought I split you up.”
T.B. smiled deviously. Everyone knew she was close to Paul, a punishment for him was a punishment for her. And T.B. had never liked her.
Mercedes’s eyes flicked back to her friends. Dan and Carlos raised their brows at her, too, a silent conversation passing between them. Her secret was safe for now.
“Terrible coincidence,” Paul said, stepping up. “Wrong place, wrong time. Apologies, boss.”
Dan stepped ahead, too. “I was only stopping by to drop off some paperw-”
“Don’t explain,” Dorian said sternly. One snap of his finger was enough to end a life. It was Dorian’s game, and everyone else was just playing ‘try not to die’ on any given day. “Just disperse.”
“Yes, boss.” Dan, Carlos, and Paul all nodded and went their separate ways, making sure to exit in different directions. It was not lost on Mercedes that they’d simply left the dead body lying by the edge of the pool. The afternoon cleaning crew would probably find it just as it looked now. Oh well, they’d cleaned up worse.
“Fucking idiots.” Dorian pushed off the railing, stopping in the archway of the door to the house to vent to T.B. “You’d think after all the mercy I’d shown them, they wouldn’t group up to disrespect me like that.”
Dorian folded his arms across his chest, the sleeves of his suit crinkling as they pushed upward to reveal the thick hair crawling down his over-muscled forearms.
“You’re right, boss,” T.B. said.
“I let them live with the sole intention of finding out who the fifth guy was,” Dorian sighed. “And we never fucking did that, and they’re still walking around living.”
Like she thought to herself, it was Dorian’s obsession five years ago, and it still was now. He’d known that Adam Vandemilio had a driver, one whose identity he’d never been able to discover, and he drove himself mad thinking there was someone out there in Adam’s corner that he couldn’t pin down or control. Oh, if only he knew that he had done just that.
“Maybe there were only four guys, like they said,” T.B. said, but Mercedes knew he’d only said it to provoke a reaction.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dorian spat. “There was always a fifth. Not like it matters now anyway. Adam Vandemilio is dead.”
“Of course,” T.B. said.
“There was always a fucking fifth,” Dorian repeated as he stomped up the halls, T.B. on his heels like a good little suck up.
There certainly was a fifth, and if Dorian ever found out it was her—that she was the fifth member of Adam Vandemilio’s crew—he’d kill her, too. And, she surmised, with her he’d actually make it stick.
2
IN FOR LIFE
FEBRUARY 1991
If Adam knew one thing, it was that he was useless on his own. Blake held all the cards and all the power. If he stood any chance of going up against the Goliath, then he needed his old crew at his side.
Unfortunately, Blake held them, too.
His first few days back in Ridge City he laid low, reminding himself, against his natural instinct, that this mission was a marathon, not a sprint. There was no point in charging across the finish line guns blazing...announcing his arrival...sweeping the girl off her feet...
No! Dammit, this wasn’t about her.
Yes, it was.
No!No, it wasn’t.
