That’s right. After the announcement of Diego’s ‘sudden death’, the two of them had rushed out of the bar. Leaving Dan, Carlos, and Paul behind at Mercedes’s instruction. She seemed to sense it was her he needed.
She had always had a way with words, a nurturing instinct, and so of course, none of them had argued when she asked them to give her space.
“Diego is dead,” Adam said. Mercedes nodded. “I couldn’t save him.”
She knelt down in front of him, dropping her head to find his eyes under his downward gaze. “There was nothing we could’ve done.”
“I let him die.”
“You didn’t let him die,” Mercedes said. She placed her hands on his knees and caressed him lightly.
“I could’ve saved him if I’d figured it out sooner.” Adam rubbed his head in his hands and pushed his fingers through his hair.
“Nobody could have saved him,” Mercedes said, but she sounded like she wasn’t sure if she believed it.
“He has three kids, Mercedes. And a wife, and now he’s dead.”
Standing up tall, she brushed the hair out of her eyes and tucked it neatly behind her ear. “We did everything we could.”
“We could’ve done more. Now Blake has the upper hand,” Adam said. “I don’t know how we let him get the jump on us. And we were at that fucking bar celebrating our win like amateurs.”
The bed sheets wrinkled as she sat down next to him and drew comforting circles on his back. “Dorian is always one step ahead. He’s smart, and cunning. There’s a reason people are afraid of him.”
Adam looked up at her, barely containing his annoyance at that statement. The whole point was to pull one over on Dorian Blake.
“I just mean we can’t beat ourselves up when he gets a little bit ahead. That’s what he does. He gets ahead. He may not be much in a fight, but he’s smart, and he always does things you never see coming.”
Dan gently pushed open the door of Adam’s room, peering in with only his head like he was checking if the coast was clear. “Can we come in?”
Mercedes nodded, though he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face the others. Somehow back in the day he’d become the leader of this group, and now every win and loss felt like it rested solely on his heavy-hung shoulders.
Mercedes stood up from the bed as Dan, Carlos, and Paul filtered into the room, looking at Adam like he was a wild animal that could scamper off into the woods at any sudden movement.
“Every news station is playing the news about the election move up,” Paul said.
“Three months to go,” Mercedes said. “That’s more than half our timeline. Gone.”
“What the hell are we gonna do now?” Dan said, flopping down at the dining table.
“Turns out it didn’t matter what we did. Blake’s plan was going to be a success anyway,” Carlos said.
“Now just hold on, it’s not over, we’ve still got three months,” Paul said.
“We’re screwed. We’re totally screwed,” Dan said, growing panicky. “We’ve started something now and we can’t wind it back.”
“It’s way too late to wind anything back,” Paul sighed, clearly also sensing the tension rising in Dan’s throat.
Bad news did terrible things to his friends, they always retreated into panic and despair before conviction. Setbacks didn’t have the potential to steer himself off course...well...usually they didn’t, at least up until five years ago, he supposed.
“What the fuck are we gonna do if we can’t actually pull this off? All of us flee the city this time?” Dan said, standing to round out a circle with Paul, Mercedes, and Carlos.
“Oh, shit,” Carlos agreed. “Are we all gonna have to up and leave now?”
“No one has to leave the fucking city.” Mercedes rolled her eyes.
The four of them started shouting among themselves, Mercedes and Paul reasoning that they didn’t have to flee, and Carlos and Dan becoming more agitated and afraid by the second. Fingers pointed across the circle as their words grew loud and fidgety.
“Adam, tell them that we’re not gonna have to up and leave the city.” Paul held the trump card, turning to Adam as a tiebreaker.
