“Dan?” Mercedes’ soft voice crawled through the earpiece. “Dan, are you there?”
“Here,” said Dan.
“Did you clock the scene in the kitchen?” she whispered.
“Yeah, brutal,” Dan said.
“Is Adam alive?” Mercedes’s breath shook.
Adam dropped the knife from his hands and secured his own earpiece, huffing from the intensity of the fight.
“I’m here, baby. I’m alive.” He didn’t miss Mercedes audible sigh of relief. She absolutely still had a soft spot for him.Just helping for theirfriends, huh? Nah, it was all for him.
He left Yani’s body on the floor, his blood staining the tile, and stepped over it to leave through the back entrance of the country club and slide into the passenger seat of Paul’s van.
“Alright,” Adam said, feeling like he’d had enough of this damn night. “Let’s go get that fucking book.”
* * *
Adam stood impatiently with Paul in Mercedes’s bedroom. Fumbling up the trellis, Carlos landed in a heap at the base of Mercedes’s window, brushing greenery and thorns off his clothes.
“Took you long enough,” Adam said.
“You know this entry a little too well,” Carlos scoffed, helping himself off the ground.
Adam smiled and made his way to the bedroom door, pressing his ear up against it. Satisfied, he nodded to his friends and slipped the old mahogany doors ajar, peering out into the hall. The three of them pushed through Mercedes’s bedroom door and braved the corridors of the mansion.
The crimson and gold hallways had not a speck of dust in them. Nor did the elegant sculptures lining the walls. Useless, but they were decorations of someone who considered himself a king.
When Adam was king, he wouldn’t need all these fancy trimmings and square footage to know how big his balls were.
Navigating the labyrinth mansion, they passed maids and other service staff, all of whom nodded politely but kept their eyes away—possibly thanks to Yani’s blood drenching Adam’s suit.
Meeting the stairwell, they rushed ahead to the next corridor, but Adam held up a palm to stop them, pressing his back to the wall as a couple of lingering associates wandered past.
Once they were clear, they made the final approach to Blake’s office. Adam and Paul stood guard as Carlos moved ahead to press the key into the lock, kissing the cross around his neck before turning the key.
The locked popped open and Adam smiled as they rushed inside and secured the door behind them. Momentarily starstruck, Adam faltered. He was probably the only one of them who’d never been in this office. And it was incredible. Fucking ostentatious like everything Blake owned, and nothing like Adam would want for himself, but incredible, nonetheless.
Breathtaking floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens, giant mahogany desk, and a private bar with enough alcohol to drown a sailor.
“The white book is in the safe behind the desk,” Dan said, jolting Adam back to reality.
Together, Adam and Paul rounded the desk, kneeling down where the empty spot revealed the hidden safe.
“Guys, you need to hurry up. T.B. is on his way back to the mansion now,” Mercedes said from the voice in their ear.
Adam sat in front of the safe and started to turn the dial, reaching out behind him without looking where Carlos handed him a piece of paper with a written code.
“T.B. just got his car, and you know he drives like a fucking lunatic, you’ve got five minutes tops,” Dan said.
T.B. might have been a useless piece of shit, but he had a great habit of turning up when he was least wanted.
His brow furrowing, Adam pinged the code in the safe and wriggled. But...nothing. All this way... and the safe wouldn’t open?! Adam slammed his fist against the metal door. “It won’t open. Dan, you said he keeps the code to all his safes the same?!”
He looked back at his friends from his position.
“I thought he did,” Dan’s panicked voice came over the comms.
