While young doctor Adam Morrow resigns himself to an uninformed existence, world-weary assassin Ian Abbott struggles with a life he never asked for. When the two strangers meet by chance, the attraction is immediate. And deadly, as Adam walks in on Ian in the middle of a hit. The situation spirals out of control once Ian discovers he and Adam share a connection far more profound than either imagined. Shocked by the discovery, Ian makes the hasty decision to kidnap him. Overnight Adam is torn from his promising career and a family who believes him dead. Things go from bad to worse when he finds himself reunited with a mother he never knew who is now head of a covert and shadowy group of killers for hire. Forced into joining their ranks, with Ian as his reluctant trainer and handler, Adam is given a series of impossible tasks to complete. To survive, he must fight with everything he has to keep his life, his sanity, and his very soul from being swept up in a violent and chaotic world even as he battles his unwanted and complicated feelings for Ian. For his part Ian, a man with dark secrets of his own, has a past he isn't ready to share with Adam even as the other man worms into his life in more ways than one. The two grow closer and lines blur -- between good and evil, friend or foe, enemy or lover. But something, or someone, plots against them, determined to do everything in their power to keep them apart. Even if it means destroying them both.

The Dead Don't Lie

Adam made a face. He didn’t trust the dark and menacing glint in Ian’s eyes, but common sense warned that now was not the time to test him. Resigned, Adam attempted to land a blow. But as he suspected, Ian was far too quick for his meager attempts. Each move thwarted time and time again as Ian pushed him back and away, every time he tried to lay a single finger on him.


Too soon, Adam had to stop, bent over, drenched in sweat. He struggled to stave off the urge to vomit from Ian’s two rapid jabs to his gut. The pain was overwhelming, ribs throbbing, and screaming with every inhale, each exhale. Adam fought back the embarrassing sting of tears, unable to get his breath back. This was it, how he died, struggling for breath while Ian watched.


“Come on, get it together. It’s only pain, for Christ’s sake.”


“Goddamn you! I can’t,” Adam protested, red faced and shaking.


Chapter 19