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

Ian rolled his eyes in response and stomped off toward the elevators.


Ian moved through the crowd of sticky, writhing bodies. Blue and red strobe lights swirled around him in time with the pulsating dance music. Ian scanned the venue for any trace of Adam. He searched the surrounding faces until he spotted them minus one.


He stalked over to their table, cluttered with many empty beer bottles and shot glasses. As he approached, three sets of red, drunken eyes peered up at him, looking far too pleased with themselves for his liking.


“Fuck me! Dad’s here,” Vince announced, snorting with laughter. His spasm of giggles leading to a choking fit as he coughed into his arm, red faced. Regan rubbed his back, snickering.


“Looking for someone?” Mei asked, the picture of wide-eyed innocence.


“Where is he?” Ian demanded, in no mood for games.


“What?” Ian shouted over the ridiculous volume of noise.


“He’s around,” Mei answered, shrugging. “Sit down. Relax. Have a drink.”


Chapter 43