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

Rhys shook his head as if dismayed by the openness of Ian’s emotions. As if with one glance he could see what owning those emotions would cost him, the awful price Ian would pay for indulging them. Still, he couldn’t stop himself. Ian turned away, ashamed, tears stinging. The sobs stuck in his chest burned and throbbed.


“Ian, I can’t do this,” Rhys grumbled, pushing into the bedroom. He opened his closet, tossing a handful of clothing over his shoulder.


But Rhys acted as if he hadn’t heard. Ian tried again, but Rhys whirled on him.


“What does it matter where I’m going? I have to go, okay?”


Ian swallowed hard, praying he hadn’t driven Rhys away forever this time. “Look, I’m sorry for that shit with Kevin, okay? I know it was stupid—”


“Now is not the goddamn time,” Rhys stopped him, his tone tense, worried.


Chapter 80