The Tin Man (Inner Circle #1) : Enemies to Lovers Dark Romance Thriller

by Kailin Gow

  “Bring Rob out!”

  “Right,” Stanley said with a silly grin on his old face. “And here he is! For you all to enjoy! Rob Raven!”

  I got back to my seat with the sound of his voice ringing in my ears.

  “Try to just enjoy the show now,” Ace said as the chords to the first song resonated throughout the stadium.

  The bass joined in, building up the rhythm. Then the drum, pounding out a beat.

  Then, with a blast of blue and green lights, Rob Raven appeared, running across the stage while the crowd went nuts.

  Ace jumped up and screamed like I had never seen before, and I had to chuckle. He was such a kid sometimes.

  While I didn’t know many of the songs, it was an enjoyable show all the same. Rob was a very flamboyant and energetic entertainer and he sure knew how to work the crowd.

  After three encores where he played his biggest hits, songs that I knew pretty well, he finally left the stage for the last time.

  The lights came on.

  “Come on,” I said, slapping Ace’s shoulder with the back of my hand. “Let’s hurry backstage before the crowds.”

  We headed down and this time, the security guard glanced at our backstage passes and simply nodded as we went by. Dozens of people already milled about… musicians, backup singers, the opening act… and a generous sprinkling of groupies.

  Everyone seemed relaxed and laid back, many with a beer in their hands.

  “Hey, boys,” a perky young woman said as she came up to us. “Are you looking for anyone?”

  “We’re good,” I said as I glanced past her. “I’m with the Sun and I just wanted to get a feel for the backstage vibe. I think our fans want to know what Rob Raven is like when he’s not on stage and…”

  “All right,” she said, showing her disinterest for my fictional column. “Have fun.”

  “See him?” Ace said, looking around casually.

  “No,” I said. “But I’m sure he’s here.”

  “I thought Rob was with First Note,” Ace went on. “When did he switch to CBR Records?”

  “I don’t know, but it almost seems like Stan is trying to collect as many acts as he can.”

  “Oh!” Ace let out. “Holy crap. There’s Rob.”

  “Shit,” I said. “Keep your cool. You’ll blow your cover.”

  “Au contraire, my friend,” Ace said. “This is my cover.” He walked past me to go straight up to Rob.

  “Mr. Raven,” Ace said with just the right balance of professional columnist and crazed fan. “Do you think the shift in record labels is going to affect your music?”

  Rob looked at him and while they chatted a moment, I finally saw my mark. Big, old Stanley Campbell, his arm around a hot young miss.

  The pig. The letch. The perv. Damn, the man was disgusting.

  More than anything in the world, I wanted to kill him right then and there, but the moment was all wrong. Things were too quiet, too calm, too serene.

  But then, as if the security guard had heard my plea, he let a dozen wild fans come screaming in to jump all over Rob… and a little over Ace, who looked a little like a rock star himself.

  The shrill cries were the cover I needed. I reached for the small pistol in my pocket and held it level, ready to shoot.

  With calm and measured steps, I walked towards Stanley… just enough to get close… just enough to have him within good range of the gun… just…

  “Oh, holy fuck,” the beautiful girl said as she bumped into me. “Excuse me.”

  “Damn it,” I muttered, momentarily thrown off by the girl.

  Angry and ready to rip into her, I just stared at the girl.

  But the anger was quickly replaced with stunned silence.

  Summer.

  Chapter 6

  Dante Black/Parker James

  “Damn,” Summer said. “I’m really sorry. Sometimes at these shows, I feel like I’m losing my head. Look at those silly girls. Can you believe that?”

  “Ah… yes… ah…” I stammered as I stared disbelievingly at Summer. “I… ah…”

  “I’m sorry,” she said looking at my stunned face. “Are you all right?”

  My heart pounded. There she was. Right there. She had touched me… bumped into me. Just reach out. Get a hold of her. Stop her. Talk to her.

  But I was frozen in place.

  Meanwhile, I saw Stanley go on to say a few words to Rob before disappearing down the hall. But it no longer mattered. Nothing else mattered.

  “Sorry,” Summer said again with a sheepish grin.

  Without realizing it, I’d reached out to grip her upper arm to steady her.

  “I’m perfectly fine. Are you all right?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, beaming with excitement.

  You know me, don’t you? I wanted to say. You recognize me. You’re all better. I want to hold you. I want to kiss you. I want to love you.

  I tugged lightly on her as I stepped forward to pull her into my arms. “I’m so happy…”

  “Hey!” she cried out as she shrugged off my hand and backed away. “I’m not just some groupie that you can manhandle. I just accidently bumped into you, douche.”

  “Sorry,” I said, realizing that I was losing her. “I just. You look like…”

  Setting her fists on her hips she glared up at me. “Don’t you dare say that I look like any of them,” she shot at me while tipping her head to the gang of groupies. She looked me up and down. “Are you with the band?”

  I silently shook my head.

  “Do you know where Rob’s dressing room is?” she went on. “I’ve been wandering around and… it’s like a maze down here.”

  I’d lost her again. Just when I thought that I had found the love of my life, the woman that I gave everything up for, she was lost to me again.

  Worst still was having her standing right there in front of me and yet she was lost.

  Shit.

  She jumped up to take a better look at the crowd of groupies. “Oh!” she cried. “He is in there. He’s right there. Got to go.”

  Chapter 7

  Dante Black/Parker James

  The shrill cries of the fans grew louder and louder. The young women were excited, and they all wanted a piece of Rob.

  When his tall, gangly guitarist came out, some of the women chased after him as well. It was crazy.

  Through it all, I tried to follow behind Summer. I had so much to say to her… so many questions to ask her. Or even to just stand there with her… to be in her presence. But she was quick as she winded her way through the throngs of fans and edged her way closer to Rob.

  “Hey,” a petite woman said as she put her hand to my chest and looked adoringly at me. “Are you with the band?”

  I smiled, but my gaze went over her head to find Summer.

  “I just love everything Rob Raven does. I even love his band members. I can make you very, very happy.”

  Right, I thought. In other words, you would happily go through me to get to Rob Raven.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not with the band.”

  Grimacing, she walked away. “Why are you wasting my time, then?” she muttered.

  I quickly turned to go after Summer again, but I bumped into a hard and uncompromising wall panel. As I looked up wondering when the wall had been put up, I found myself looking directly into Stanley’s ugly, grimacing face.

  “You are a disgusting discontent,” he snarled. His hooded eyes were filled with contempt and anger.

  My body tensed up and I was about to deal with him, tell him off as I tossed his aging body aside.

  But Stanley took a step back and brushed his expensive suit off with disdain. “You fucking loser.” As he continued to brush off my offensive skin cells from his suit, he glared at me with such intense hatred.

  He knows it’s me, I thought. Can it be? Could it be that he recognized me despite the changes I’d made? Anything was possible. Stanley had certainly seen a lot of Dante Blac
k. On so many occasions, he’d given me little jobs, dirty jobs, deadly jobs through my father. All of the original founders in the Inner Circle did as I was one of the best assassins my age. So many times Stanley would give extra instructions for me to explain exactly how he wanted a guy killed.

  He liked it gory. He liked it bloody. And he liked photos. The messier the better. When the technology arrived, he even wanted to watch on his phone.

  He was a pig.

  But I was just a kid then. I was just a athletic, but skinny kid with short jet black hair and big green eyes. I’d shown photos of the old me, Dante Black, to Ace to see if he could find similarities.

  In addition to the longer, silver hair and dark blue eyes, the bulk that I had added to my frame had done a lot to change my appearance.

  “I would never think this was you,” Ace had said as he’d looked back and forth at the old photo of me and of the newly minted me standing right in front of him.

  But now, as I looked into Stanley’s murderous gaze, I felt certain he’d seen through my new identity.

  Shit.

  While I had done a lot of dirty jobs for all the members of the Inner Circle, Stan was the worst. He always had someone that he wanted taken out.

  Here was the man who had sent me to kick a guy’s head in because the poor guy had infringed on Stan’s territory.

  Here was the man who had made me kill a fifteen year old kid who had stupidly dared to stand up to Stan. The only reason Stan wanted him dead was to prove a point. His way of telling all the other guys out there not to fuck with him.

  Stanley knew I had a mechanical heart. He knew I was cold. He knew that I had no empathy for my victims. He knew that snapping a man’s neck was no different to me than snapping a twig.

  Even when he had asked me to snuff out the blond bimbo that he’d banged, I had no issues, no hesitation. The unfortunate woman had chosen to threaten to go to Stanley’s wife with compromising photos of her and Stan in bed together.

  Clearly, she’d had no idea who she was really dealing with.

  Even when a young woman came forward to say that she was having Stan’s baby, she suddenly went missing.

  It was unfortunate that she had chosen to ignore Stanley’s warning. He had given her the chance to simply disappear of her own accord. But she pushed him to deal with her, which meant hiring me to get rid of her.

  And now, here I stood before this man who seemed ready to throttle me. Then suddenly, he pushed me out of his way with a huff and headed straight into the crowd of excited fans.

  For a few seconds, Stanley stood head and shoulders above the crowd of women, but a group of male fans were allowed in, and I lost sight of him.

  Instead, I saw Ace emerge from the circle of fans, his eyes wide with terror.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ace said as he came running up to me. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t know, but it doesn’t smell good,” Ace said as he pushed me forward.

  I glanced behind me to see a handful of Stanley’s goons coming after us.

  “What the hell did you do?” I cried out to Ace as we ran down the hall.

  “Nothing,” Ace called out to me. “I was having a chat with Rob. I was flirting a little bit with all the pretty ladies. Nothing wrong. Nothing offensive. Nothing. Then, out of the blue…”

  The big, burly men weren’t too fast on their feet, but we still weren’t able to shake them off. As we came to a crowd of stadium workers, we pushed through, hoping to lose sight of the goons.

  “Damn it,” I said through clenched teeth. “You fucking blew our cover. You had to. Why else would they be on us?”

  We rounded a corner and found ourselves in a small and quieter corridor. There were a few technicians walking around with clipboards and comparing notes.

  “I swear,” Ace said, catching his breath. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. I was the perfect fan. It was the perfect cover. I even told Rob what my favorite songs were. I even sang one of his lesser known songs to him. He knew I was a fan. I had to be to know that song. No one knows that fucking song.”

  I glanced down at his backstage pass. “Is it something about this thing that might have tipped them off?” I said as I flicked the pass. “Are the colors wrong? Is the font wrong? Something. Something has to be wrong.”

  The pounding of running feet in the cavernous halls echoed all the way down to us.

  “They’re coming,” I said as I slapped Ace across the chest and started running again. In the distance, I could see a busted up exit sign. “Over there.”

  We reached the door, just as two other goons came from the other side, nearly nabbing us as we pushed the door open and ran out into the private parking space for the band and crew.

  Dusk had settled in over the city and the sparse lighting threw odd shadows here and there between the tightly parked cars.

  “Split up,” I called out. I pushed Ace to one row of cars while I ran in the other direction.

  Three of the goons came after me. I jumped up onto the hood of a car, ran up the windshield to the roof and turned to look at what I was dealing with.

  The guys were all big and beefy, but they were full of hot air. They were meant to be big and intimidating, but I suspected they had little in the way of fighting skills.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got, boys,” I muttered as the first breathless muscle man made his way over.

  Before he could even get close enough to think about reaching out to grab me, I jumped up over him and landed both feet on his face. He staggered back and hit the nice little Mercedes beside him before sliding down to the ground, his face a bloody mess. For good measure, I slammed my knee to his face, cracking his nose. His head flew back and hit the car door with a clang.

  I turned to the other two who came at me, growling. The tight row of cars made it difficult for them to both jump me at the same time. One of them had to shimmy between the cars while the other followed behind him.

  Jumping forward suddenly, I managed to get in a solid punch to the nose, but it wasn’t enough to stop the guy. But the restrained space made it difficult for me to kick or jump him.

  I quickly glanced around and noticed the vintage red Cadillac. I leaned over, snapped off the antenna and quickly turned to whip my assailant’s face with it. He put up his hands to protect his face, but the moment he brought them down a bit, I poked him in the eye with the tip of the antenna, slicing his eyeballs, causing blood to squirt out in all directions.

  Screaming in pain and now blinded, he was an easy mark. I grabbed his head and slammed it into the passenger window of the Cadillac.

  The second goon wasn’t deterred. If anything, he was even more eager to get to me. He was a little thinner, and more agile. As I ran through the row of cars, he caught up to me quickly. He tried to get a punch in, but I ducked out of the way, grabbed his arm and pulled it behind his back.

  I’d underestimated his strength. He was able to spin back around and go for me again. I whipped my antenna up between his legs, snapping the tip of the antenna against his nuts.

  “You lousy punk,” the goon howled in pain.

  I leaned back against the little pink convertible and threw both feet in the air, catching him in the chest. It stopped him for a second as he tried to catch his breath, then he charged me again.

  In the distance, I saw two more guys come running out into the parking lot. They immediately turned to chase after Ace.

  He had the agility of a big cat as he jumped over cars and even got away from them by throwing himself under a car only to come up on the other side.

  But then they cornered him.

  “Shit,” I said to my opponent. “Looks like it’s time to say goodbye. Your friends aren’t being very nice.”

  Taken aback by my words, the guy frowned then turned to see what was happening behind him. When he brought his gaze back to me, he was met with a swift kick
upside the head that sent him falling to the pavement.

  Stepping over him, I hurried to find Ace. Despite being thin and wiry, the kid had guts and he could sure hold his own in a regular street fight. But this was different, and he simply wasn’t skilled enough to fight off these guys.

  “Do you guys make it a habit to pick on the little ones?” I said as I came up behind the two guys who’d cornered Ace. “Why don’t you try picking on someone your own size?”

  “You’re a wise ass for someone who’s about to lose his teeth,” one of the goons said.

  “And you’re a dumb ass for not realizing that you’re about to lose your head.”

  I ran up to him so fast, he didn’t see me coming. I grabbed his head and quickly brought it down just as I brought up my knee to meet his nose.

  I heard the cartilage crumble and even heard the more deadly crack of his skull. I let him go, and he fell to the ground dead.

  The guy who’d been holding Ace released him and came to jump on my back, his hands around my neck. I held my breath and remained calm as he tried to choke me. Without warning, I let my elbow snap back to get him in the gut. He slackened his hold of my neck a second, but quickly recovered and resumed a more painful grip.

  “Over there,” a man shouted.

  More goons were coming out to join the fight. I snapped my elbow back into my assailant’s gut again, then snapped the other elbow. Between both strikes, he lost his grip, but I quickly got a hold of one of his hands. Grabbing two fingers with one hand and the other two fingers with the other hand, I split his fingers apart, breaking them all as the guy screamed bloody murder.

  As he fell to his knees and lamented his broken hand, I opened the driver’s door to the delivery van beside us. I pushed the guy up against the inside of the van and repeatedly slammed the door on his head.

  Finally rid of him, I turned to Ace, ready to take on the newcomers.

  “Ace?” I said as I looked over the hoods of the cars around me.

  Silence. Only the sound of my ragged breathing.