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

by Kailin Gow

  I’d become so accustomed to having her by my side all the time.

  There was also the fact that she was out with Rob that didn’t help matters much. I drove into town and took Highland Avenue.

  Traffic was relatively light considering the time of day. I found my way to the trailhead and parked my car despite the many signs telling me not to.

  The big, iconic sign was visible in the background, enticing people to give up everything in order to realize their dreams.

  I smiled, suddenly understanding why she had asked me to meet her there.

  Hollywood. It was the place where dreams came true. I’d also heard about a book that was hidden in a nook at the top of Mount Lee, the mountain on which the Hollywood sign was set up. People came up and wrote their dreams in that book… like making a wish.

  For a while Summer had been dropping hints about where our relationship was going. She’d been bringing more and more personal items to the house; her clothes, shoes, toiletries. She’d had a key for a while and of course the code to the gate.

  But, as much as I loved her, as much as I wanted a future with her, I was reluctant to get too heavily involved in discussing the future. I rarely knew from one moment to the next what my life had in store for me.

  And my life also consisted of a lot of unpredictable dangers. Planning for the future in any serious way was difficult.

  “Summer,” I called out as I headed up the steep and narrow trail.

  The timing was perfect. The sun was just inching down over the horizon.

  But I had to admit that I partially agreed with Ace’s comment. Why indeed meet at the Wisdom Tree instead of at the trailhead?

  But I shrugged and assumed she had a good reason.

  But as I arrived at that lonesome tree, I looked up ahead and saw a tall, hefty figure dressed all in black. A chill ran up my spine.

  “Turns out that Summer isn’t available at the moment,” a gravely male voice said.

  Then I noticed the half dozen brawny men standing just behind him.

  Stanley, I thought with disgust.

  “Looking for action, Stan?” I said, remarking on the dark suit he always wore when he was in the mood for a good fight.

  I’d seen him wear it only three times since knowing him. Every time it was to kick a guy’s brain out.

  “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you’ve been putting your nose where it doesn’t belong, kid,” Stanley said.

  And with that, three of his goons stepped forward. The first one to reach me tried to punch me, but I ducked, grabbed his fist and turned it back to hit him in the face with it.

  He staggered back, slipped on a rock and fell, crushing his ribs against a nearby boulder. Just then, the other two goons came charging at me. I quickly leaned back to kick one of them in the teeth, then swung around to catch the other one with the heel of my shoe across the temple.

  “Nice moves, kid,” Stanley said as he wrung his hands together. He stepped away from the Wisdom Tree and backed his way up the narrow path that led to the Hollywood sign. With a quick nod, he signaled to his remaining goons to go after me. “Leave just enough for me to finish him off.”

  They charged me while he continued to scamper away.

  They came all at once and while two of them each grabbed an arm, the third one punched me in the gut. I struggled only moderately against the two who held me. The third goon punched me again and again, in the mouth, in the gut, in the ribs… until I let myself go limp.

  The two holding me dragged me down the narrow path behind Stanley.

  “He’s subdued, sir,” one of them called out to Stan.

  I glanced up beneath my brow and saw him turn to me with a cocky grin on his ugly mug.

  “Not so tough now, are you kid?” Stanley said as he came to finish me off.

  I looked down at his spiffy, black shiny shoes now covered with dust and dirt. He was tapping his toes, a sign I’d come to recognize as his anticipation of a gruesome murder.

  “You should really look into who you’re dealing with before you decide to start fucking with other people’s business,” he said.

  I was practically limp in the goons’ arms.

  “Let him go,” Stanley said. “It’s my turn to play.”

  The goons let go and backed away.

  I looked up at Stanley from beneath my bloody brow. “Maybe you should have looked up who you’re dealing with.”

  Before he could make a move, I kicked him in the nuts which sent him doubling over.

  “Fuck, the little bastard,” Stanley shouted as he backed away. “Get him. Get him and hold him the fuck steady.”

  The first goon that came at me was greeted with a quick kick in the face, sending his nose crushing into his brain. He fell off the edge of the narrow path and tumbled down over the boulders.

  The second one lunged at me, giving me more than enough time to duck out of the way, grab a fistful of sand and throw it in his face as he turned to me.

  While he blindly struggled to fight me, I kicked him and sent him falling over the edge of the cliff.

  The third and only remaining goon hesitated.

  “What the hell are you waiting for?” Stanley shouted at him as he continued to run down the path. “Get the fucker. Get him!”

  The poor guy came at me, clearly unsure what to do with me.

  “Get him!” Stanley shouted.

  He charged me and dove for my legs, sending me falling back. I struggled to get out of his hold, then kicked him. I grabbed a baseball sized stone and smashed him on the side of the head with it before pushing him over the edge.

  I got up and ran after Stanley who’d reached the paved road that came up just behind the Hollywood sign.

  “Where you running to, you chicken?” I shouted at him.

  With his back to the fence that prevented people from going to the Hollywood sign, he looked up at me, cocky, but with fear clearly in his eyes.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me, kid,” Stanley said as he pulled out his gun.

  “You always said a gun made a kill too easy, Stan,” I said.

  Frowning he looked at me. “Who the fuck are you, anyway? How the fuck do you know who I am?”

  But he didn’t give me time to answer. He raised his gun and aimed it at me.

  I ran to duck behind a boulder, but the bastard shot at me and nicked me on the thigh.

  Shit.

  He shot again and the bullet chipped a chunk of rock off, then ricocheted off into the darkening night.

  I heard his footsteps, his careful, chicken, pee-brained footsteps. Then I saw his shadow as it came over the rock.

  The second I saw his face, I kicked up with my good leg, knocking the gun out of his hand.

  “Still want to know who I am, Stan?” I said.

  I jumped on him, pinned him to the ground and punched his face, again and again. From the corner of my eye, I saw him grab a handful of sand and turned to avoid what was coming, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  He quickly took advantage of the situation and pushed me off him, gave me a flimsy kick and ran off. He clumsily climbed the fence and jumped over, setting off a series of alarms that protected the iconic Hollywood sign.

  “You idiot!” I shouted at him. “You fucking idiot!”

  But I had no choice. I had to go after him. There was no way I was going to let him escape this time.

  I jumped the fence and chased after him. He ran around, ducking behind each letter and the metal structures that held them up.

  “Stop dancing around and fight me like a man, you wimp!” I yelled at him. “I’ve never seen you act like such pansy, Stan. Come on.”

  He turned to face me for a split second, then ran down to another letter. As I ran up to reach him, he climbed the steel column and kicked me in the shoulder. Taking another step higher, he tried to kick me in the face, but I leaned back.

  “You old moron,” I shouted up at him. I climbed up behind him and tried to gra
b his leg while I hung on tight to the wrung with my other hand.

  He kicked my hand away and kept climbing up to the top of the letter. I could have sworn I heard him sob. He had to know that he was going nowhere.

  “What the fuck do you want from me?” he cried out. He looked down and spit on me. “What do you want?”

  He reached the top and swung his arm over the edge to hold on.

  “There’s nowhere to go, Stan,” I said calmly. “You’ve reached the end of the line.”

  “Stop calling me that. It’s Stanley. My name is Stanley. Only my good friends call me Stan… and even then...”

  “But I thought we were friends, Stan,” I said, egging him on. “We were good friends, remember, Stan?”

  “Fuck!” he shouted. “Who the hell are you? “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “I’ll remind you, Stan, that you’re the one who tricked me into coming out here to meet you. I suspect you might also have something to do with the package I received earlier today.”

  He looked at me, his cold, hard eyes looking deep inside me. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He kicked at me as I climbed up to him.

  “You always took yourself for the smart one, hey, Stan?” I said, deliberately taunting him. “You thought you had a heads up over the others. You thought you were the leader… the one that all the other’s looked up to and respected. Hell, they don’t respect you. They loathe you. They ridicule you.”

  He grimaced.

  “What others?” he said after a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Oh,” I said with mock surprise as I climbed over him, squeezing him into the rungs.

  He tried to twist around to face me and even tried to raise his knee into my nuts, but I pressed tightly into him, pressing him into the metal column.

  “Are you running the whole show now?” I said. “There’s only you? No… partners? No… associates?”

  “Get the fuck off me,” he shouted as he pushed back in an attempt to get me off him.

  But I only pulled on the rung harder, pressing my chest into his back as I literally breathed down his neck. “You’re sweating like a pig, Stan. Are you worried about something?”

  “Get off!” he shouted, almost hysterical. “Get off. Get off. Get off!”

  “Whatever you say.” I pulled back and let him climb another step higher.

  In his haste, in his desperate desire to get away from me, he threw his leg over the top of the letter only to realize there was nowhere to go.

  As he tried to bring his leg back, I blocked him. “Too late to turn back now, Stan. You made your bed… Now.”

  I grabbed his other leg and forced it over the edge.

  “Stop it,” he shouted as he gripped the edge of the letter.

  I simply looked at the fat fingers that gripped desperately to the edge.

  “Let me up,” he said, struggling to hold on.

  “Who would have ever thought that you’d have a Hollywood ending, Stan?” I said with a chuckle.

  “Seriously, kid,” he said as he glanced down.

  The letter itself must have been at least forty feet high. Then the mountainside added a few more dozen feet or so.

  “Give me a hand up,” Stanley said.

  “You know, there’s a reason they no long allow people to come up here.” I looked down below him. “There’s a really good reason.”

  “Fuck you!” he shouted. “Fuck you! What the fuck do you want? What do you want?”

  “I want you to know who the Tin Man is, Stan,” I finally said, willing to at least let him die with that knowledge. “I’m the Tin Man.”

  “No,” Stan said with a grunt. “That can’t be. The Tin Man… that was Dante. Dante Black…. The Condor’s kid. They died. Both of them.”

  “You’re partially right, Stan,” I said with a menacing grin. “The Condor did die… thanks to you and yours. He was following orders. But the Tin Man lives on. Yeah, that heartless man that you all so diligently trained to be a cold blooded assassin… He lives on, Stan. And he will continue to live on. But the Tin Man will live by his own rules… not yours.”

  I raised my fist and came down hard on his fingers, leaving him holding on with one hand.

  “Shit!” Stanley let out. “Live your fucking life! I don’t give a shit! Just let me…”

  I climbed up to sit on the very edge of the letter and looked down.

  “Where the hell were you going with this, Stan?” I said, looking out over the horizon before bringing my gaze back to him and down at the fatal fall.

  “Get me up!” he screamed hysterically.

  “You never did have a good sense of direction,” I said calmly. “You only became successful because you relied on everyone else, because you spit on everyone else, everyone you stepped on.”

  I wacked his fingers with my fist and he let out a final hysterical cry as he released his hold and fell. The scream took on an eerie, phantom-like quality as it fell away then suddenly stopped, replaced by a distant thud.

  “And that’s a wrap,” I said.

  Epilogue

  Katherine/Summer

  I walked up to my mother’s house and noticed my reflection in the glass door as I rang the doorbell. While she’d been happy with the transformation from the start, I wasn’t so sure.

  While I liked the long auburn hair as opposed to my naturally black hair, I hated having to wear the contacts that made my brown eyes hazel.

  “Katherine,” my mother said as she opened the door. She looked around as if to see if anyone else was around. “Or should I say, Summer?” she added in a soft conspirator voice.

  “Please,” I said as I walked past her and entered the house. “I’m sick and tired of being Summer. How would you like it if instead of being Claire, you had to be Bernadette… and what if Bernadette was as boring as fuck?”

  “Oh, Katherine,” Claire said. “I think that all things considered, playing the part of Summer can’t be all that bad. I mean, you’re playing the part of a beautiful and sexy girl who has several handsome men in love with her. Including Parker James.”

  I headed straight into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Mind if a take a beer?” I said as I looked into the well-stocked refrigerator.

  “Serve yourself,” my mother said. “What? Does that Parker James not allow you to drink when you’re with him?”

  I let out a sardonic snort. “The occasional glass of wine with dinner, but apparently Summer was a little more health conscious than you led me to believe. And she likes to go hiking, if you can believe that. Shit…”

  I opened the can of beer and took a few refreshing gulps. “One thing, I can say though. At least that Parker James is a good fuck.”

  “I’d rather not hear about it, if you don’t mind,” Claire said.

  “Oh, stop being a prude,” I said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been a virgin. Surely, you’re aware of that.”

  “My mother wasn’t a virgin, either,” Claire said. “But that doesn’t mean that I was interested in hearing about her sexual escapades.”

  “Fine,” I said and took another swig of beer. “I’ll spare you the luscious details. Suffice it to say, that just for the sex alone, I’d be willing to go back to him. The guy is a beast.”

  “And you sound like a slut,” my mother said.

  “Well,” I said flippantly. “Be thankful for that. If I wasn’t prepared to fuck the guy, my cover would be blown. I mean, even Miss Goody liked to get down and heavy every once in a while.”

  “Well, I’m happy to hear that because you may have to spend a lot more time with him.”

  I glanced in the mirror over the kitchen sink. “Well, at least all of this plastic surgery will have been worth it. For a while there, I thought I’d gone to all this trouble for nothing.”

  “You’d have nothing to complain about either way,” Claire said. “You can’t very well say that taking on Summer Jone’s appearance w
as a chore.”

  “Are you saying that this is an improvement on what I really looked like, Mother?”

  She chuckled and I let it slide.

  “Argh,” I said as I set the beer down on the counter and rubbed my hands over my new face. “It’s not just that. It’s all the mannerisms. That silly little laugh of hers that Parker seems so enamored with. This damned obsession with hiking every fucking mountain in the area. It’s just the stress of always being ‘on’.”

  “So, what have you found out while you’re suffering so?” my mother said with mock concern for my circumstance.

  I picked up my beer again and looked at her. “Dante Black is not dead. I can tell you that.”

  She barely looked shocked. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m certain that Parker James is Dante Black. His very love for Summer is proof of that. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s always trying to get me to go to places he’s gone to before… with her. He brings up little tidbits of the girl he knew years ago. Parker James couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t know who the fuck Summer was. Only Dante Black can know all that.”

  “Good job, Katherine,” Claire said. “The members of the Inner Circle will be very happy to hear that. I’m very proud of you.”

  “Then why can’t that be enough?” I said. “Why do I have to go back?”

  “You heard about Stanley Campbell?” my mother said.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I heard that this morning.”

  “Were you with Parker… or should I say Dante when you heard the news?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I took another swig of beer. “He didn’t even bat an eye. He didn’t look at me. It was as if the newscaster had simply mentioned some inconsequential information.”

  “But you know that he’s responsible for Stanley’s death,” Claire said.

  “I know that Stanley tricked Dante into going up to that mountain. Clearly, he underestimated what Dante was capable of. Damn, the idiot brought six beefs up there with him and he still got killed.” I looked up at her. “How is Scarecrow taking the news?”

  “Needless to say, he’s prepared to do anything to avenge his father’s untimely death.”