Book Title: The Dead Don’t Lie
Author: Anne Russo
Publisher: JMS Books
Cover Artist: Written Ink Designs
Release Date: 3/13/21
Genres: Contemporary MM Romance, Suspense, Thriller, Action-Adventure
Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Forbidden Love, Forced Proximity, Slow Burn, Found Families
Themes: Death & Dying, Betrayal, Love & Sacrifice, Family, Guilt & Loss
Length: 75 000 words/250 pages
This is the first book in a series and features an unresolved ending/cliffhanger.
Buy Links
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Blurb
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.
Trigger Warning: This story contains a brief scene of sexual assault and features an unresolved ending/cliffhanger.
“Get your hands up,” Ian ordered.
“Any chance I can say no?”
Ian barely managed to hide his smirk over the comment. “Not one,” he confirmed. “Hands up.”
Adam eyed him with suspicion but did as he asked, cautious as he raised his hands to cover his face. Without warning, Ian sucker-punched him in the jaw, hard. He followed with two solid jabs to the gut, landing Adam flat on his ass with a mouthful of blood. The pounding headache from earlier roaring back with a vengeance as he fought the urge to vomit. He was stunned to go from standing upright to on the ground in the blink of an eye.
“What the hell was that for?” Adam turned and spat out the sick copper taste, horrified. He used his tongue to check for any loose teeth as he scowled at Ian, waiting above him.
“Get up,” Ian barked.
“You could have broken my jaw!”
“And I’ll break it for real if you don’t get the fuck up now. Don’t make me tell you again.”
With a grunt, Adam pushed himself off the mat and back into a standing position. He sighed, shaking his head to clear his swimming vision. They had only just begun, and already, his pride along with the rest of him stung.
“Go on. Hit me.”
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.
Right now, this second, he had never hated anyone quite as much as he hated the man in front of him—the visual representation of everything standing between him and freedom. A life though not ideal was known to him, comfortable and familiar. Safe.
Ian wasn’t listening. “You can, and you will.”
“It fucking hurts!”
“It’s supposed to hurt.” Ian’s tone reminded Adam of a weary parent struggling to curb their temper around a stubborn child and failing.
Adam rolled his eyes, his minor rebellion, and forced his spine straight. Every fiber of his being screaming for reprieve. It was a herculean struggle as he willed away the sting of tears. Tears he didn’t want Ian to see turning back to face him, reluctant but more determined. The reward for his effort was a tiny nod of approval as Adam resumed his fighting stance once more.
“Come on,” Ian ordered, and Adam flew at him.
After another exhausting ten minutes of Ian beating him from one end of the gym to the other, Adam was again reduced to a pitiful wreck, bent over on his hands and knees, coughing up his lungs. All while that smug sonofabitch stood and watched, enjoying himself.
“Again,” Ian demanded.
“You may as well shoot me,” Adam offered between dry heaves. “I’d rather be dead.”
“Quit whining. It’s incredibly unattractive.”
“Give me a damn minute! Could you do that much, at least?”
“No,” Ian informed him, attempting to haul Adam up to his feet, but he shook him off, indignant.
“Why? Are you getting a sick thrill out of this? You and I both know I’ll never be able to beat you.”
Ian blinked as if surprised by the statement. He nodded, indulging him with an amused smirk. “Now, you’re learning. You don’t have to be the biggest or the strongest guy in the room, but you need to be smart. If you’re not, you’re a dead man.”
Adam studied him through a film of sweat and blood, understanding dawning. The realization was clear, this was his life now, and he’d have to either accept that unfortunate fact or die. A point that Ian drove further home.
“In the end, everything comes down to survival. So tell me, now, do you want to die or not?”
“No, I’m not ready,” Adam admitted, his voice trembling at the admission.
“Glad to hear it,” Ian responded, extending his hand toward him. Adam eyed it as if it were a coiled cobra before exhaling a reluctant breath, allowing Ian to hoist him back to his feet. Ian got into position, and Adam mirrored his posture.
“Get your hands higher,” Ian corrected with a smirk. “Let’s try this again, and this time, I’ll teach you how to stop me from hitting you.” *
Anne makes her home in Connecticut with her wonderful and ever-so-patient partner. A lifelong reader, writer, and curious student, Anne hopes to create exciting multi-dimensional characters and worlds but with a queer sensibility. The Dead Don’t Lie is the first book in the Dead Generations series and her first novel.
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