Excerpt: Doppelganger: A Vampire Linares Spinoff
Holding Charlie pinned to the floor by the throat with one hand and her knee in his midsection, Linda pressed the tip of her blade against his cheek. From his back Charlie threw punches at her, powerful thumping blows against her shoulders and body that would have incapacitated a normal human. She adjusted her grip on the hilt of her blade and punched him in his forehead, hard enough to fracture the plate of bone beneath the thin layer of flesh. Though driven by the power of the shadow within him, Charlie swooned.
Linda said, “Look at me, vile creature. Do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?”
From his back on the floor Charlie moaned, “Linda, please…don’t hurt me…” It was a deception intended to confuse her and give the demon an advantage.
“Look at me!”
Charlie obeyed. From within the depths of his hateful gaze she saw the blood red glimmer, confirmation of what she already knew. There were hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of shadows infesting the world. In her two thousand years of existence she had killed many of them, yet more continued to pass through the rift torn between the realm of the Garden and the world of mankind. It was her duty in accordance with prophecy to destroy them whenever she encountered them, whether they were in their shadowed form or in possession of a human. Her consort husband would be unfortunate collateral damage.
The demon redoubled its efforts, throwing blows and thrashing its legs in its attempt to escape, but to no avail. She was stronger. Only one in the world was more powerful than she—the one who made her and set her on the path to the fulfillment of prophecy.
“Linda, please…what’s happening? Why are you doing this to me? I don’t understand. Why are you hurting me? Linda darling, please don’t hurt me anymore. I love you so much. Please, Linda…”
Holding Charlie and the shadow within him pinned to the floor at the bottom of the stairs of their suburban home, Linda ignored its intended deceptive pleading and said, “Of all the places in the world, of all the people you could have taken, you chose this place, and this man. That’s unfortunate for you, demon. For your error you are about to cease to exist. Do you know me, demon?”
“Please Linda, you’re hurting me,” Charlie sobbed miserably, his gray eyes streaming tears. Then his expression changed, and he stopped struggling and glared hatred at her. His eyes gleamed red in their sockets. “Release me, you fucking cunt.”
“My name is Linares, vile creature.”
Charlie’s expression transformed from false fright to true fear and absolute hatred. He snarled and snapped at her like a rabid dog, then hissed, “Vampire bitch.”
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Doppelganger: A Vampire Linares Spinoff
New Release: Anything Worth Having: A Romance
New Release Today!
ANYTHING WORT HAVING: A ROMANCE:
Chane and Breeanna had it all, the good looks, the great careers, and the money they provided, and then the love. Their relationship was one to be envied, and they knew it. They appreciated what they had. They were proud of themselves, that they were wise enough to recognize the world they could have together, something most people could only dream of.
They knew they were living that dream.
To not have to think about money.
To look into a mirror and be pleased with what you see.
To gaze into the eyes of another and see the love you feel for them reflected back at you, a love so powerful it seems almost spiritual.
But pride comes before the fall, and when you fall from great heights the drop is long, and the destruction when you hit the bottom is terrible. Now Chane and Bree must decide if they can survive the destruction. Can they rise from the ruins of their pain and anger and repair the damage to their relationship, and to their lives? Can they recover what they had together? Is what they lost worth doing whatever it takes to have again?
Anything Worth Having is a tale of love realized and love endangered as it asks the question, how much sacrifice does forgiveness require?
Click the link below to read. As always, on Kindle Vella the first three episodes are free.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0CR41N21G
COMING SOON: ANYTHING WORTH HAVING: A ROMANCE
BREE
I don’t remember exactly how the subject came up, because we weren’t involved romantically yet, just working together. Oh, but it might have been because we were talking about our families, and I’d told him I had an older sister and a younger brother, and he said he was an only child, but then he said he had a half-brother. He said it almost like he didn’t want to admit it. Oh, that’s right—that’s how we got on the subject of infidelity.
Now that I think about it, we were getting close by then. We were friends as much as being agent and client, you know? We must have been close because he told me his father had cheated on his mother and that’s how he had a half-brother and that’s why his parents divorced. So I told him my parents split up for the same reason, except it was my mother who’d been seeing someone.
I told him about how my dad had never been an affectionate man, and that my mom told me that’s why she’d started seeing someone. She said Daddy acted like paying the bills was all the affection he needed to show, and she needed more than that.
I’m smiling because I remember Chane shaking his head at me because he wasn’t feeling that. He said something to me like, “No offense Bree, but why do women always rationalize why they cheat? They come up with excuses they’d never accept from a cheating man.”
Then he said two of the worst offenses against a relationship were physical violence and infidelity. He said if a woman pushed him to the point of wanting to commit violence against her he’d get her out of his life in a hurry, and if she cheated on him he’d be done with her just as quickly. That’s what he said. And then he said actually, cheating on someone who loves you is another form of violence—violence against the heart.
That’s what he said.
At the time I thought he was being a little dramatic, you know? Because he’s a writer? I mean, “violence against the heart?” That sounds like something I’d read in somebody’s romance novel manuscript.
But thinking about it now, I know what he said was an understatement.
COMING SOON: ANYTHING WORTH HAVING: A ROMANCE
I met Angela once before she died, at my father’s funeral. She seemed like a nice enough woman at the time. She apologized to me for what had happened, then tried to give me the excuse that there weren’t that many good black men out there. There were a lot of things I could’ve said to her about that, but I didn’t see the point. My mother was already dead by then. That’s who Angela should have apologized to. She should have tried to explain to her how there weren’t that many good black men out there, and that’s why she’d tried to take hers. I’ve never seen my mother in a fight, but my Aunt Rose said back in the day when they were growing up she was a badass. So it would have been interesting to see.
One thing I learned when I was a teenager, a lesson neither of my parents taught me but that I taught myself, was that there is no excuse for cheating. I decided back then that one day when I was in a relationship with somebody—a real relationship—I would not cheat on her.
And she’d better not cheat on me.
There is no excuse for cheating. None. If shit in the relationship gets that bad, pack your fucking shit and leave, then go lay with any and everybody you want.
Cheat on me and I’m done with you. I’ll be done the instant I find out it happened, even before you know I know.
Okay, maybe that actually is a lesson my father taught me.
Just Some Dudes Talking about Chicks: An Excerpt from THIS MASQUERADE
Summer 1978
“So you got a thing for our women,” Terrell said. “That’s why you’re up in here to watch Soul Train, trying to get some jack off material.”
Remembering his shower fantasy about Sara, Ken felt his face turning hot again. “Fuck you, man. Like I said, I like all women.”
“But black women especially?” Durant said.
Ken felt like a rabbit moving toward a trap it couldn’t see. Maybe they were all just messing with his head for fun. Maybe he could just say “Fuck you” and they’d laugh and that would be the end of it. But he wanted to explain it wasn’t some kind of weird thing, his digging some black girls. He didn’t care much what Terrell thought because he was an asshole, but Ray was his friend, and Durant was an okay dude. He wanted the air to be clear with them. “Look…it’s like if you dig all women, like, blondes, brunettes, redheads, but you have a thing for brunettes, you know? It’s nothing against the other two, but brunettes are the hottest.”
As soon as the words left Ken’s mouth, he knew he’d hadn’t explained what he felt the way he wanted to.
Ray said, “So you think sisters are the hottest.”
“No. I mean, it depends. “Every woman has her own thing about her, you know? It’s not about her color. It’s about her. Like, if it’s two blonde girls, but one’s got her own thing about her that makes her stand out to you, if that makes sense. Or like, if nobody thinks a certain girl is attractive, except one guy. Whatever it is about her does it for him. It’s not her race, man, it’s her.”
Durant and Terrell nodded, but Ray was watching him intently. Of these guys, Ken knew Ray best. Ray was smart, and cool. He’d never acted like him being white was a big deal.
Ray said, “So pick one from the squadron; somebody we know.”
“What?”
“Who do you think is the finest sister in our squadron?” Ray said.
Ken knew his face had to be seriously red. As visions of Sara Lane and her beautiful eyes and smile flashed across his memory he said, “Man, I don’t know…”
“Shit, I know,” Terrell said. “Donna Fonda, with that big ass and those big titties. I been trying to hit that since I got here, but she won’t give me no play.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ray said.
Terrell frowned at him. “What? She got somebody? Because I ain’t seen her with nobody.”
Ray shrugged as he bobbed his head to the Commodores’ “Easy.” “Just saying. Me though, I’d be all over Lieutenant Jefferson.”
“Yeah, she’s fine,” Durant said. “A little on the skinny side, though. You see her in a skirt? Serious deer legs. When she wears high heels she looks like Olive Oyl.”
“Yeah, but she’s been divorced about a year,” Ray said. “I bet she’s ripe, and I’d be happy to help her out with that. So, what about you, Fred? Like I don’t already know.”
“Yeah, you know,” Durant said. “But she doesn’t count because she’s gone. Germany, I think. Can’t count her because she’s not stationed here anymore.”
“Who?” Terrell said.
Durant said, “Remember Tina Green?”
Terrell snapped his fingers. “Oh, hell yeah! Looked like Donna Summer but with short hair. Motherfucker, you wasn’t gonna get her fine ass. I heard she was married to a cat in the Army somewhere.”
Ken saw a look pass between Ray and Durant. Then Durant found something to look at on the carpet. He looked like he was trying not to smile as he said, “My father told me if you want to go back to where you’ve been, never put a woman’s business out in the street, so I’m saying nothing.”
Terrell said, “You got down with her, motherfucker? You made her cheat on her old man?”
Durant shook his head. “I’m saying nothing.”
Ray said, “Yeah well, I’ll say this: When it comes to military separation, women are just as bad as men. Actually, they’re probably worse, because they’re better at sneaking around than us. They plan their cheating like they’re building plans for a nuclear missile. They get their alibi set up, got their girlfriends ready to lie for them, and unless you’re checking for it, you won’t even know. Dumb ass men fall into some pussy by mistake and then try to figure out how to lie their way out of it. That’s why men always get caught. But the wives are just as bad, count on it. Let a dude go remote or TDY and watch what happens. His old lady will be out there.”
“Man, I don’t wanna hear that shit,” Terrell said. “You’re making me not wanna get married until I get out so I can keep an eye on my woman. So Durant, fine ass Green gave you some, for real?”
Durant shook his head again to show he still wasn’t confessing.
Terrell checked the clock, then stood up. “Shit, I gotta get to work, but you gonna talk later, motherfucker. I want details.”
“Hold up before you split,” Durant said. “Vogel hasn’t said yet. So Ken, who you got?”
The guys were just talking about women, the way guys do. It wasn’t a serious thing, like they wanted to get into a relationship with the women they were talking about. Except maybe Durant had been in something with Tina Green.
Ken decided it was okay to tell them who he thought was the most attractive girl in their squadron. It wouldn’t mean anything. It was just them talking about the women they thought were hot. Still, his face burned as he muttered, “Sara.”
For seconds that seemed to stretch out to minutes everyone was quiet. Then Ray said, “Sara Lane?”
Now his eyes were on the carpet. “Yeah.”
Now it was out there, in the air. The feelings he’d kept to himself about Sara were no longer his secret. Now these guys knew. Now he was really going to have to explain himself. Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut?
As if on cue, the song “Easy” ended and the record player tone arm lifted, leaving the dorm room quiet enough to hear whispers.
Ken made his eyes stay down, but he could feel his three squadron mates staring at him. He shouldn’t have said anything.
After what felt like more minutes that had to be only seconds, Ray said, “Cool,” and got up and changed the record.
==========
Episode 136 out today! Click HERE to dive into the saga.
The Way of Monsters: Chapter 15 & 16
Maisha Templeton’s ex-husband David is her ex because in what might have been a fit of steroid fueled rage, he broke her jaw. Now, five years later she lives two thousand miles away. She owns her own gallery, and she has a new man in her life. What Maisha doesn’t know is that David is hunting for her, and that he intends to extract his vengeance from her in flesh and blood. What Maisha also doesn’t know is that her new love interest, the artist Duncan Gray, is a professional assassin. But when Maisha’s old life collides with her new one, she will witness firsthand the way of monsters.
Here’s an excerpt from THE HITMAN CHRONICLES, BOOK TWO: THE WAY OF MONSTERS
==========
CHAPTER 15
Bradley Beach, New Jersey
She ran.
The wet sand just beyond the reach of the morning surf sucked at her running shoes and made it feel like she was jogging with bricks tied to her ankles. It hindered her rhythm and made her pump her arms with the effort of every stride.
It would be so easy to stop, to give up.
She ran.
The muscles in her thighs and calves burned as if instead of blood, liquid fire coursed through her veins.
She ran.
With each labored inhalation of salted air her lungs screamed at her to quit this madness.
She ran.
Her suffering didn’t matter. Pain now was the price she had to pay for too much time paying attention to her business and not to herself. Her gallery was her pride, her great accomplishment. She had focused on it to the exclusion of taking care of herself, not because she didn’t care about her health and appearance, but when you’re not looking for a man, when you’ve let go of the notion that a relationship was a necessary part of a complete life, well, you tended not to notice the pounds creeping up on you. Or maybe you noticed and didn’t much care. What had been important was first making her gallery a success, and then making it a bigger success. But her gallery hadn’t been the only thing getting bigger.
So she ran.
She had succeeded in her career where she had screwed up in relationships. She had failed in marriage and had more than her heart broken. Then she’d failed in a relationship in which she might have been in love with a man who as it turned out, was definitely still in love with his ex-wife.
Those relationships didn’t matter now. She wasn’t bitter. She didn’t hate men. She simply accepted that she was bad at picking them. When you’re not good at a thing, you focus on the things you are good at. She was good at judging and selling art—no, she was great at it—and that was good enough.
Still.
It had been over two years since she’d met anyone with whom a relationship even seemed possible, so why this past holiday season had been worse than those in previous years she didn’t know.
Thanksgiving had been the first blow, a stinging jab of a reminder that she was thirty-two years old and alone. Christmas and New Years were thudding blows that sent her reeling into the ropes of near depression. Valentine’s Day was the knockout punch. She’d spent the lover’s holiday at work trying not to think about how alone she was and that night crying into her pillow, trying to remember the last time she’d given or received so much as a card from someone. It had to be back when she and David were dating, when she was a college freshman, and he was a senior. After they were married, any acts of endearment from her ex-husband ceased.
Thinking about David, especially when the weather was damp and the ache in her jaw returned, helped to remind her that being alone wasn’t the worst thing in the world. But the thing that got her on the road to fitness was going home to Denver for Easter and seeing the shocked, what the hell happened to you? expressions on the faces of her family. Only her sister Phylicia was actually cruel enough to say, “You look like you ate a bowling ball with a side order of ten pins.”
In her old bedroom at her parent’s house she’d taken a good look at herself in the mirror for the first time in months. She’d stared in horror at a person she no longer recognized. She decided right then that by summer’s end she was going to have recovered the person she used to be, internally as well as externally. Except she would be stronger.
And so she ran.
Up ahead, maybe an eighth of a mile away and across the street from the boardwalk on Ocean Avenue, her bungalow waited. Encouraged by the nearness of home and the end of her self-inflicted torture she accelerated from a jog to a sprint. Her legs and lungs howled their protest. She made herself ignore her suffering.
Bowling ball, my ass.
Finally, she reached the spot where a half hour earlier she’d left footprints in the sand leading from the boardwalk to the surf’s edge. She slowed her stride, then stopped at last and doubled over, hands on knees, legs trembling, gasping to near hyperventilation as the foamy surf licked at her ankles. For the moment she was too exhausted to move. It didn’t matter. It was so worth it.
When she was able to breathe almost normally, she lurched up the beach to the boardwalk and across the street to her bungalow. So as not to track sand on the living room carpet, she made her way around back and entered through the kitchen. She kicked off her running shoes and peeled off her damp socks, stripped out of her sweat-soaked gear and staggered on still trembling legs to the refrigerator.
She stood in front of the open refrigerator, letting the chilled air cool her heated body as she twisted open a bottle of spring water. She guzzled greedily, and some of the water splashed down her chin and onto her bare chest and the floor tiles. She didn’t care. She’d done her run. Fought through the discomfort. Met the challenge.
Standing nude in her kitchen with her muscles still quivering from her exertion, Maisha Templeton felt raw. Strong. Primal. Wild.
She padded through her oceanfront bungalow to her bedroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the door, examining her new physique.
Much better. The bowling ball and ten pins were gone. Not only had she lost those twenty pounds, but she was in the best shape of her life. Her waist was down to high school proportions. Her stomach was flat, with just a hint of a six-pack rippling beneath the taunt skin. Her legs were long, strong, and firm, the result of months of running on the beach three days a week. Except for where her bikinis had covered her, the sun had darkened her complexion to a creamy copper. She turned sideways, and her side profile made her smile. How had she ever believed back in high school and college that she was too skinny?
Bowling ball my ass. She was going to have to send her sister a thank you card for her insult. And a photo, too.
Maisha returned to the living room and punched the button on a remote control to turn on her stereo. The radio station out of New York was playing an oldie but goodie, Sly & the Family Stone’s “Everyday People,” a perfect song for a sunny summer Monday morning like this one. She cranked up the volume and headed for the bathroom, singing along, and wiggling her hips to the beat along the way.
She stood in the shower with her palms pressed against the tiles and her eyes closed, letting the warm jet spray sluice the tension from her muscles. In her imagination, the water solidified, becoming the strong but gentle hands of a lover who massaged the stress from her body. It would be so nice to be held, touched, and kissed, but there was no one in her life, not even a prospect. She had no luck with men, no luck at all. From David, her ex-husband, who had taken out the frustration of a failed professional football career on her, to that bum Gerald, who was divorced but unable to get his wife out of his heart, she’d suffered nothing but heartache and disappointment from men. She didn’t need or want some romance novel fairy tale; just someone decent to know, someone with whom to share the good things in her life. But she didn’t trust herself anymore to know what a decent man looked like. It was better, safer for her heart to focus on her career, because she was good at that. Unlike with men, when it came to art, she knew what she was doing. It was better to have no one than suffer another disappointment.
Tears stung her eyes, threatening to overflow if she continued this negative thinking.
Screw this. No pity parties today. She had a lot to be thankful for. She had her health, and now she was super fit. She owned her own home with a view of the ocean across the street from her front porch. She was thirty-two years old and owned her own business, a gallery in Asbury Park that was going great, even though most of her business was walk-in and summer tourist traffic. After five years she was turning a nice enough profit that she had just purchased the office space next door to expand her operation.
She had so many blessings for which she could be thankful. She knew she shouldn’t be feeling sorry for herself just because she had no one to share them with. If it were meant to be, God would take care of it in His own time.
Maisha dried off, then clean and refreshed, headed back to the kitchen to make breakfast. On her running days she didn’t go to the gallery until ten. Her assistant Louis would be there to open up.
She prepared a light breakfast of turkey bacon, wheat toast and cantaloupe slices and settled on the sofa to catch a few minutes of the Today Show before getting ready for work. The program was just breaking away for the local news segment, where the lead story was about the widow of some New Jersey mobster getting shot to death in North Carolina a week ago. Some guy she worked with that she’d apparently been having an affair with was being held for questioning. The reporter was emphasizing the irony of the murder; the woman had been hiding from the bad guys for five years but ended up getting murdered by her married lover.
Watching the news segment, Maisha rubbed her jaw absently. Sometimes you just couldn’t tell who the bad guys were.
CHAPTER 16
Oceanport, New Jersey
From his swimming pool deck Duncan scooped pine needles from the water. There was nothing wrong with pine needles. They weren’t dirty. He removed them because they detracted from the perceived pristine cleanliness of the water.
For too many things in the world, people cared more about perception than reality. Never mind that to swim in crystal clear pool water they drenched themselves in and sucked up chlorine, which was definitely more harmful than pine needles. Most people didn’t think about that, or if they thought about it at all, didn’t dwell on it. The water looked nice, and that was good enough.
The news reports said Anne-Marie Antonucci, aka Mary Ellen Britt, had been having an affair with the manager at her job, a married man. He claimed she’d broken up with him a couple weeks before her murder. He said he’d been relieved about the breakup, because the guilt he’d felt about cheating had made his life miserable. Apparently, he thought revealing that their affair was over would point toward his innocence. After all, why would he kill her after they were done?
He was wrong about that. In the view of the news media, which these days reported opinion as often as facts, and too often tried to report opinion as facts, he was the angry, jilted lover, an if-I-can’t-have-her-no-one-will asshole. The police were rolling with that theory as well, and the evidence supported them. Other than Anne-Marie’s fingerprints, only the ex-lover’s prints were found in her home. Anne-Marie and the lover worked the overnight shift at a local factory. He’d claimed that on the afternoon of her murder, he’d been home alone sleeping, and that his wife was at work. In the minds of many, having no alibi meant guilt. Never mind that Anne-Marie was the widow of an organized crime boss and had been living in North Carolina under a false identity because she was on the run from the mob. That was just the chlorine, and in the eyes of some of the media, though it didn’t absolve her ex-lover, it made her murder a kind of poetic justice.
What was most important to Duncan was that no one mentioned seeing her talking to someone outside a local convenience store or seeing a strange car in her driveway on the afternoon of her death. Like pine needles, the lover was there to be seen. Scoop him out, and justice would be served. Things would look nice and clean again. The lover looked right for it, so he’d been charged with firing four bullets into Anne-Marie’s head with her own gun.
The Professor hadn’t told him the target had had a lover. Maybe he hadn’t known about it, or maybe he hadn’t thought it was pertinent to the contract. Duncan thought maybe he shouldn’t care, either. The dude was cheating on his wife, so he was one of the many who made the world a worse place to live. If he were getting his ass kicked for that, fine. But he had nothing to do with the target’s death. North Carolina still had the death penalty. If the target’s ex-lover was found guilty, he could get the needle.
In Duncan’s previous contracts, the deaths had gone unsolved. He had been as Professor Alford and Master Oh trained him to be, a hand that reached out from the darkness, did its work, and receded back into the shadows. There hadn’t been any collateral damage, no loose ends like Anne-Marie Antonucci’s lover. Loose ends and collateral damage weren’t supposed to happen. A loose end like this dude being charged with a murder he didn’t commit could reap negative consequences. If Anne-Marie’s lover could afford a decent attorney, who was to say the attorney wouldn’t start digging, wouldn’t backtrack the target’s movements on the day of her death? Would an investigation lead to talking to the convenience store clerk? To the kids who’d been riding a dirt bike and ATV on her street at the time of her death?
Too many fucking loose ends.
Getting out of the game and moving to North Carolina to live a new life was starting to look better. That peace was still waiting for him, and it was starting to not only look better, but smarter.
With that thought in mind, he went inside to see if Simone was up and wanted breakfast.
==========
“I’m thinking I might do some traveling, see some places, take some pictures,” Simone said over breakfast.
“For pleasure or profit?”
By the time his niece graduated college, her artistic interest had shifted from art to photography. Duncan wondered if her love of firearms, which began the first time he’d taken her to a range when she was fifteen, had morphed her desire to paint into a passion for lining things up in her sights and shooting them, now with a camera.
“Both,” she said. “I want to check out ancient places and buildings, like Scottish castles, English cathedrals, French museums. This country is too new, there’s not any ancient history, at least not history that hasn’t been destroyed or built over. I want to see places that were old before the Vikings showed up over here.” Her eyes dropped to her plate. She toyed with the scraps of her omelet with her fork. “If I’m traveling, I’d be out of your way and not cramping your style.”
“You’re not cramping my style,” Duncan said. “Hell, you spend as much time at Kevin’s as you do here. It’s like you have dual citizenship in two cribs.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been home enough to notice you haven’t had a chick over here since I’ve been back.”
“I wasn’t having them over before, either.”
Now she looked across the table at him with a fixed stare. “Why not?”
“Too busy, I guess.”
Simone looked like she wanted to say something about that. She didn’t.
“What’re your plans for today?” he said.
“Going to the range this afternoon. Wanna come? Do you need to practice?”
“I’m going to Pops,” Duncan said, meaning the boxing gym in Asbury Park. He had a home gym set up in his basement, but sometimes the environment at Pops, being around dudes training for physical combat, was motivating.
He didn’t use to need motivation. Back in the day in Japan, he and Nik knew if they didn’t keep their bodies in peak condition, the trained assailants in Master Oh’s dungeon would make them pay with pain.
Lack of motivation was another reason to get out of the business.
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THE HITMAN CHRONICLES: MEET DUNCAN & NIKIRA
Excerpt from THE HITMAN CHRONICLES BOOK ONE: THE DEVIL’S CHILDREN:
CHAPTER 1
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Fussa City, Japan
Fresh from her shower Nikira Horikoshi posed naked, crouched on all fours on the bed in their little apartment, her long hair falling over her face in sodden strands. From beneath her fallen tresses she watched him, her black eyes catching the light but reflecting no life, like unlit coals. She reminded Duncan Gray of a hungry lioness peering between blades of high veld grass, a beast yearning for the blood and flesh of some unwary prey. Beautiful, but so deadly dangerous.
“How many have you killed?” she said.
“We’re not supposed to talk about that.”
“We’re not supposed to fuck each other either,” Nik shot back. “But here we are.”
Her black eyes empty, her expression blank, on her hands and knees she gyrated her hips, simulating an act with such blatant carnality that despite her expressionless face it left no room for misinterpretation.
Duncan wasn’t sure if her motion was meant to tease, to seduce, or to offend him. Sometimes he wondered if Nik said or did certain things because she liked to get reactions out of him, maybe keep him on edge and off balance. When she did those things she always watched him intently, her eyes probing his as if she were seeking out cracks in the armor of his self-assurance.
“Shut up and be still,” he said, and turned his focus back to his sketch pad.
Rather than draw her on the bed in the apartment they now shared, he penciled in the rough beginnings of a boulder beneath her. She wanted his painting of her to make her look like a wild animal.
“I did two on the books,” Nikira said.
“Meaning what?”
“Two the Professor knows about; that he sanctioned.”
“Who else, off the books?”
“Uh-uh. I showed you mine, now show me yours.”
“One,” he lied.
“Did the Professor have to convince you to do it?”
“No.” He would have killed Fred anyway. Some people needed to be dead.
“Did you like it? Was it fun?”
“There was nothing to like. It just needed to be done.”
“Well, that’s no fun,” she pouted.
“Hey, your nose is bleeding again,” he said, getting up. “Lay back; I’ll grab a washcloth.”
Today’s training session in Master Oh’s underground gym had been especially brutal. Master Oh had them each spar against two opponents at once. One of the two dudes Nik fought had rocked her pretty good with a spinning backfist to her head.
“No,” Nik said. “Draw me like this, with the blood.”
Duncan sat down again with his sketch pad. He modified his drawing to show Nikira in her crouch, now wearing a snarling smile with blood staining her mouth, teeth, and chin.
She looked like she had killed something and ate it and had enjoyed doing both.
Can an Assassin Have a Romantic Relationship? Should He?
Excerpt from THE HITMAN CHRONICLES, Book 2: THE WAY OF MONSTERS:
With just a little arm-twisting Maisha Templeton persuaded Duncan to let her make the salad and heat up the baked beans. He gave her a quick tour of the kitchen and went out to the deck to fire up the charcoal and get the chicken and ears of Jersey sweet white corn going.
Other than Simone, he hadn’t prepared a meal with a woman since Eloa Mendoza in Brazil, over a year ago. Before that, never. This was different than with Eloa. Eloa had been about work. He had known their relationship would end once he completed the contract and killed her father.* Maisha Templeton helping him put a meal together wasn’t work. Okay, it was work, because at some point she would get back to cataloging his paintings. But it didn’t feel like work.
While he was flipping the chicken and slathering on his concoction of barbecue and steak sauce, Maisha came out onto the deck, wiping her hands with a paper towel. “Okay, I took the liberty of chopping up some onions and adding them and mustard to the beans, and I’m heating them on the stove instead of the microwave,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. Thanks.”
“Is your niece one of those women who don’t like another woman setting foot in her kitchen? I’ll make sure I clean up.”
“If I told her to go in the kitchen to microwave some popcorn, she’d need a map to find it. You’re good.”
“So you do most of the cooking?”
“I have an aversion to being accidentally poisoned.” He was exaggerating Simone’s ineptitude in the kitchen. She was a fair cook, but he wanted Maisha to feel at home and comfortable. He didn’t think women necessarily belonged in the kitchen, but he liked that Maisha Templeton was doing her thing in his.
When the chicken was ready, they sat out on his deck under the shade of a patio umbrella with a gentle summer breeze cooling the air and smooth jazz pumping from a Bluetooth speaker, eating a late lunch and getting to know each other. The knowing began when after a sip of Red Stripe, Maisha said, “It just occurred to me that I haven’t had a beer since the Super Bowl.”
“Are you a football only drinker?”
“I’m a football fan, but I wasn’t doing beer because I needed to get back into some kind of shape. I spent the holidays being a pig without a conscience.”
“You did an excellent job,” he said.
“Being a pig?”
“Come on.”
“Thanks, but I can say the same for you. That gear in your basement explains why you look so nice. Fit, I mean.”
“Who’s your team, since you’re a football fan?”
“The Broncos. I’m from Denver.”
“Didn’t we crush you in a Super Bowl back in the day?”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“The Giants.”
“I’m too young to remember, chump. Aren’t you? How old are you, if I may ask?”
“Thirty-two. You?”
“Thirty-three, so respect your elders when we’re talking football.”
“What got you from Denver to New Jersey?”
For a moment she kept her eyes on her plate and toyed with her salad with her fork. Then she said, “I needed to get away, to somewhere other than where I was. I had a friend from college out here, so I stayed with her for a while until I got my bearings. I worked in a gallery in Newark for a few years, then decided to go for it and open my own place in Asbury Park. Been open five years, been turning a decent profit for a couple.”
“Why did you need to get away? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“That’s good, because I don’t talk about it with people who aren’t close.” She was smiling as she spoke, but he could see the seriousness in her golden gaze, and what he thought might be pain.
“Didn’t mean to pry. I apologize.”
“I’m not being bitchy, okay? Totally not my style. Some things are just tough to talk about.”
“Understood. Let’s move to a new subject.”
“Bad marriage,” she said. Her eyes were on her salad again.
“You don’t know me, so you don’t have to get into it.”
“Yeah well, I just remembered I’m talking to a guy who grew up without his parents, whose sister died after that, and who raised his niece to be a college grad, and oh by the way, is one of the best artists I’ve ever seen. I know that about you and we just met. I can share if you care to hear it.”
“If you want to tell me,” Duncan said, and then decided to take a chance. “I’d like to get to know you.”
“Why?”
“Okay, let’s skip over the fact that you’re gorgeous and get to how I’m impressed at what you’ve got going with your gallery. I don’t know how I missed you if you’ve been open five years right in Asbury.”
“Oh, did I not mention that you’re super handsome when I was talking about how you impressed me?”
Duncan shrugged.
“And modest,” she said. “That makes you even more attractive. So how is it you’re single? Oh wait; am I assuming?”
They were moving into new territory. Territory he wouldn’t mind exploring. “I’m single. And I can ask you the same question—if you’re single. Okay, you said bad marriage, but that was at least five years ago if I heard you right.”
“Haven’t met the right man, I guess. What’s your excuse?”
“I don’t know. My sister died while I was in college, and I think after that I just had it in my mind to get guardianship of my niece as soon as I could. I’m the only blood family she has, and I felt like she should be with me. I guess I figured most women wouldn’t be into getting serious with someone raising a kid. Anyway, a relationship wasn’t my focus. I was about my art and taking care of Simone.” That wasn’t the complete truth, but it was a truth.
“I think that’s admirable,” Maisha said. “And here’s a newsflash: I think most women would think the same. A responsible man is appealing.”
“Was your ex responsible?”
“Not in the end. He blamed his failure on me.”
“Failure?”
“We met in college. He was on the football team, the star linebacker who was a lock to get drafted by somebody. I was a shy nerd. For me, his being interested in me was beyond a fantasy realized. The short version: We were college newlyweds with dreams of him playing for the Broncos dancing in our heads. Then he tore up his knee in practice. He rehabbed like a fiend, and a couple of teams looked at him, but no go. His knee wasn’t strong enough. Then he started doing steroids; HGH or anything he thought would get him back to where he was before his injury. He still didn’t get a bite from any team. He got more and more frustrated, and bitter. He couldn’t accept that sometimes a thing just isn’t meant to be. Worse, he started blaming me for his injury, saying if he hadn’t been distracted with me in his life he wouldn’t have lost his focus and wouldn’t have gotten injured. Another newsflash: Never get with anybody who can’t accept that sometimes bad things just happen and there’s no one to blame, especially if they never consider the blame might be theirs.”
“So you left him?”
“One evening while we were having dinner I asked him how his day went. He was working as a personal trainer and I was a gallery assistant manager, so we were doing okay, as far as I was concerned. But he asked me what that was supposed to mean, as if I’d insulted him. That led to an argument, which it seemed like we were starting to have all the time. This time he said if he hadn’t been distracted banging my scrawny ass instead of focusing on his training he never would’ve gotten hurt. I told him he was crazy. The next thing I know, I woke up on the kitchen floor. I felt like somebody had rammed an ice pick through my face. I tried to get up, and it hurt so bad I passed out again. When I woke up again, I drove myself to the hospital. My jaw was fractured in two places.”
“Where was he?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him again until we were in court. He hit me, so I was done. I filed for divorce. The problem was this was the first time he’d been violent toward me, and he had his ex-coaches and alumni from college and boosters putting in a good word for him. If he’d had priors, they could have locked him up for a few years. All he got was mandatory anger management treatment, community service and a protection order. I wasn’t going to hang around and wait and see what might come next. Looking back, I should’ve left way before. Maybe because of the drugs, he’d been getting worse with his attitude and his temper. That’s why you didn’t know about the gallery. I don’t really advertise, especially not anything where my name might be tied to it. Okay, I said I’d give you the short version, but I gave you the extended remix. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to talk to me.”
“You’re easy to talk to. Not like him. And you don’t have that one-step-away-from-violence vibe about you like him.”
From the Bluetooth speaker came the intro to David Sanborn’s version of “Since I Fell for You,” with vocals by Al Jarreau. Impulse and the desire to get away from the subject of him and violence made Duncan say, “Want to dance?”
Her smile couldn’t have been any more surprised and incredulous if he’d just told her he was born on Mars. She had a beautiful smile.
“Dance?” she said. “I’ve never slow danced in my life.”
“Me either,” Duncan said. “But I remember my parents doing it. Seemed like my mother followed whatever my father was doing. I’ll work from memory, and you can follow me.”
Maisha looked around his back yard like she suspected there were hidden cameras planted and she was about to get pranked.
Duncan stood up and offered his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it.
Standing out on his deck under the afternoon sun, he placed his hands on her waist. She slipped her arms around his neck. He began to sway, slowly. She followed his lead.
At some point—he didn’t know when exactly because he was lost in the aura of her nearness—she laid her cheek on his shoulder. He took a chance and gently embraced her with his arms around her waist. She didn’t protest.
After what seemed an eternity yet no time at all the song ended. He didn’t hear what came next because she was in his arms, and that sensation offered its own kind of music, a song that drowned out everything else in his world. He was still holding her, but she hadn’t yet tried to move away. Her arms were still around his neck, and she was gazing up at him.
Well, he’d come this far.
He said, “To be a proper gentleman, I should probably wait until the next time I see you before I try to kiss you.”
“Blink,” she said.
“What?”
“Blink.”
He blinked.
She said, “Now it’s the next time.”
* From THE HITMAN CHRONICLES: THE DEVIL’S CHILDREN, Book 1 in the series.
THE HITMAN CHRONICLES: THE WAY OF MONSTERS Available Now
Excerpt from Book Two in THE HITMAN CHRONICLES Series:
Esmeralda County, Nevada
Darius Chambers prided himself on being a brother in absolute control of every facet of his life and his business. That life included a mansion in the suburbs of San Francisco and a condo in Las Vegas, more expensive Italian suits in his closets than he could remember, a Bentley for show and a Mercedes SUV for every day rolling, and always a few grand in cash in his pocket. He had business offices in ‘Frisco and his office here in the warehouse in the Nevada desert where he shot his movies and entertained clients. The people who worked for him knew to follow his orders immediately and to the letter, and not to make a move without his approval. A fuck-up on their part would result in a fine or a beatdown, depending on his mood.
Darius had been in a good mood until the Asian chick stuck her head in his office door. Somebody—either Jack or Andre or both— had just fucked up. They’d let this bitch get up to his office without an appointment and after business hours. What the fuck kind of security were they if they let somebody up after hours, when the warehouse was empty, even if she was fine in the face, and with little girl pigtails dangling from the sides of her head that gave her the adolescent vibe some of the sick motherfuckers liked and paid extra for? But fine didn’t mean shit. Fine in the face bitches were as common as cracks in the sidewalk.
“Hi there!” she chirped. “Are you Mr. Chambers?” She was smiling at him with her head poking through the door, which she’d opened without knocking.
Darius didn’t get up from his desk. He scowled at the bitch and said, “I am, and you’re here after business hours. Come back—no, call my secretary tomorrow and make an appointment.”
The bitch pouted but didn’t go away. She pushed the door open and stepped in.
He was going to fuck Jack and Andre up for this. Neither of them had bothered to call and give him a heads up that somebody was coming up. Maybe they figured he was down for some casting couch action before taking off. Didn’t matter. He didn’t pay them to think, he paid them to do what the fuck he said, when the fuck he said it, not to make decisions on their own.
The girl sauntered to halfway between the door and his desk, stopped and said, “I’m sorry sir, but I’m here now, so I figured I could see you before you left.”
She wore a tight black t-shirt, stretch jeans and high-top pink Converses. She had a hot body for an Asian chick; curves that would look nice when she was out of her clothes. But she’d come after business hours.
“The warehouse is closed, and you don’t have an appointment, so you’re wasting my time,” Darius said. “People who waste my time cost me money, and right now, you are wasting my time. That means while I’m sitting here looking at you, you’re making me lose money. And that means you already owe me, and you haven’t even shown me you’re worth the time you stole.”
The girl stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, thrust her plump chest out, and pouted. The little protrusions at the front of her t-shirt informed him that she wasn’t wearing a bra, and that maybe she was excited to be where she was.
Darius laced his fingers on his leather desk pad and took on an all-about-business posture. “Okay then, since you’re already here, tell me how we’re going to rectify this situation.”
“What’s the situation, Mr. Chambers?”
“You owe me for wasting my time. Now, how’re you going to compensate me?”
The chick smiled at him. Darius didn’t like the way she smiled, like she knew some secret he didn’t know. He especially didn’t like her eyes, the way she was looking at him. There was nothing in her eyes—no fear of him, no respect for him, no life; nothing.
Then he noticed the coaster-sized stain on the thigh of her jeans. It looked like it was still damp. It looked like it could be blood. He thought about Jack and Andre not calling to tell him this chick was coming up.
He’d been getting ready to leave his office. He’d already locked his desk drawers. His Glock was in the top right drawer. He shoved his chair back and stood up. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a representative for Natalie Barovkov.”
“Who?”
“I think by the time she got to you she went by Bonnie Baron. Anyway, I’m here on her behalf.”
Darius remembered Bonnie Baron. The bitch had tried to quit on him. Nobody quit on him. Anybody who tried didn’t get to live to talk about it. “I don’t know anyone by that name,” he said. “So how about you get the fuck out of my office?”
“I thought you wanted to be compensated for your time, Mr. Chambers.”
Darius noticed the little bitch shifting her shoulders. She still had her hands in her back pockets. He made himself not look at the wet spot on her jeans. He didn’t want her to know what he was thinking until he made his move.
“I have people downstairs,” he said. “How’d you get by them?” His keys were in his pants pocket. If this bitch had a weapon in her back pocket, he wasn’t going to be able to unlock his desk and grab his Glock before she pulled whatever she was packing.
The chick said, “The guy driving the SUV didn’t even know I was in the back seat until he stopped in front of the building. The other guy—the big dude at the door—I guess he was trying to call you instead of thinking about protecting himself. That was stupid.”
“They hurt or dead?” Darius moved around his desk, slowly. He couldn’t get his piece, but if he could keep this bitch talking until he got close enough to her…
“Do you believe in God and the afterlife, Mr. Chambers?”
“What?”
“Because to answer your question, if you do believe, then you’re going to be with your people from downstairs soon.”
He was close enough now that he could bum rush her and overpower her before she pulled a weapon if she had one.
As if she could read his intention, she sidestepped away from him. Darius felt a little thrill of unease at how she’d moved as slick as mercury to stand in front of the door, not as if she might run, but as if she wanted to block his way if he tried to get out.
She slipped her hands out of her back pockets.
She wore brass knuckles on each fist.
She smiled a sweet smile that didn’t reach her lifeless black eyes and said, “Natalie Barovkov’s grandfather said before I kill you, I’m supposed to hurt you. Are you ready?”
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