by Linzi Basset
Excerpt: His Devil’s Desire
Club Devil’s Cove – Book 1
#1 Rank as Best New Release
Prologue
6 Years Ago . . .
Being an assassin in the Kill Squad for the CIA had its perks; a new city every week, casual hotel life, with no dishes or chores, new clothes every day. Although, she donated the old ones to charity or the homeless. She chuckled.
“Yep, there are some finely dressed homeless walking around all over.”
Ace—her code name, of course—swallowed a gulp of double espresso and browsed the newspaper. She had an hour before her next job officially began, or rather, until she received the target’s identity. It was how she operated. She didn’t want to know anything about them. She only needed their location to set shop and take the shot. She left the planning to the operations team.
What they didn’t realize was that she always double checked everything. She wasn’t a fool to leave her life in other’s hands.
She’d learned early on to maintain a cool detachment from her targets. Mostly, she tried not to think of them at all, but when she did, it was with indifference; like they were already dead. She thought of them as meeting their destiny and she was merely the conduit. Everyone had to die sometime, and most of her targets got off easy—considering the lives they’d lived. The way they’d made others suffer—they shouldn’t go from happy and oblivious one second, to dead the next. Simple. Convenient. Painless. No, most of them should be put through Hell’s fire.
She'd barely raised the cup when her phone beeped.
Damn! Trust Bulldog to be early! She snorted reading the text message. Her targets were already on the way. She frowned. No one had informed her there would be two targets. Ace hated surprises. She punched a reply and sent it, tapping her fingers on the table waiting for a response. In true Bulldog manner, it was curt and to the point.
Be ready. Price is double. Lock and load, Ace. They’ll be there in thirty minutes. I’ll send the photo in twenty.
Leaving a perfectly good cup of coffee on the table offended her morals. So, she gulped down the rest and paid the bill.
“The breakfast is on me,” she told the server who protested her leaving without eating her food.
Within fifteen minutes she was in position on rooftop of the Hilton Hotel. Her targets were to arrive at the apartment building across the street. She perused the street and nearby rooftops through the telescope of her XS1 TrackingPoint sniper; the best and the most accurate one in the market. It was early morning and apart from the hum of the traffic below, it was quiet so high up. Everything seemed in order. Ace sat with her back against the wall and waited for Bulldog, her handler, to send her the photo of the targets.
No one who’d met her would believe she executed people for a living. Most definitely not at twenty-six years of age. She was as agile as an Olympic gymnast, and just as fast. When she’d embarked on her career, she hadn't been in a sound frame of mind and they had used her vulnerability to recruit her. Of late, she’d come to realize it wasn’t the right choice for her. Her questionable career choices didn’t reflect in her personal life, which was pretty low-key.
She was efficient at her job. Instead of dispatching paperwork and emails, she dispatched people to whatever came after life; but only the ones who had it coming. Only those who posed danger to the people of this country; or that’s what she kept telling herself to keep going.
The photo arrived seconds before the limo came around the corner. Ace settled behind the rifle, her lips pursed in an annoyed pout.
“What danger could such a beautiful woman pose to the country? Or is this another one of Bulldog’s own vendettas he’s got me taking care of again?”
Ace had become uncomfortable with her assignments of late. The last two jobs just hadn’t felt right. And this one smelled foul as well.
Her mark stepped out from the black limousine, her curly brown hair falling in soft layers around bare shoulders. She had the right physique and the right hair, but Ace would have to wait for her to turn to get a positive I.D. of the face. She never assumed anything in this line of work. A loud siren drew the woman’s attention and she turned around. Ace froze and then her finger relaxed on the trigger. She drew a ragged breath, staring at the child the woman held in her arms. She looked at the picture again.
“The little girl . . . No, she can’t be the second target.” She sat frozen in shock, staring at the picture.
“Fuck you, Bulldog. I’m done doing your dirty work,” she growled. Her actions were methodical as she began disassembling her firearm. This was where she drew the line—killing innocent women and children. There was no way that innocent little girl could’ve done any wrong. She was barely six years of age, if that much.
Ace wasn’t heartless; killing for the joy of killing. She did if for protecting the innocent. The only time she had done it for revenge had been the very first time—for her family.
Bulldog’s voice crackled over her earpiece. “Shoot! What are you waiting for?”
He had a direct link-up to her earpiece and was probably in the ops control room watching the scene via satellite, but she ignored him and detached the magazine from the sniper.
Then all hell broke loose. Ping! Ping! She heard the shots and picked up her firearm to peer through the scope. She spied another shooter on an adjacent roof, taking shots at the mother and child. She jammed the magazine back into the rifle and took aim. When she squeezed the trigger, she knew she’d killed the shooter on the other roof, even before the bullet hit him.
She looked back to the limo below and froze. The young woman was lying in a pool of blood on the black tarred road. The white frilly dress of the little girl she was slumped over was tainted red. There was no movement apart from a large man who was screaming and running toward the limo, closely followed by another. More shots were fired. Samantha aimed her rifle at the window of yet another building, where the shots were coming from this time. She released a folly of bullets in that direction.
“Ace! What the fuck are you doing? Get your target. Now!”
“Target is already dead,” she snapped into the mouthpiece.
“Get the fucktards trying to get to the limo. They are not to reach that child! Ace, I gave you an order!” Bulldog snarled in her ear.
“Fuck your order. This is bullshit, Bulldog! Fucking bullshit and you know it! Who the fuck are these people?”
“It doesn’t matter. Do what you get paid for! Shoot those fuckers!” He screamed into her ear.
“You know what?” She said with a calmness that belied the trembling of her hands. She’d almost done something she would never be able to live with. Kill an innocent woman and child. Had she not waited for her to turn . . . “Do your own fucking dirty work. I quit!”
She took one final look down to the street. She caught the big man’s gaze, who was kneeling by the body of the bloodied woman. He probably saw a dark figure in a cap and a sniper rifle in hand. He didn’t know that she had tried to save them.
She saw him scream at her. It was too far to hear but in her mind she knew what he said. “I will find you, fucker! You will pay for their deaths!”
Ping! Ping!
Two more shots fired in quick succession. The force of the bullet, impacting his chest, threw him back at the same time the man running toward him went down from a hit. Ace found the third sniper and this time took careful aim. Her bullet hit him dead center.
The sirens and screeching tires of police vehicles came around the corner and spurred her into action. She picked up her duffel bag and ran, disassembling her rifle at the same time.
Ace was always prepared for the unexpected. She’d just locked the gun away in a secret compartment and jumped under the shower of the room in the Hilton Hotel she’d rented two days prior, when there was hammering on the door.
The police officer searching the rooms on the floor for a runaway assassin was disarmed when a petite, blonde woman wrapped in a small
white towel, dripping wet, answered the door.
Find it here and start reading:
www.books2read.com/DevilsDesire
More Books by Linzi Basset
Club Devil’s Cove Series
His Devil’s Desire – Book 1
His Devil’s Heat – Book 2
His Devil’s Wish – Book 3
His Devil’s Mercy – Book 4
Club Wicked Cove Series
Desperation: Ceejay’s Absolution–Book 1
Desperation: Colt’s Acquittal – Book 2
Exploration: Nolan’s Regret – Book 3
Merciful: Seth’s Revenge – Book 4
Claimed: Parnell’s Gift – Book 5
Decadent: Kent’s Desire – Book 6
Club Alpha Cove Series
His FBI Sub – Book 1
His Ice Baby Sub – Book 2
His Vanilla Sub – Book 3
His Fiery Sub – Book 4
His Sassy Sub – Book 5
Their Bold Sub – Book 6
His Brazen Sub – Book 7
His Defiant Sub – Book 8
His Forever Sub – Book 9
His Cherished Sub – Book 10
For Amy – Their Beloved Sub – Book 11
Their Sub Novella Series
No Option – Book 1
Done For – Book 2
For This – Book 3
Their Sub Series Boxset
Their Command Series
Say Yes – Book 1
Say Please – Book 2
Say Now – Book 3
Their Command Series Boxset
Paranormal Books
The Flame Dragon King - Metallic Dragons #1
Slade: The First Touch
Azriel: Angel of Destruction
Romance Suspense
Caught Series
Caught in Between
Caught in His Web
The Tycoon Series
The Tycoon and His Honey Pot
The Tycoon’s Blondie
The Tycoon’s Mechanic
Standalone Titles
Her Prada Cowboy
Never Leave Me, Baby
Now is Our Time
The Wildcat that Tamed the Tycoon
The Poet’s Lover
Sarah: The Life of Me
Naughty Christmas Story
Her Santa Dom
Boxset
A Santa to Love
Books Co-Written as Isabel James
The White Pearl Series
Double Shot Espresso – Book 1
The Crow’s Nest – Book 2
The White Pearl Boxset
Christmas Novella
Santa’s Kiss
Boxset
A Santa to Love
Poetry Bundle by Linzi Basset & James Calderaro
Love Unbound - Poems of the Heart
About the Author
“Isn’t it a universal truth that it’s our singular experiences and passion, for whatever thing or things, which molds us all into the individuals we become? Whether it's hidden in the depths of our soul or exposed for all to see?”
Linzi Basset is a South African born animal rights supporter with a poet’s heart, and she is also a bestselling fiction writer of suspense filled romance erotica books; who as the latter, refuses to be bound to any one sub-genre. She prefers instead to stretch herself as a storyteller which has resulted in her researching and writing historical and even paranormal themed works.
Her initial offering: Club Alpha Cove, a BDSM club suspense series released back in 2015, reached Amazon’s Bestseller list, and she has been on those lists ever since. Labelling her as prolific is a gross understatement as just a few short years later she has now been published thirty-nine times; a total which fails to take into account the three other published works of her alter ego: Isabel James who co-authors—nor does it include the five additional new works marked for imminent release.
“I write from the inside out. My stories are both inside me and a part of me so it can be either pleasurable to release them or painful to carve them out. I live every moment of every story I write. So, if you're looking for spicy and suspenseful, I'm your girl . . . woman . . . writer . . . you know what I mean!"
Linzi believes that by telling stories in her own voice, she can better share with her readers the essence of her being: her passionate nature; her motivations; and her wildest fantasies. She feels every touch as she writes, every kiss, every harsh word uttered, and this to her is the key to a never-ending love of writing.
Ultimately, all books by Linzi Basset are about passion. To her, passion is the driving force of all emotion; whether it be lust, desire, hate, trust, or love. This is the underlying message contained in her books. Her advice: “Believe in the passions driving your desires; live them; enjoy them; and allow them to bring you happiness.”
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