by Martha Carr
Kill The Willing
I Fear No Evil Book One
Martha Carr
Michael Anderle
KILL THE WILLING (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2018 Martha Carr and Michael Anderle
Cover by Andrew Dobell, www.creativeedgestudios.co.uk
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, May 2018
The Oriceran Universe (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2017-18 by Martha Carr and LMBPN Publishing.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Author Notes - Martha Carr
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Other Revelation of Oriceran Universe Books
Books by Michael Anderle
Connect with The Authors
Kill The Willing Team
Thanks to the JIT Readers
John Ashmore
Peter Manis
Kelly O'Donnell
James Caplan
Sarah Weir
Joshua Ahles
Paul Westman
If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!
Dedications
From Martha
To everyone who still believes in magic
and all the possibilities that holds.
To all the readers who make this
entire ride so much fun.
And to my son, Louie and the wonderful Katie
who remind me all the time of what
really matters and how wonderful
life can be in any given moment.
From Michael
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
To Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
To Live The Life We Are
Called.
1
Shay Carson wondered which one was dumber - returning to New York when she was supposed to be dead or kidnapping a man while driving a sports car. The bright red Porsche was fast enough, but if her target resisted at all, the poor baby might end up damaged. Kidnapping really seemed like more of a sketchy, windowless van kind of activity.
Not that the vehicle choice mattered that much, she supposed. The Porsche wasn’t even her car, but it did seem like an asshole move to rent a car then trash it. Though if all went well, there wouldn’t be an issue, and even if there were, it’d be the poor fictional redhead, Abigail Johnson who would have to deal with the fallout. At least Shay wasn’t such a bitch that she stole someone else’s identity for the job. Manners, even while on the job. It was important to maintain standards.
Wish I had my Spider, but it’s not like I wanted to drive all the way back to L.A. from the opposite coast.
A quick check out the window indicated her target hadn’t stepped into the street yet. The timing needed to be perfect. Her previous recon suggested very little foot traffic this time of night. All she needed to do was get the man in the car, and the dark of the early evening and her tinted windows would do the rest to conceal her snatch and grab operation. Even if someone spotted her, her fake plates, auburn wig, and oversized sunglasses would be enough to lead the police or any other dangerous and interested men on the wrong path.
The door to the office building swung open and her target stepped out. A young man, twenty-four, a little on the scrawny side, and handsome enough in that kind of generic Connecticut white-bread-wealthy-family way. Not really her type, but she could see the appeal.
Jefferson Peyton Coolidge. It’s been a while.
Shay chuckled. It’d also been a long time since she thought much about his full name. The man tended to go by his middle name, derived from his mother’s maiden name, another white bread custom.
The full name screamed money, unlike her name, Shay Carson.
“Look at you,” she snickered to herself. “You shouldn’t have played at being independent. Too late now, though.”
Peyton made his way down the street toward a crosswalk. He took one step off the curb as Shay gunned her engine, the Porsche speeding toward the man. Her target froze, his eyes widening. The car screeched into a halt right in front of him.
Shay leapt out of the car before the man even registered that he wasn’t becoming a new hood ornament. She yanked hard on Peyton’s arm, threw open the passenger door, and shoved him in. Only respect for the car’s paint job kept her from jumping over the hood to get back to the driver’s seat. Still, a quick and successful kidnapping. Took seconds from start to finish.
“Wha…what is going on?” Peyton asked, his head turning side to side in a frantic effort to understand what the hell just happened.
Shay peeled out and took a hard right. “Put on your seatbelt.” She yanked off her red wig and glasses and tossed them at Peyton’s feet, revealing her dyed blond hair.
The man stared at her, his brown eyes wide. “No, no. This isn’t happening. I… you’re dead. I went to your funeral!” He gasped. “Oh crap. Are you a ghost? Wait… you’re driving a car. You’re a revenant? Shit…please tell me you didn’t get mixed up with necromancers before you died, Shay.”
“I’m not dead, idiot,” Shay said with a smirk, making a hard left across oncoming traffic, flipping off one of the drivers that honked. “And I appreciated the flowers at my funeral. That was a nice arrangement you put on my casket. Very sweet, touching… almost.”
Peyton stared at her, his mouth unable to form any more words for a solid minute. Shay didn’t mind, it gave her a chance to concentrate on the road and check for any vehicles or worse, drones, that might be following them. The skies and roads were clear of anything suspicious.
“What’s going on?” the man finally managed. “I… don’t understand why you’re here, and why I’m in your car.”
Shay slowed a bit, checking her mirrors. There was no reason to attract NYPD attention with something as stupid as speeding. Save it for something more fun.
She glanced over at him before returning her attention to the road. “First of all, just to be very clear, I faked my death. I decided I needed a new life… that didn’t involve killing people.” She frowned. “Well, at least not killing people all the time. A line of work that doesn’t list killing people in the mission
statement, for money or otherwise.”
Peyton nodded slowly, his face still scrunched up in confusion. “So, you’re not a hitman – woman – whatever - anymore?” He gave her a side long glance. “At least not on purpose.”
“Nope. I was tired of that shit for a lot of reasons. Lucky for you, I still keep my eye on a lot of sites related to my old job, if only to watch out for anyone coming after me. You’d be surprised how easy it is to stay under the radar once everyone thinks you’re dead and they stop looking for you.” She winked and rested her hand on the bottom of the steering wheel, easily maneuvering the car. “I was doing my regular check on those sites and found out there’s a hit out on your stupid ass, so I decided to save it. Your ass, not the hit. Lucky for you I can use an IT guy and you don’t annoy me to the point of wanting to kill you.”
Peyton let out a long sigh. “I didn’t know there was a hit out on me,” he rested his arm on the side of his door, tapping the leather. “But I guess I’m not surprised either.”
“Oh?”
“You know me.” He shrugged. “I’m an information guy. I was digging around when some new clients contacted me about working for them.”
“Criminals?”
“Depends on whether you think breaking the law makes you a criminal or just financially motivated.” He slunk down in the seat and started to put his foot up on the dashboard till he saw the cold look come across Shay’s face. At the last second, he crossed his leg and sat back up.
“Good move. May not be my car, but it’s still a Porsche. Have some respect.” Shay cut across to a side street where she could get around the traffic.
She ignored the honks this time.
“I thought I could handle them, but I found some information that links several members of Congress to a bunch of different organized crime groups. Mafia, Russian mob, Harriken, even a couple of problem Elves that might be involved with some shady Oriceran groups. I was planning to bank it for later use.” Peyton turned to look out the window as they drove. “I think I fucked up. There’s a chance I trusted the wrong guy when I was confirming things, and I…”
“What?”
“I guess I thought my family would protect me even if I don’t ever see my brother and sister anymore. They’ve been my get out of firing range free card for a while.”
“Looks like that card just expired on you.”
Peyton looked down at his hands. “So, you think me turning up that information is what got the hit put out on me?”
“You were the keeper of secrets for a lot of dangerous people. The word is a lot of them think you’re about to leak that information. The second that rumor got out there that you’d possibly leak anything? They wanted you dead. This shit isn’t a game.”
“I never thought it was a game.”
“Sure.”
Shay glanced at Peyton and considered telling him she’d found evidence there might be more to the hit than worried gangsters, something more personal, but decided it’d be too much, too soon. Shock still covered Peyton’s face, and she could tell he was having trouble processing it all.
“No one wants you to burn their poor honest congressmen,” she offered instead.
Peyton snorted. “People taking money from organized crime are honest?”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“What?”
“The actual definition of an honest man.”
“What’s that? I figure criminals have their own kind of honor, but that’s not the same thing as honesty.”
“Not exactly. An honest man stays bought once you bribe him.” Shay took a deep breath and shook her head. “I warned you about this. You can’t roll around with this kind of scum and not end up in the mud. I always told you that you should stay the fuck away. It doesn’t matter if you’re one of the best when it comes to research. All it takes is for you to learn the wrong thing, and then you’re not only a liability, you’re the liability. Like now.”
Peyton frowned. “I used to help you, and you’re not exactly a saint.”
Shay wagged a finger at him. “If you were smart, you would have stayed away from me, too. But lucky you, I turned over a new leaf, and I’m helping your ass.”
“Lucky for me, you need me.” He eyed her, “You’re really not a killer now?”
Shay looked over her shoulder and easily maneuvered the Porsche in between a semi and a Subaru, cutting in and out of lanes. She loved the way the car responded to her touch. Just like a good piece of artillery or the right man. Well balanced and responsive. “I don’t kill people for money anymore. I’m not gonna say I never kill anyone.”
“They should put up a statue of you and give you the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Shay chuckled. “Yeah, you’re just as mouthy as I remember.”
Peyton shrugged. “What’s the plan here?”
Shay changed lanes. “Long-term, I’m snagging you back to L.A. with me, where I can hide you safely for a while. Set you up with a project I have in mind.”
“And short-term?”
The ex-hitman gave Peyton a feral grin. “I kill you and collect your bounty.”
“Don’t move,” Shay said, slathering red moulage makeup on Peyton’s forehead. The fake wound would look real enough in a picture as long as she gave everyone a reason to believe what they were seeing. “You’re gonna get this shit on the sheets, and I don’t want to have to pay an extra cleaning fee to the hotel.”
“You’re really worried about some cleaning fee?”
“Hey, some of us didn’t grow up in rich families.”
Peyton snorted. “I know how much money you made in your old job. You have to have a pile stashed somewhere.”
“Doesn’t mean I still don’t appreciate the value of a dollar. Now stay fucking still.”
“It’s so weird that you came this prepared to fake someone’s death.”
“You forget, I’ve had practice, and isn’t that the Girl Scout’s motto? Be prepared?”
“Fuck you. I was a Boy Scout. We had it first.”
Shay grinned. “Not that I was ever a Girl Scout.” She resisted the urge to slap Peyton upside the head to stop his fidgeting. “I said stop moving, damn it. Do you want me to really kill you or just fake kill you? Because, you know, I’m sorely tempted by the first.”
“You know, Shay, you’re just as angry as I remember you. Maybe even angrier. I would have thought fake dying would have made you a little more chill.”
“I’m only angry because you won’t stop moving. What are you, five years old? Stay still for two seconds. I’m only trying to save your fucking life here. Sorry that it’s such an inconvenience.”
Peyton muttered something under his breath. “I still don’t get this. You’re going to save me by making it look like you shot me in the head?”
“Yes. It’s not that damned hard to understand.”
“I think I have a new nickname for you: Angry White Bitch.”
Shay snorted as she added in some texture and additional color to the growing headshot wound on the man’s forehead. “I have a nickname for you, too. Clueless.”
“I’m not that clueless. I stayed alive all this time, didn’t I? And that’s dealing with all these dangerous people and swimming around in the middle of their shit. You would not believe the information they pass back and forth.”
“You never took this shit seriously. You did it for kicks.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is, and anyway, you did survive, but it wasn’t you. It was that family of yours that kept you alive, until they didn’t want to anymore.”
Peyton jerked away from her, scowling. Shay fought her natural instinct to palm strike the man’s nose after his sudden movement. Then the makeup wouldn’t be necessary to make him look dead.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“First of all, get the hell back here, so I can finish.” Shay narrowed her eyes at him. “Second, I think the whole corrupt Congress scum thing is a co
nvenient excuse to get you out of the way. I think your family pushed this. This isn’t the first time you’ve stumbled onto big info that was not in your purview, but this is the first time people decided they needed to kill you for it.”
“Wait, you think my family wants to get me out of the way?” The man scooted back toward Shay.
“Come on, you’re not that dumb,” She lifted her brush. The death wound needed only a few final touches.
Peyton sat, rigid as a statue as Shay finished her work. “I’m not… that’s a bit much, don’t you think, trying to get me killed?” His eyes searched her face for an answer.
Shay finished her moulage application and shook her head. “Connect the dots, Peyton. Your father was a kingmaker before his stroke. He amassed a fortune and isn’t much longer for this world. We both know your brother and sister would like to get you out of the way so they can inherit everything. That’s a lot of money. Shit, I’ve killed a lot of people for far less than that, and that money also has a lot of influence that can go with it. Power and money. Add in some sex, and that’s what makes the world go around.”
Peyton shook his head as Shay grabbed his chin and held it tight, making the final touches..
“I don’t know if I can believe they would come after me like that. No. I refuse to believe it. Why do you even think it’s them behind all of this? Gangsters can want me dead for knowing their secrets without my family being involved.”
