The Assassin

By Samantha Harris

Rebecca Batista had killed over two hundred people. She was The Bosss favorite because she did her job well and never missed a shot. She got all the top priority cases, even that time when The Boss needed his own partner killed. Nobody crossed The Boss, and Rebecca had no intention to ever make him angry. But she didnt plan on meeting Zack either.

Zack is a sweet guy, innocent and cute. Shes surprised by how hard she falls for him, and newfound love sure does change a person. Rebecca is ready to give up her violent past to be a good wife to the man she loves, but The Boss has other ideas. Zack ends up missing, and Rebecca must race against time to save him.

As founder of a worldwide undercover terrorist group, The Boss is a very powerful man. Rebecca betrayed him by breaking the assassins golden rule: never let it get personal. She will now fight to the death to get Zack back, facing off against local law enforcement and The Bosss spies. Never get in the way of a woman in love, especially when that woman knows a hundred ways to kill you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532049514

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Copyright © 2018 Samantha Harris.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4952-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4951-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905993

iUniverse rev. date: 05/17/2018

Contents

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Prologue

The Assassin’s heart was pounding in her chest like an earthquake. A slight summer breeze chilled her cheek, and the last rays of the sun slowly faded over the tall New York high-rises. No matter how many times she did it, the count wouldn’t make her job any easier.

She watched people passing by through her scope as she waited inside the empty building. Her view was perfect, and her timing was never off; years of training and practice ensured that.

She watched from the second floor of the building opposite the man she’d now been awaiting for nearly two and a half hours. He was off schedule, and she was growing impatient. Finally, she saw the dark-haired man come out the front door and lock it behind him before starting down the street, heading home after a long week’s work.

The Assassin threw a rock at the car behind him, drawing the man’s attention down the street. He turned around and looked down the empty road as the hit car’s siren went crazy.

She breathed in, got into final position, pulled the trigger, and breathed out. The semiautomatic fired nearly silently, with the new upgrades added for this occasion. The man dropped his case and fell facedown on the New York sidewalk. Two hundred nineteen was now her number—never missed a shot. She never got chills seeing her victims bleeding on the street. Seeing how fragile life was so many times would harden anyone. They deserved it, she would tell herself after a hit. Why else would someone pay so much money to have them heartlessly murdered?

She did her job well; she was the Boss’s favorite, so she was assigned to the top-priority cases. This one was the Boss’s partner. Although everyone knew never to upset the Boss, this man had been too greedy and not paid attention to whom he dealt with. So a man who had planned a double-cross found himself double-crossed.

He lay there bleeding, breathless, and lifeless. He deserved it.

1

Dr. Evans! Oh, Dr. Evans, called a thick-accented, overnurtured black nurse as she ran down the hall toward Zack, who was finishing his rounds.

Zackary King Evans was a tall, handsome young man who graduated from the University of Oxford with a doctorate when he was twenty-two, ranking number one in all his classes except one. Upon graduating, he had moved to New York City to begin his career. But after living in an apartment so close to his overbearing father, who also happened to be the mayor of New York, he had decided to transfer to Los Angeles, which gave him a little more room to breathe.

Zack, looking much more like a beach model or a star actor than a doctor, fit right into the Los Angeles community and loved the atmosphere. His sandy-blond hair and muscular body made people doubt he was a doctor, rather than a superstar, but after living in the area for five years and marrying a beautiful Spanish model, the buzz around him had dwindled.

Zack turned toward Greta, the nurse who called out to him. Yes, what is it? he asked, detecting eagerness in her voice.

Your mother is on the line. She said it was urgent. Greta gave her message and then departed. Zack hurried to his small office, closed the door, and then picked up the phone.

Oh, darling, his mother answered in her thick French accent. I know you’re at work, so I will make this hasty. Zack knew what was coming; she called him nearly every week to talk about random things. Sometimes, she’d call Zack’s brother, Jackson, but as a lawyer, Jackson usually never answered the phone unless it was important, which left Mrs. Evans calling Zack.

If only we had a sister to distract Mother, she wouldn’t be so needy, he would tell Jackson.

Or a husband who worked less, Jackson humorously would argue.

The drapes in the dining room clash with the tableware, Mrs. Evans began. But your father disagrees. I want to buy new ones—drapes that complement the wall tones as well as the china—but I can’t seem to convince your father on the matter. Don’t you think he’s being unreasonable? By the way, I talked to Jackson the other day, and he went on about the case he’d just closed. You know, I can’t help but wonder if the judge loves him, because I thought that woman was guilty, but Jackson convinced everyone she was innocent. That reminds me; Aunt Margret told me the other day …

Zack shook his head; his mother could go on for hours. He let her continue while he finished a report on his desk, throwing in a few comments here and there to let her know he was listening. Once again, Zack felt blessed he got the multitasking gene in the family. There must be a God, he used to joke with his brother.

Then came a knock on the door. Zack called out to the knocker that’d he’d only be a minute longer. I’m sorry, Mother; I need to get back to work. I’ll call you later, okay? Zack reached to put down the phone next to his computer.

Mrs. Evans protested, but he ended with a promise to call Saturday. Oh, all right, dear; stay safe. Don’t kill anybody. I love you, she said with all her heart.

Zack smirked at the comment, which she often gave as encouragement. He replied, Love you too, Mother. Tell Dad I said hello. Then he hung up.

Zack looked at the door, thinking, Time to get back to work. You can come in now, he called.

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After another long day at the hospital, Zack was finally heading to his souped-up black ’98 Mustang in the parking lot. Everybody thought it didn’t suit him; some thought he should buy a more expensive sports car, considering his hefty paychecks, while others thought he should buy a nice pickup truck, because that more suited his personality. But Zack thought his gorgeous Mustang fit both nicely.

On his way out the door, he prepared himself for the heading-home rituals that usually came from the receptionists’ department; they clearly got paid by the hour. Last night, he heard that Dr. Payee had received a special present to take home: an innocent-looking card with a swatch of hair inside and a note stating it was all that was left of his patient in the psych ward. Cindy must have returned from her vacation; she pulled especially cruel pranks when she was on duty. The whole hospital seemed to work with her, and Zack often feared the lack of limitations to her pranks. Thankfully, Zack was usually off on April 1, which, as luck would have it, was his birthday.

As Zack walked up to Cindy’s receptionist desk a few yards from the exit door, he saw she wasn’t there; no one was there. He smiled, thinking he would miss her prank. Zack glanced behind the counter—still nothing. He shrugged and then walked to the front doors of the hospital.

The sun shone brightly as it began to set, and the clouds glowed pink, purple, and orange. A slight summer breeze and the fact it was Friday made his exit all that much better. He basked in the sunlight for a moment. Yes, he loved his job, but he also loved weekends with his wife, Rebecca. He felt so excited that she was more than likely home from her trip by now; she had been gone all last week, modeling in a fashion show in New York, and had promised she’d make it back this weekend. And not having been slowed down by a childish prank made the end of his workday just a little better.

As Zack stepped onto the pavement, he heard a woman’s childlike voice tease, Didn’t you forget something, Dr. Evans? He looked to his right; there stood Cindy, with her blond hair tied back and a mischievous smile spread across her face.

Hello, Cindy. How was your vacation? Zack asked as he walked away from the door, hoping to distract her while he walked to his car. Cindy followed him.

It was incredible. But, you know, home, sweet home, she teased.

That’s nice, he said, half listening, half looking for her prank. Well, I’ll see you Monday. He reached for his car-door handle. She held that sixth-grader smile and waited for him to stumble on whatever her prank was.

Absolutely, Cindy replied. She had hardly finished the last syllable when the rest of the people who worked in the receptionists’ department jumped up from the other side of his car and pummeled him with water balloons and squirt guns.

Soaked and surrounded by laughing individuals, Zack shook out his blond Chris Hemsworth cropped hair and wrung out the bottom of his shirt. Not trying to hide a smile spreading across his face, he said, Good one, guys. Cindy, you have most definitely been missed. He looked at her. Want a hug? he teased, still dripping wet as her smile changed to a look of horror.

Oh no, I’m good. She put up her hands to stop him as the others jumped into the game and cheered Zack on as he chased Cindy down. He gave her a big wet, friendly hug and then took the bucket of water that the receptionists had brought but not used on him and dumped it on Cindy and some of them.

After the exciting and wet fifteen-minute delay, Zack finally headed home. Soaked and trying not to get more than his seat wet, he thought of his wife; he hated it when Rebecca was gone on her business trips. He didn’t trust the people she worked with, like the male models, especially when she went to after-parties. He’d seen her in some after-party magazine photos with other guys, but she claimed it was just business. He hated the business.

When Zack pulled into his driveway, he found it empty. Rebecca wasn’t home yet. That gave him time to clean up himself and the car seat and also to finish getting the place ready for her return. On his way home, his phone had fallen out of his pocket and slipped onto the car seat, getting soaked in a small area of water. Rebecca would call when she got off the plane, and with the new condition of his phone, he hurriedly rushed inside to soak the phone in rice, hopefully allowing the rice to absorb most of the water.

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The Assassin finally got off her plane in LA after a three-hour delay. She picked up her luggage and tried to adjust back into her alias’s life. She lived in Los Angeles, California, not New York City. She was an American employee, not an agent hired by an unknown nation. She was married, not single. She was a model, not an assassin. She was Rebecca Evans, not Agent RB—Rebecca Batista.

Rebecca Evans’s husband, Zack, didn’t know about her boss, and her boss didn’t know about Zack, and that’s the way it had been for the last three years. It was an accident she met Zack, much less married him; she had been on an assignment when she ran into him while undercover. Her mission had required her to work as a nurse at his hospital. Her boss suggested she date a doctor who worked there so she could get close to the assignment’s subject and acquire the necessary information before her termination.

Choosing her lover came easy; the most attractive man she had ever seen worked in the same department as the nurse. After she eliminated the victim, she couldn’t stop herself from seeing Zack, and eventually, they fell in love. Naturally, she couldn’t tell her boss; otherwise, he would have Zack killed and assign her to another position. But she was also afraid to tell Zack about her true identity; after all, he saved lives, whereas she took lives.

Being undercover as a model, Rebecca got stopped by paparazzi and fans before she finally made it to her GT-R parked in the VIP garage; only the rich and famous in California could make an airport build a garage for their convenience. Some people really do deserve to die, she thought as she started the car.

2

Zack knew Becca would be tired from her trip and, though he would have loved to set up a romantic dinner for the two of them, he knew she would much prefer a California-style slice of pizza and a long bath. So before she arrived home, he spent time lighting candles and essences and getting her bubble bath ready. When he heard her key in the door, he pressed play on his iPod and waited for her as the sounds of Rebecca’s favorite songs began to play.

Rebecca had spent a long and exhausting week in New York. She found it exhausting not just because of her boss but also because staying in character as her alias irritated her. She hated the fashion world, but worse yet, she was beginning to resent her real job; being with Zack confused her. How could she have such feelings of love while she was murdering people, and enjoying it?

As she turned the key and opened the door, she heard her favorite love song playing softly from the living room and saw her husband standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her with a great big smile on his face. He really was handsome. His good looks—but even more so the fact that she found him much more delightful to talk to and he actually cared for her—made it easy

Reviews for The Assassin

[bedda_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The writing seemed flat to me. Not much feeling behind it. There were also a lot of old western clichés. Something reminiscent of a western you would see on a Saturday afternoon and had pieces of other western plots you have probably heard before. He tried to build a lot on the characters and tricky plot points but at 100 pages there wasn’t much room for that so the characters just seemed to explain themselves a lot and they tell us stories more than we get to experience the story for ourselves. And at one point, to make the plot turn out, the character stepped out of character and the book lost some credibility. I was thinking ‘he can’t possibly make him that stupid, can he?’ But, unfortunately, he did and it played out like an easy fix to a tight plot point.