Heart Shot
A Totally Bound Publication
Heart Shot
ISBN #
978-1-78430-468-3
©Copyright Elizabeth Lapthorne 2015
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright February 2015
Edited by Sue Meadows
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2015 by Totally Bound Publishing,
Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a
heat rating
of
Totally Burning
and a
Sexometer
of
1.
The Agency
HEART SHOT
Elizabeth Lapthorne
Book nine in The Agency series
Emily is a cautious assassin. While researching a target as a favor for a friend it all goes wrong, and she bumps into Finlay Mann—an Agent. A deep conspiracy has them only able to trust each other and risk their most venerable targets—their hearts.
Emily is an assassin—but one with a difference. She insists on checking out her targets herself, refusing to take a mission from her government contact—James—until she’s satisfied the person truly does deserve to die. She’s doing such research on a highly placed government man—a friend of the PM—when all hell breaks loose. The café Keyton Marshall is in is shot up, and Emily finds herself under attack.
Finlay Mann is with the Agency. He’s tagging along, playing bodyguard when what was supposed to be a simple, time-filling, routine job goes seriously south. After making certain his client is safely away, he’s drawn in by Emily. Together, they’re trying to piece a complex puzzle and discover who is being lied to, betrayed, and possibly with traitorous results.
Unsure whom either can trust, it’s the passion that flares between them that finally reassures them both they’re on the same side, albeit from different perspectives. Emily is ensnared by Fin’s loyalty and compassion, and Fin finds himself desperate to protect and support this fierce, hard woman who for too long has been able to rely on no one but herself. They both know the fatality of a heart shot, but each is helpless to resist the other.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Oyster Card: Transport for London
Green Eggs and Ham:
Dr Seuss, Random House
Tarzan: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Burberry: Burberry Group plc
Prologue
Emily
Emily Camber puffed heavily as she ran for her life. She pounded the soles of her sneakers on the hard ground and focused her brown eyes with laser-like precision ahead of her. Sweat beaded and ran down her face, also trickling down the indentation of her spine. Her ponytail swished in time to the movement of her body. Strands of hair grazed her neck and shoulders—but nothing could distract her.
Focusing intently on placing one foot in front of the other as fast as she could manage, she ignored everything except her actions. She couldn’t falter now. Emily disregarded the burning in her calves, the fiery contraction of fatigued muscles. She rasped, struggling for breath as she continued through the pain.
Everything had narrowed to outrunning her demons.
To escape.
To freedom.
Doubts, questions and fear mingled with the pain.
What the hell am I doing? Or more importantly—what am I going to do now?
Emily glanced at the treadmill’s readout. She slowed the pace from a flat out run to a fast jog. Her usual half hour of running had finished more than ten minutes ago, which explained her physical exhaustion. She needed to cool down slowly, or her muscles would cramp later on.
Catching her breath at the far easier pace, she chewed over the thoughts she’d come to the gym to try to sort out. Her dissatisfaction with her work had been steadily growing over the last six months. At first she’d simply thought she was in a funk—overworked and starting to feel the effects of the stress inherent in her line of business.
Emily had taken a well-earned week to relax along the coast down at Brighton. She’d read a book and taken numerous walks along the pebbled shoreline. Mostly, she’d just enjoyed the feel of wind on her cheeks and the light scent of salt in the air.
The first time she’d felt the cool snap of the breeze blowing around her she’d automatically started to calculate the effect upon the trajectory of her bullet. It was second nature for her to work out the factor of resistance it would have on the speed…then she realized this time there was no target. She had no sniper’s hideout or any need to sit still and patient for hours while she waited for the perfect moment.
This time there would be no death on her hands.
As a small child she’d been afraid of the monsters that lurked in the dark. Emily had experienced more than her fair share of nightmares where she’d been chased by tall, shadowed demons she couldn’t outrun no matter how she struggled. Her mother and father had comforted her that such things didn’t exist. Now she knew better, but not the way most adults did. There were no shades of gray, no hesitation on what kinds of monster did or didn’t exist.
She
knew
there were monsters out there. Dangerous, horrible people who did unspeakable things for no reason other than they could. Emily had learned years ago that there was only one thing you could do to people like that.
Kill them.
And that, she discovered, created another style of monster—those who could kill and continue onward with blood on their hands. People like her, who could live with the knowledge of having taken lives for no reason other than
they
could. They were different to the monsters they’d slain—but that didn’t make them any less tarnished.
Emily slowed the treadmill once again, now walking at a quick clip. The sweat cooled on her body. Even as she shivered she wondered if it was her thoughts or the chill that caused her to do so. At first, she’d been certain her skills with almost any gun available could be used for good. She had this talent, why not use it to help rid the world of just a few of the bad guys?
But this sideline had proven far more lucrative than her non-existent journalism career. Rent, utility and all her other bills had pressured her into accepting that for now—only a short time, she’d assured herself—but she’d take on more and more contracts.
Five years later and Emily had to be honest, she hadn’t written a thing in months and it had been almost a year since anyone had bought a piece from her. She needed to take stock of her life, decide if this ‘sideline’ was really the path she wanted to follow.
And there lay her conundrum. While she could write passably well, her only marketable skill was her uncanny accuracy with all forms of weaponry. She could shoot the bull’s-eye on a target nine times out of ten tries at over five hundred meters. Her statistics only got better as that distance closed. If she were brutally truthful, Emily didn’t see the problem with working for her government—in the most roundabout and completely deniable of ways—and ridding the world of monsters.
She had her own code. Under no circumstances would she touch children, and she demanded to be given enough time on every contract to research the target herself. If she wasn’t convinced the person needed to die, she’d refuse the contract and return the money. Emily didn’t doubt that she performed a good and sometimes necessary evil. She could feel the tension, the stain of so much death begin to take a toll on her soul.
A vibration at her waist made her jerk and almost fell from the treadmill. In a swift motion she pulled the beeper from her workout pants and read the small screen.
999-James
“Well, shit.” She pressed a button and replaced the beeper. Climbing off the treadmill she then stretched.
The man who called himself James was her contact through the backchannels in the government. Emily had met the man once, at the graduation ceremony where she’d studied Literature at University. He’d pointed out that word of her talent had come to his division’s notice and they wanted to use her skills once in a while.
Emily was fairly certain James was not the man’s real name. What he’d told her had been true enough according to his body language, so maybe it was a family name, or one of his middle names. Much like the man itself, it was a lie wrapped in truth, which summarized their entire working relationship.
Even the covert branches of any respectable service couldn’t be seen killing terrorists or murdering men and women who continued to slip through the cracks of the justice system. While the public never mourned the death of the truly depraved, and the media continued to cry for harsher punishments and a greater moral accounting, the wheels of change turned slowly and red tape still stifled even the most underhand of services.
Murder had many costs attached to it.
And that was where James wanted her, and presumably a small number of others, to come in. Emily was completely deniable. She’d been carefully told on that first day that she wasn’t on any books, there were no personnel files on her, no tax forms, no expenditure claims. Except for the fact that James contacted her with the details and timeline he required, she had zero contact with anyone, anywhere.
After a text confirming completion and photo from her untraceable mobile phone, money would magically appear in her account twenty-four hours later.
Collecting her key and small hand towel, Emily then climbed off the treadmill. She dabbed at her face and neck. Back at her locker, she unlocked the door. She pulled out her bag and decided to skip the shower she’d planned on taking. After gathering her belongings she left the gym.