Ultraviolet – Blackwood Security #7
A chance meeting in a frozen wasteland leads unwilling assassin Seven from Siberia to small-town Virginia. A new life in suburbia beckons. All she has to do is keep out of trouble as she tries to mend her broken heart.
Or so she thinks.
When Seven’s world is torn away from her, she's left with no choice but to fight back, and help comes from an unexpected alliance. A deal is struck—If Seven helps Emmy Black to destroy the remaining stocks of a deadly virus, Emmy will assist with Seven’s little problem.
But not only is Seven used to working alone, someone in Blackwood Security is keeping a secret from both of them, one with far-reaching implications.
Will life be the same when the truth comes out? Can Seven regain her old form and survive the operation? And how does disgraced CIA agent Quinn fit into the story?
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Excerpt: Seven of Ten
It wasn’t until two days later that they came for me. The little bitch in the bed next to mine told Matron who Pyotr had chosen, and they found my bloody nightshirt wadded up in the back of my locker, hidden under my thick winter coat.
Matron fetched me with two big policemen standing behind her, and I waited for the lash of her tongue. That was the usual punishment for disobedience, along with a beating with whatever she happened to have in her hand and no food for several days, sometimes even a week.
But when she walked into the communal room where I was mopping the floor, she didn’t have anger in her eyes. It was something else. Fear.
That day, I left the Vladivostok Home for Girls. Left the city entirely. At first, I didn’t know where I’d been taken, but if not for all the ice, I’d have said it was hell.
The military base was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees as far as the eyes could see. Miles and miles of forest. Larch, spruce, fir, and pine. Apart from some mountains in the distance, that was all there was, and despite the vast space, it somehow felt claustrophobic.
The guards spoke Russian, and snow lay on the ground for most of the year, so I knew I hadn’t left the country, but whether I was in the north or the south, the east or the west, I couldn’t say. The only way in or out was by plane, or occasionally helicopter. I was a prisoner.
That was where he trained me. The man who burrowed into my psyche and peeled away my fears, layer by layer, until the only thing left that scared me was him. The man who taught me to gain a mark’s confidence with a coquettish smile, or strike terror into his heart with a well-timed glare.
“It’s all in the eyes,” he used to tell me.
The man who showed me how to kill with everything from my bare hands, to a knife, to a scarf, to a gun, to a bottle, to a shoe, to an umbrella, to a fucking rocket launcher.
It was where I became Seven.
Seven of Ten.
Excerpt: Be prepared
“I bet they’re not far behind.”
“No, and they’re probably wondering why we’ve stopped in the middle of nowhere.”
“They’ll come along to check in a couple of minutes.” I looked at my new watch, a ten-dollar digital.
“Yup.”
“They’ll be armed,” I said.
“Yup.”
“They’ll be professionals.”
“Yup.”
“What about Tabby? If we piss off Zacharov, he could take his anger out on her.”
“Fifty bucks says these guys aren’t gonna turn up with beer and Twinkies. What does Zacharov expect you to do? Roll over and take it up the fuckin’ ass? He’d probably be less impressed if you didn’t put up a fight, and he can’t hurt her, because he needs her.”
She made good points there. The general himself had taught me never to back down. And these men represented the best—no, the only—lead we had.
“Are we seriously going to do this?” I asked.
“Better get the big guns out of the trunk.”
I’d never liked working with a partner, mainly because I didn’t trust any of them. Trust them to perform or trust them not to put a bullet through my head if it suited them. With Elizabeth, I had no such worries about her abilities. The jury was still out on the latter, but I couldn’t do this alone, and she was taking a risk on me too.
I climbed out of the car, trying to ignore the pain in my back as I followed her to the rear of the car. She popped the trunk then leaned forward to remove a false bottom from the floor, revealing a slim lockbox underneath.
“Are you keeping the Glock? Or I’ve got a Colt M45, an AR-15, a Beretta, another Walther, or a…no, you don’t want a .22 tonight.”
It was a damn arsenal. “Do you always carry this stuff around?”
“I should have been a Girl Scout, huh? ‘Be prepared’ and all that.”
“I don’t think Girl Scouts carry grenades.”
“Okay, maybe not the grenades.”
Elizabeth supplemented her Walther P88 with a Glock 27 in an ankle holster, plus the AR-15.
“You like the Colt?” I asked.
It was standard issue for the US armed forces, but I’d always found the standard grip a bit bulky.
“I prefer the Walther. The Colt belongs to my husband.”
She was married? To who? Did her husband know what she did for a living? I’d always been terrified to tell Sam the true nature of my job or even hint at it. How the hell would that conversation have gone?
“Could you pass the butter, Zen?”
“Sure.”
“Are you working late tonight?”
“Yeah, I have to take a quick trip to Poland and help a lawyer to jump off a building.”
“I’ll leave dinner in the oven, then.”
Nope. That confession would never have happened, and even when I started seeing Sam, I knew we had no future. But that didn’t stop me from missing him every time I took a breath.
“Knife?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’ve still got yours from before.”
“You’re welcome. Here, put this earpiece in. Channel’s open to me, but we’re also online with the control room. Backup’s on its way.”
Control room. Backup. Both were foreign concepts to me.
Elizabeth threw me a grenade and clipped another onto her own belt. “Good to go?”
No, but I’d do it anyway.
“As I’ll ever be.”
Bonus Book!
Ultraviolet comes with a free bonus story about Mr. Gray 🙂
