Monday, February 10, 2014

Verified Kill with Patricia Logan


Please welcome M/M Patricia Logan to the blog today, as we highlight her new novel, Verified Kill, Book 1 of the Assassins Series


Walker Easton has chosen a life of solitude and it’s always suited him well. When a young lover is viciously taken from him, he begins to reevaluate his connection with Emilio. Could he have saved the young man, had he resisted the deep seated desire to belong to someone? Lost and uncertain for the first time in his life, his bravado is slipping away. When he’s given his next filthy assignment, he remembers Emilio’s final words to him… “Who will grieve for you when you are gone, Walker?” His next choices set him on a dangerous path where there is no turning back and when an old friend gets in the way, he has an impossible decision to make.

Callum Tryst is a dangerous man in his own right. Young and cocky and undeniably one of the finest assassins alive, he goes after a target not knowing that there is one painted on his own back. When he crosses paths with a career sniper, he finally meets his match… or does he? Callum learns the hard way that perhaps the best weapon against his enemy is another enemy. He finds himself asking the question, “If I’ve never ever cared about anyone, did I ever really matter?”

Join the pair as they meet out justice as only they know how, in a desperate fight to the finish… and the discovery that the fight is not as they always assumed it to be. Assumptions get you killed… and dead men cannot love.

 “Verified Kill” Book One of the “Assassins” Series.

Available via Amazon

Excerpt:

Wilkins shot out of hiding from his spot against the wall and pulled out a handgun, aiming it up at the guard and firing, missing the target as Walker came to the conclusion that backing him up was mandatory. Walker swore a slew of curses on Wilkin’s mother as he jumped up from his cozy snow trench and leaped to his friend’s defense, leaving his cover, and tearing across the clearing toward the commotion. The guard on the wall didn’t see Walker coming to Wilkin’s aid. He was already in pursuit of Wilkins, who’d rounded the far corner out of sight. Walker heard two more volleys and he knew that Wilkins was taking care of the other perimeter guards as he rushed in, lifting his P228 (M11) pistol and firing a hail of rounds, taking out the guard in pursuit of Wilkins along the wall on his side. The shrill sound of the whistle stopped immediately as blood sprayed out of the guy’s mouth along with the silver whistle as the guard fell forward and toppled off the top of the wall, landing hard in the snow, his sightless eyes staring upward as Walker hit the wall beside the corpse and flattened himself to it.

The next several moments happened so quickly, Walker had a hard time recalling it until months afterward. Walker heard a click, realized what it was, and then before he could drop, the explosion went off about fifteen feet from him. The vehicle disintegrated, his ears stopped hearing, and he slammed his lids shut as his face and torso were hit with a blast of heat straight out of hell as metal shards peppered his body. The memory of him strapping on protective body armor briefly washed over him with relief, as he fell forward, and he tried to catch himself with arms that wouldn’t work. He collapsed into the cold of the snow. He lay there, doing a physical assessment to assure himself that all his pieces were intact, and just as he reached the conclusion that they were, he felt himself being lifted under both armpits from behind.

“I gotcha, buddy,” Wilkins drawled. The fuckin’ redneck.

Walker tried to stand on his own power as Wilkins’s strong arms pulled him into an upright position, but his legs felt like Jell-O and went right out from under him.

“Can you stand, Easton? What the hell are you doing out here?” Wilkins cursed and Walker knew he’d be feeling much the same way had their roles been reversed. “I took care of most of them but we gotta get the fuck outa here before the rest of them come.” Walker heard the desperation in Wilkins’s voice and did his best to move under his own power, while Wilkins screamed into a radio.

“This is Alpha Tango One. Get us the fuck out of here! Taking heavy enemy fire! I repeat, Alpha Tango One. Man down! Man down! Over!”

Walker couldn’t really see, though his eyes were open. Something wet poured down his face, more than likely his own blood, the head injury making a mess out of not only his mental acuity, but his field of vision as well. Somehow, some way, they made it back into the trees and by then the whoop whoop of a Cobra attack helicopter broke into the sound of shouts and the zinging of bullets fired from the guards who were closing in. A second later the huge airborne armored weapon came into sight, kicking up a cloud of snowflakes in the clearing between the compound walls and the tree line where they were standing. Pieces of the compound walls began disintegrating around them as the Cobra fired on the enemy, clearing a path for them. It sounded as if Armageddon had begun. Walker’s arm was draped over Wilkins’s shoulder and as soon as the helicopter hit the ground, the men inside started the extraction, returning fire on the enemy following. Wilkins and Walker made their way to the great gray beast and more hands were there to lift them inside of the warm interior. The last thing Walker remembered was Wilkins flopping onto the deck beside him as he lost consciousness.

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