“The Trust” is the story of Jake Anders, who was recruited
into a CIA-backed agency, The Michelson Trust, by Trace Michelson, the grandson
of the agency’s creator and the agency’s current director. The flesh and blood Trace trains Jake and
ultimately asks Jake to participate in “Project Resurrection.” Jake receives one of two prototype Sim chips,
the “Trace Sim,” created using the life experiences and personality of Trace
himself. But when Trace is assassinated,
all that remains of Trace is embodied in the microchip Jake now shares his mind
with. Or so it seems, until the Sim
chip becomes Jake’s reality.
So what happens when you fall in love with the artificial
recreation of a man? And what happens
when that artificial man becomes real?
For Jake, he begins to doubt that Trace is really dead, and he goes on a
dangerous journey across continents to uncover the truth behind the legacy of
Trace Michelson and, perhaps find Trace himself. Along the way, Jake discovers that the Trace
Sim is capable of far more than anyone ever realized.
Is there a happily ever after for Jake? Yes.
Definitely. It’s a romance! How do we get there? That’s the fun part. You’ll have to read the book to find out! –Shira
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blurb:
Eight years ago, Jake
Anders was a college kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Then Trace
Michelson recruited him into The Trust, a CIA-backed agency whose “executives”
eliminate rogue biotechnology operations. Trace was everything Jake ever wanted
in a man: powerful, brilliant, and gorgeous. But Jake never admitted his
attraction to his mentor, and Trace always kept Jake at arm’s length.
Now
Trace is dead and Jake is one of The Trust’s best operatives, highly skilled
and loyal to the organization. But the secret agent has his own secret: six
years ago, before he was assassinated, Trace designed a Sim chip containing his
memories and experiences—and now that chip is part of Jake. It’s just data,
designed to augment Jake’s knowledge, but when Sim becomes reality, Jake
wonders if Trace is still alive or if Jake really is going crazy like everyone
claims. He doesn’t know if he can trust himself, let alone anyone else.
To
learn the truth about Trace and the chip, Jake embarks on a dangerous
mission—except he’s not the only one looking for the information. Some of the
answers are locked in his head, and unless he finds the key, he’ll be killed
for the technology that’s become a part of him.
Now,
more than ever, Jake wishes Trace were here to guide him. Too bad he’s dead...
right?
*****************
(Pre-publication
Excerpt, final version may change!)
Chapter
One: The Hitman is Hit
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
Blood gushed from his leg, and for just an instant, he watched it with growing anger.
Watched it, that was, until the adrenaline kick-started his brain and he
realized he would die if he kept bleeding like this.
Gotta
stop the bleeding, he thought with desperation.
He
dragged himself to the women’s bathroom, pushed hard on the door,
and stumbled
in. Between the sound of the door slamming against the wall and the sight of
all the blood, the
startled
women inside
screamed and ran out.
Blood
coated everything he touched. He leaned against a stall
door, and it swung open under his weight. One hand applying
pressure to the gunshot wound,
he elbowed the toilet-paper holder. He fell to the floor and the roll sprang
free. He placed the cheap one-ply paper over the wound and pressed down hard—it only took a minute
before the roll was a deep crimson.
He tapped the microphone on his chest
and shouted, “Agent down! I need an extraction, now!”
“Who’s down?” came the calm, even voice
in his earpiece.
“I am. Sandoval fucking ambushed me. Caught me in
the leg. Hit an artery.”
“Anders, where are you?”
“I—” He broke off, looking up to see a
slender man leaning casually against the stall door, grinning at him. The
Silver Fox, Jason Sandoval.
Sandoval
wasn’t Jake’s target, but
it seemed as though Jake was his. Jake had always detested Sandoval.
Now he knew why.
“So… there
you are. Thanks for leaving me a trail of bloody breadcrumbs to follow.”
“Agent Anders, where are you?” the voice in his ear
persisted. He ignored it.
“Looks like ya got a bleeder
there, Anders.”
They
had never been friends,
but
they had been colleagues. Now, Jake wanted nothing more than to blow the smirk
off the other man’s face.
Fucking
traitor.
“I’ve had worse,” Jake lied. If Sandoval
wanted him dead, he'd probably only have to wait a few minutes for him to bleed
out. But that wasn’t Sandoval’s
style—he had never been a
patient man, and Jake knew it.
“Not sure that’s true, but I admire your
bravado.”
Again, the voice in his ear. “Agent Anders, who’s there
with you?”
“What do you want, Sandoval?”
Jake asked. He’d
pretty much always suspected Jason Sandoval was insane. Now he was sure of it.
Who
the hell is he working for?
Foreign government? Private concern?
They
had come here as a team, their mission to intercept a scientist who was in town
for a conference. But things had gone horribly wrong. It had been a setup, the
entire scenario. Three of their own agents had turned their guns against him
and his backup team. But why?
Fucking traitors. All of them.
“Well, I could watch you bleed to death. Or I suppose I could just end it
for you now. Seems a shame, though. You really were a first-class ops guy,
Jake. Now your life is fading away, and I get to witness it.”
Jake slowly reached inside his pants.
“Now, now, Jake,” drawled Sandoval,
“no cheatin’. Take that hand out of your pocket.”
“I’m trying to stem the bleeding at the
pressure point.”
“Like hell.”
Jake withdrew his hand and flicked his
wrist faster than the other man could follow, impaling him in the right eye
with a knife. Sandoval
staggered backward
and out of the stall without uttering a word. Jake reached for his gun, but it
was missing. When had he lost it? He needed to finish Sandoval
off before he was the one lying on
the floor with his brains blown out.
He heard the distinctive muffled “pflnk”
of a silencer. With the last scrap of his energy, Jake pushed the stall door
open in time to see Sandoval
fall backward,
hitting the tile wall and sliding onto the floor. He was dead.
“Jake,” came a familiar baritone voice.
“Reduce your heart rate, just as I taught you. It will slow the bleeding.”
Jake closed his eyes, and in spite of
the ice that flowed
through his veins and the drowsiness that threatened to pull him under, he
forced himself to meditate. He envisioned the frantic beating of his heart
slowing down, imagined the damaged artery closing, the blood clotting, and the
wound beginning to heal. The thundering rush of blood in his ears began to ebb,
and the dizziness subsided. He slowed his breathing, and his heart steadied.
“Good work, Jake,” he heard the soothing
voice say. “It
isn’t your time to be with me. Not yet.”
“Agent Anders! Agent Anders!” He wanted to swat the microphone
away, but he didn't have the strength.
He blinked, trying to focus his uncooperative eyes on
the figure that stood before him. “Trace?” he whispered as he passed out.
“Fucking
traitor Sandoval,”
Ryan Roberts growled
from
nearby.
“If Jake hadn’t killed him, I’d’ve gladly done it
myself.” John Carson—Jake
recognized the voice.
“He’s a damn lucky bastard.” Ryan’s
voice again.
“Un-fucking-believable.
Got that tourniquet on and still had the presence of mind to write the time on
his leg,” added Carson.
“I gotta hand it to ’im—got Sandoval
once in the eye, then turned around and shot ’im to make sure he was dead—all while he’s fuckin’
bleeding to death.”
“Gentleman, Agent Anders needs to rest.”
A woman’s voice this time: soothing, no-nonsense, and familiar.
“Sorry,
Dr. Carroll.” Carson sounded embarrassed, but Jake could hear the note of
concern in his gruff voice. “We just wanted to be here when Jake wakes
up.”
“He will regain consciousness when his
body’s ready. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s been in surgery.”
“We’ll wait,” Ryan replied. Jake almost smiled to hear the
stubbornness in Ryan's voice.
“Agent Roberts, Agent Carson, the director has called a meeting,
and you both need to be in attendance.” Stephanie Carroll’s voice was now
commanding.
Jake
felt a strong hand squeeze his shoulder. “You better get your
lazy ass outta here,
Anders,
or I’m gonna have to beat
the crap outta
ya.” The sounds of
chairs scraping the floor and fading footsteps followed Ryan's words.
“It’s all right, Agent Anders. They’re gone,”
Jake heard a few minutes later.
The
dim light of
the room was too bright. Jake squinted, blinked several times, and slowly opened
his eyes. He had a splitting headache.
“Welcome back to the world of the
living, Jake.”
Jake attempted to smile back at the
gentle-voiced doctor, but it came out more like a grimace.
“Are you in pain?”
“My head feels like it’s gonna explode.”
“I’ll give you something.”
Jake watched as the tiny woman took a
syringe and injected it into the IV in his arm. He felt warmth radiate from the
site of the line as
his muscles relaxed and the pounding in his head began to lessen.
“Thanks.
I think I feel less ‘vincible’ now,” he said, managing a lopsided grin.
She
smiled at him. “Jake, I really can’t tell you how impressed I am with the
skills you exhibited under the extreme pressure of the situation.”
“I
had help.”
“Oh?”
“The
Trace Sim. He
told
me to slow down my breathing and meditate. I imagined my artery knitting itself
back together.”
“Impressive. I didn’t think the
simulation microchips were so detailed in their programming.”
Jake shrugged. “Neither did I. It’s like he was
right there in front of me.”
“When our bodies are under acute stress, we often imagine
things,” she replied in a kind but patronizing tone.
Jake
guessed that she'd heard the recording of his call for
help and had wondered
why he'd spoken Trace
Michelson’s name.
“He seemed so real. Not like the usual Sim.”
Her
answer was what he'd expected and hoped for: reassuring and kind. “The brain is
an amazing organ. In times of severe stress, it can be a powerful tool to
ensure survival.”
The
tension in his shoulders abated with her words.
She’s right. It was probably a
combination of the Sim and my own imagination. Either way, it worked, right?
She
offered him a sympathetic smile. “You need to rest.” She
checked the IV and made a notation on the chart at the foot of his bed.
She turned to leave, then paused as if
considering something. “You know, Jake,” she said with a contemplative hand to her chin,
“applying a tourniquet made
from the toilet roll spindle and your torn shirt was quite
remarkable, given the extent of your injury. But you didn’t really need it—the
artery had already begun to heal on its own. It appears Dr. Michelson’s techniques are more
effective than we originally thought. Quite fascinating.”
“Tourniquet?”
It was the second time someone had mentioned it since he'd regained
consciousness. But he didn’t remember a tourniquet, let alone applying one to
himself in the heat of the moment.
“The
one you placed on your leg before you lost consciousness.”
“I
don’t remember that. The last thing I remember is Trace.”
“Writing
the time you placed the tourniquet on your leg required true presence of mind,
Jake,” she continued, undaunted. “We were able to quickly ascertain how long
the circulation had been compromised.”
“I
don’t remember that either.” He frowned.
She
gave him another reassuring smile. “You really must get some rest now.
I’ll be back to check on you later. Would you like something to drink?”
“Something
more than ice chips?” he asked with a hopeful expression.
“I’ll
see that you get some water.”
“Thanks.” He closed his eyes. He heard her walk out of the room and
close the door behind her.
Tourniquet?
Writing the time on my leg? And who killed Sandoval? I couldn’t have shot him; I didn’t have my gun….
It made no sense. An image of the man
with dark hair and slate-blue eyes filled Jake’s mind. He'd seen that face many
times while training with his Sim. He had known the real man himself years
before—Trace Michelson had recruited Jake
into the Trust. But for years, it had been only a virtual Trace who had
inhabited his mind, training him, sharing his knowledge with his host as all
Sims did.
This
was different. He was so… real.
He
forced his eyes open again and stared up at the ceiling. The gray acoustic
tiles provided him with no answers.
“Idiot,”
he muttered as he fought the overwhelming urge to sleep. “Of course he wasn’t
there. He’s been dead for nearly five years.”
About Shira Anthony: In her last incarnation, Shira Anthony was a
professional opera singer, performing roles in such operas as Tosca, Pagliacci,
and La Traviata, among others. She’s given up TV for evenings spent with her
laptop, and she never goes anywhere without a pile of unread M/M romance on her
Kindle.
Shira is married with two children and two insane dogs, and
when she’s not writing, she is usually in a courtroom trying to make the world
safer for children. When she’s not
working, she can be found aboard a 30’ catamaran at the Carolina coast with her
favorite sexy captain at the wheel.
Shira can be found on Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter
(@WriterShira) or on her web site, http://www.shiraanthony.com. You can also
contact her at shiraanthony@hotmail.com .
