Perilous Love

Prologue

Prologue

Afghanistan

July 2007

“We have only this one chance,” General Iain MacDonald said in a harsh but low whisper to the younger man by his side.

Group Captain Lord Hugh Smith, the 15th Earl of Lakeside, a billionaire, and one of the deadliest snipers in the United Kingdom, with more kills under his belt than he cared to remember, nodded at the general as he peeked over the edge of the cliff, careful to not give away their location.

Hugh was patient, measured, and soft-spoken; a calm, stabilizing anchor when things were otherwise flying off in all directions.

The perfect man for the job. And he would not disappoint the older man.

General MacDonald had been childhood friends with Hugh’s father, Air Marshal Lord Hammond Smith, and upon Smith’s death he had taken Hugh and his brother, Richard, under his wing.

When the general noticed Hugh’s extraordinary talent for shooting, he suggested Hugh take one of the most challenging courses in the RAF Regiment, known as Sniper School.

Even though the role of a modern sniper was different today, here he was hunting a woman in a blazing hell of a place where men and women blew themselves up along with civilians in the marketplace, and even children killed with such savagery that wolves ran from them in fear.

Hugh had been concealed high in the desolate headlands of the Afghan Mountains for a month now, waiting for his target to make her appearance. He had not been expecting the general to arrive in the early hours with news that the target was expected to come out within a few hours. The general could have very well used an encrypted radio. There was no need to deliver the simple message in person.

Well, there would be no need if not for the fact that Hugh’s target was Nalini Al-Amuli, his ex-girlfriend.

Hugh was about to kill a young woman whom he had kissed, embraced, and loved. And who had just been using him to get top secret information to destroy his country.

Nalini had been posing as a reporter, when in fact, she was a spy, but that didn’t diminish Hugh’s guilt for all the deaths that his inattentiveness had caused while he was blinded by lust, and dare he say it—love?

Hugh understood the general’s presence, and didn’t begrudge the old man for questioning whether Hugh was capable of killing the woman he’d held in his arms not long ago. The general was especially concerned that this target be eliminated because he had recently lost both his son and his daughter-in-law in an attack by the Taliban—due to confidential information leakage.

The general wanted to retire with a less guilty conscience—if that was possible—to take care of his orphaned granddaughter.

Taking his eye from the telescopic sight, Hugh looked up, and even with his special sunglasses he had to narrow his eyes against the light of a white, glaring summer sun and the heavy rainy clouds which had already appeared, cursing silently.

The sun was already past them and a few shadows began to make drawings on the rocky face of the mountains—as beautiful as it was distracting, especially to a killer who had been waiting for his target to appear for days in a row. If the skies opened now in a storm it would be a disaster. No matter how precise a sniper was, or how technologically enhanced his scope, afternoon shadows, stormy clouds, and heavy rain were the bane of a sniper. And as much as he hated his target, he didn’t want her to suffer.

A man appeared from within the cave and then retreated. One full hour ticked away before another man came and went.

“Goddamnit,” the general hissed as he looked through his spotting scope. “Where is she?”

Hugh doubted Nalini would appear in daylight. She knew she was marked for death and she had been holed up in the cave on the other side of the mountain since she had been revealed as a spy.

When military counterintelligence got a whisper about her location the general had immediately sent Hugh there.

And now Hugh was waiting quietly and patiently for his target. He could go like that for days, weeks, until he killed whomever he had come to kill. Even if it was Nalini.

He adjusted his rifle against his shoulder, blinking as the sweat dripped into his eyes, tingling like the pain piercing his heart.

After what the target had done…he understood she had to be killed, and strange as it might seem for any other, he’d rather it be him that did it. At least he would make sure she died instantly. He knew the general would prefer for her to be trapped, caught, and interrogated, and Hugh understood that. But if there was one thing he could do in honor of what she had meant to him, it would be to kill her quickly.

The general quietly backed away from Hugh’s sniper perch and headed inside their own cave to communicate with the man he’d left waiting there, much to Hugh’s relief.

Hugh turned his attention back to the enemy cave entrance and aimed carefully once more.

When the sun began to set a veiled woman appeared to the left of where he’d expected her, emerging from a smaller, less visible cave opening.

There was a light breeze. The shadows were lengthening, his gun barrel was heated, as were the bullets inside the chamber. He took all of this into account in the split second before he pressed the trigger.

In the time it took for the bullet to pierce precisely between her eyes and fell her to the ground, Hugh said a small prayer for her soul—and for his too, though he was quite sure that the devil would be gleefully counting the days for him to arrive in hell. His heart shattered into a million pieces and his soul went dark; the light inside him extinguished like a cheap candle as blood seeped out from beneath her black veil, soaking the rusty ground, stirring chaos inside the cave and causing men to come running out.

Hugh fired several more rounds killing her second-in-command, two other important lieutenants, and injuring at least four more before he dived into the cave behind him, following the general to the exit at the other side of the mountain, and mounting up quickly in a jeep that was waiting for them.

“You’re still our best sniper, son.” The general praised him, grinning, as the car peeled off down a mountain trail. “It’s a pleasure to watch you in action.”

Hugh slid a surprised glance toward the older man. He refused to believe he saw more than excitement at a job well done in the man’s expression, but there was a light that reminded Hugh of pleasure. “Sir?”

“Your father would be proud. I know I am. Well done, son. Well done.”

Hugh felt a strange sense of relief. He had been mistaken. The general wasn’t enjoying this, it actually was just pride at a job well done. And maybe some feeling of being vindicated.

Because that’s what it usually was for Hugh: just a duty he had to fulfil. Not a good task, and usually not a foul one either.

It was this moral code that allowed Hugh to kill more people on the battlefield than any other sniper in the British RAF—including women and children targets. There were bad guys—and bad bitches and bad little imps—and they all had to die. He was not a monster, nor a murderer of hundreds. He was simply a man doing his duty.

It was that simple.

That did not mean he was a good man, a great man, or even a hero. Though some would say he was.

When they neared a village, the driver slowed and the general continued, in a more serious tone, “Though this mission is confidential, as soon as we arrive in England, I’m going to recommend you for the Victoria Cross.”

Hugh’s stunned expression made the general clear his throat and say, “Don’t look so shocked, Lakeside. You lose a son and a daughter-in-law, then you’ll understand.”

Hugh shook his head and quietly said, “I was just doing my duty” He did not regret for a minute what he had done, but he couldn’t find any joy—or any emotion other than plain numbness—inside him for it.

With a sorrowful grimace, the older man put his hand on Hugh’s shoulder. “It’ll be something more, when it becomes all you have.”

Hugh swallowed his answer because in the general’s words he heard all the emotion of a father who had lost his only son to the enemy.

And that made him realize he was not simply a man doing his duty.

The much more complicated truth of his life had been left on the jagged rusty ground of Afghanistan, amidst blood and gore, a broken heart, and a fractured soul.

He didn’t know exactly what he had just become, but he felt a dark hopelessness taking control of his being. His inner landscape was being reshaped, as if an avalanche was engulfing whom he had always been.

He felt unfamiliar, scared, as his own mountainside was falling, crashing downward at a terrifying speed, taking everything he had always known and been along with it, destroying all in its path, mercilessly.

In the terrible, echoing silence of the aftermath, Hugh saw he was still the same, but not really.

If he could kill a woman he had loved—in cold blood—what could the future possibly hold for a man like him?