Influencer (Influencing Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  INFLUENCER

  DANIEL HURST

  www.danielhurstbooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  INFLUENCER

  First edition. June 28, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Daniel Hurst

  Written by Daniel Hurst

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Your Presence Is Requested At The Social Media Event Of The Year!

  #Boom

  #LovedUp

  #SnailMail

  #DuvetDay

  #FromRussiaWithLove

  #FirstClassProblems

  #LaunchDay

  #WorkIt

  #DeadSerious

  #HomeSweetHome

  #GreekGoddess

  #Hugs&Kisses

  #TickTick

  #JetSetter

  #TheEveOf

  #PartyTime

  #RomanceIsntDead

  #Jetlag

  #TipYourWaitress

  #OMG

  #PartyGirl

  #ThePartyStarter

  #YachtLife

  #BeachBabe

  #FlashingLights

  #BadFeeling

  #WTF

  #HellOnWater

  #MissionAccomplished

  #DeadOfNight

  #AshesToAshes

  #TheWatcher

  #ThreesACrowd

  #JustTheTwoOfUs

  #Prisoner

  #Why

  #SpannerInTheWorks

  #MoreMoneyMoreProblems

  #HopeIsTheBest

  #HopeIsTheWorst

  #Solitude

  #GetMeOutOfHere

  #Hide&Seek

  #GoWild

  #GodBlessCoconuts

  #LooseEnds

  #SeizeTheDay

  #GuessWho

  #SeenAGhost

  Coming October 2020...

  About The Author

  Books By Daniel Hurst

  Your Presence Is Requested At The Social Media Event Of The Year!

  Dear Emily Bennett

  You are cordially invited to the 21st birthday celebrations of social media star Zack Reynolds on the 1st August 2020.

  The party will be an all-day event, on board Zack’s luxurious yacht, The Social Star.

  Setting sail from Miami, the party will begin as the yacht glides through the Straits of Florida towards Bimini, a tropical island in The Bahamas.

  As you arrive on shore you will be greeted with a champagne reception and entertainment courtesy of several natives of the island, who will dance with you as you join them on the golden sands.

  A sizzling BBQ will be served while the sun sets and as the night falls in paradise, you will be witness to a spectacular fireworks display.

  From there, the party will continue back aboard the yacht, and as you sail back to Miami you will be treated to a live set from one of the world’s premier DJ’s.

  As you can tell it is going to be the must-attend social event of the year. Anybody who is anybody is going to be there and so I hope you will be there too.

  RSVP to my agent Tommy ASAP at Tommy#[email protected]

  Bring your best hashtags, filters and selfie faces because this event is going to break the internet!

  #PartyOfTheYear #Zacks21 #YachtLife

  See you on board,

  Zack

  #Boom

  Anna Akari

  It’s easy to see why so many people think The Bahama’s are the most beautiful islands in the world. There’s the sand that is so white you could almost mistake it for snow, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was burning hot from the scorching sun overhead. There’s the sea that is so clear that anyone who swims in it can see everything that is moving through the water beneath them. And there’s the array of palm trees here, their curved trunks and bright green branches leaning over the beaches, as if they are watching over all the sunbathers basking on the shores beneath them.

  It’s paradise. It’s picture perfect.

  But to me, it’s borrrring.

  I’m not here to swim, or snorkel, or sunbathe. I don’t care about pretty palm trees or beautiful blue skies. I hate tourists, I despise hotels and most of all I really can’t stand the heat.

  So what am I doing here on a tropical island surrounded by tourists, hotels and sea turtles?

  I’m here on business. I wouldn’t set foot in a place like this if I weren’t being paid for it. But $3million is enough to get me to come here. I can always make an exception for that kind of money.

  Although I still can’t wait to get out of here.

  Thankfully I don’t have much longer to wait. In about five minutes’ time I will be boarding the private plane that will take me off this godforsaken patch of land in the middle of the ocean and fly me back home to my native Japan. But before I can do that, I need to finish the task that I came here to do and so with that in mind, I take my mobile phone out of my pocket and open up my favourite app.

  But I’m not checking my notifications or updating my status. Unlike the large group of people who were partying on this island a few moments ago I am not addicted to PhoGlo. In fact I don’t have any social media accounts. I’m in that rare group of people on the planet of whom you still can’t find a photo online. Nobody knows who I am these days.

  Not even the woman who gave birth to me.

  As the app opens on my phone, I look out at the sea and notice how the moonlight is shimmering across its waves. For many tourists this would be a good place to have a nightcap and enjoy the peace and quiet before retiring to their hotel rooms and sleeping in their overpriced, air-conditioned beds. But like I said, I’m not a tourist and so I’m not sitting here for a pleasant view or simply for somewhere to enjoy a beverage or two.

  I’m sitting here so I can watch 200 people die in one minute’s time.

  I look back down to my phone and at the information on my screen. It tells me that the device I planted is currently 700ft away from me, just off the coast of the island I am sitting on. But I already know this because I can see the yacht from here and I watched it depart a few moments ago.

  I’m still close enough to it that I can hear the loud dance music pumping out from inside, although thankfully I’m far enough away to not be injured when it explodes into a million pieces in forty-five seconds’ time.

  The app is open and my phone screen gives me the option of pressing either a red or green button. If I press the red button, then the device on the yacht that is slowly moving away from me will be disabled and everyone currently on board will get to live. But if I press the green button then the device will detonate and every single person on board will die in a blazing inferno.

  It’s the green button that I will be pressing in thirty seconds’ time.

  And I can’t wait.

  It almost annoys me that there is a red button on the app at all. It’s not as if I’m going to change my mind at the last second and suddenly decide to let all these people live. That’s not what I’m being paid for.

  That won’t help me get $3million in my bank account by the end of the day.

  I’m a ruthless assassin. Pressing the green button is how I make money. The red button is only for quitters who shouldn’t be in this business in the first place.

  And they are the ones who end up dead themselves because they didn’t complete their task.

  But I always complete my tasks. I have a 100% success rate. It’s why I’m so in demand. />
  I’ve killed 241 people so far in my career and while I don’t usually do bulk assignments, I will be adding another 200 people to that list in just fifteen’ seconds time.

  My sterling reputation is the reason why my current employer hired me and offered me the huge bounty. He is a Russian man and even though he didn’t tell me his name when he made contact with me, I have my ways of finding it.

  He is called Ivan Ilghiz and for some reason he wants eight social media influencers dead. He gave me a list of their names.

  Mason Manor.

  Rochelle Turner.

  Stella Robinson.

  Harriet Harper.

  Trey Squire.

  Nikkie Morris.

  Molly Chan.

  Emily Bennett.

  Of course I hadn’t heard of a single one of them, but I was more than happy to kill them, especially when he told me how much he was willing to pay me.

  Armed with the list of names, I had begun to make my plans to assassinate each of them individually. It would have been a little time consuming to traverse the globe on the trail of that many different influencers, but it was something I was willing to do for millions of dollars.

  But when I had started looking into each of the targets on my list, which annoyingly meant I had to download a stupid app called PhoGlo, I had noticed that every single one of them was planning on attending the exact same birthday party on the exact same day.

  The party was on a yacht that was scheduled to sail between Miami and Bimini and every single person on my list would be on board at the same time. So then I got creative and told Ivan that not only would I be able to kill every single one of the people he wanted me to, but that I could do it for him in one fell swoop.

  It’s hard to tell how excited somebody is when you are only talking to them via encrypted online messages, but I got the distinct impression that he rather enjoyed my little plan. Not only would it result in the death of every person on his list but the fact that so many other people would die along with them would mean that nobody would be able to pick out any one person as the specific target.

  With the go-ahead from Ivan, I put my scheme into action. Stage one consisted of getting myself on board the yacht disguised as a waitress and leaving my bomb in a box that was disguised as a present for the birthday-boy yacht owner.

  I made sure that everybody on my hit list was on board when the yacht left Miami this morning and I checked again when the same yacht left The Bahamas a few minutes ago.

  All the people who Ivan wants dead are on board. Okay so there are also several other ‘innocent’ people on the yacht that weren’t on his list but sometimes that is just the price of doing business.

  And speaking of business, it’s almost time.

  There was a large fireworks display on this beach about half an hour ago, but I have a feeling that the light show I am about to witness will be a lot more spectacular than that.

  Five...

  Four...

  Three...

  Two...

  One...

  My finger taps the green button, just as easily as if it were liking a cat video or sharing a selfie.

  And just like that, the mega yacht gliding through the smooth seas in front of me is obliterated.

  I see the fireball erupting into the dark sky out at sea first. The glow from the flames briefly illuminates the shore and I can spot several tourists who were lying on the sand and enjoying a romantic evening suddenly jump to their feet and begin shouting for help.

  Then I hear the loud boom that accompanies the explosion and feel a tingling sensation deep within my soul as the shockwaves from the blast rush over me.

  I close the app and put my phone away. My work here is done. Everybody on the list is dead.

  PhoGlo has just lost all of its stars.

  As I take a long refreshing sip of my dry martini and watch the yacht burning on the sea, I suddenly see what all the fuss is about regarding this part of the world.

  It actually is a nice place to visit after all.

  #7DaysBeforeTheParty

  #LovedUp

  Emily Bennett

  I slept well last night. There weren’t any dreams, but it was a peaceful, restful sleep, the kind you can only get when your mind is clear and there are no worries keeping you awake. It’s been like this for a couple of months now.

  It’s been like this ever since Sebastian died.

  But that’s not the only reason for my perfect slumber recently. Studies have shown that you sleep better when you have a partner beside you in your bed. Apparently, it boosts oxytocin, which is known as the love hormone. Who would have thought that in an era when we conduct the majority of our social contact via phone screens, we would actually function better when we put our phones away and simply lie beside one another?

  But it must be true because I’ve never slept better and it’s all down to the person sleeping next to me right now. As of today, I have 14.6 million followers on my PhoGlo account, but the only person I need in the world is the one still gently snoring beside me.

  There are some things in life better than social media.

  Family.

  Friends.

  And love.

  I met Ryan Young two months ago at a charity fundraiser I was hosting alongside my best friend and business partner, Mason Manor. We launched the charity to raise awareness and care for victims of all forms of abuse. It’s a cause that is especially close to both Mason’s heart and mine, because we spent so much time living in fear of a controlling man who ruled over us and would have hurt us if we hadn’t escaped him.

  But that’s enough about Sebastian, I don’t like to think about him anymore. He’s dead and buried and Mason and I are free of him now.

  As we launched our charity that night, I found myself being distracted from the hundreds of guests around me. Not even the trays of champagne and canapés could divert my attention away from the man across the room wearing a tuxedo and a dazzling smile.

  It was Ryan, who had been booked by our event organiser to provide the entertainment that evening. I hadn’t been aware of him at the time but it turned out he was one of the best up-and-coming comedians in America and when the organiser had approached him about performing for free at our event he had been only too happy to help.

  There are a lot of things that women can find sexy in a man. Height. Strength. Confidence. But without doubt, the number one thing I find most attractive in the opposite sex is a sense of humour. And Ryan had the best sense of humour I had ever come across. His thirty-minute performance that night at the charity ball had left the whole room howling with laughter.

  And it had left me with a serious crush.

  By the time Mason introduced me to Ryan shortly after he had come off stage, I had already spent fifteen minutes in the bathroom reapplying my makeup and rejigging my hairstyle in preparation, and so I was as ready as I was ever going to be to make a good first impression.

  That was right up until the moment that we went to shake hands, when I accidentally stepped forward and bumped into a waitress beside me, sending her tray of full champagne flutes crashing to the floor around us.

  I had been mortified and suspected that I had already blown my chance with the hot comedian, but as we all bent down to help the poor waitress get back up off the floor, he had leaned in closer to me and whispered in my ear that he hadn’t realised that I was a comedian too.

  So it turned out that my little accident had been the perfect ice breaker, as well as being the perfect champagne flute breaker, but I was happy to pay the bill for the damaged glassware back to the hotel. And as the night came to a close Ryan and I found ourselves swapping phone numbers.

  I had followed his PhoGlo account as soon as I had got back to my room and had seen that he had 231k followers. There were a lot of photos of him in various cities around America, and many video clips of him performing his comedy in front of crowds so big that it gave me anxiety just watching them. But thankfully th
ere hadn’t been any photos of him with a potential girlfriend. Okay, so I had stalked him online as soon as I could but so what, influencers have desires and needs too, I’ll have you know.

  The morning after the charity event I had woken up to my usual flurry of notifications but there was only one that I had been looking for at that moment in time. It was the one that told me that Ryan Young had followed me back.

  We were glowing together.

  And pretty soon after that we were going together. To restaurants. Movies. Basketball games. Even shopping malls, after I had persuaded him that his wardrobe could do with a little rejigging. And then a month later, we confirmed what the paparazzi already knew, that we were falling in love with each other and were officially an item.

  Now I’m in his apartment in Brooklyn, wearing one of his t-shirts and waiting for him to wake up so we can make breakfast together before heading into Manhattan and sharing a midsummer stroll around Central Park.

  Things move pretty fast when you fall in love.

  Almost as fast as they do when you are a full time influencer.

  It’s been almost eight months since I received the first message from Sebastian telling me he wanted to work with me, and it’s been two months since I killed him.

  Since then things have been great. With the freedom to use my PhoGlo account as I wish I have grown it considerably, even without the help of Sebastian’s team of hackers working secretly in the background. Now I am actually living the life I always dreamt about, and not the one in which Sebastian tried to trap me and so many others.

  I promote the products and businesses that I want to, and not the ones that I’m told to. I campaign for the politicians that I want to see in power, because they have policies that will help the most people, and not just make certain businessman richer. And I am free to negotiate my own income, no longer restricted to whatever amount Sebastian told me I would receive.

  I still travel the world but now I actually enjoy the freedom that comes with it, without having to worry about Sebastian’s man following me and threatening to harm me if I step out of line. I attend all the biggest and best parties and am able to mingle with whichever influencers I want, without wondering if they are also under Sebastian’s spell. And best of all, my mum is safe again now, living in a mortgage-free house back home in Billericay and spending her time working through my fan mail and assisting with the charity that I set up in memory of my late father.