Influencer (Influencing Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  The phone line goes dead.

  I take my phone from my ear and stare at it like it is some kind of foreign object. I want to throw it into the sea and get away from it. The man’s voice gave me chills and just holding my phone makes me feel like I am still connected to him.

  But something in his voice told me that he was deadly serious when he had threatened my loved ones. As crazy as it is, I know what I have to do.

  I put my phone on the deck so Ryan will know where I last was and then turn back to the railings. I lift one foot onto the steel bar followed by the other, trying to keep my balance as I hover precariously close to the edge.

  Looking down at the dark frothy waters churning away in the yacht’s wake, it doesn’t seem real that I will be crashing through them in a moment’s time. But what choice do I have? I don’t know who the man was, but I know what it is like to be threatened.

  Someone without my past could easily dismiss the call as a prank. But could I afford to do the same, considering my history with a psychotic employer and murderous plots? Especially now there is a new person for me to care about, a man I am in love with and will do anything to keep safe.

  Before I jump, I turn and look behind me and that’s when I see Ryan coming through the sea of people on the dancefloor. But as he gets closer, he sees me standing on the railings and his eyes widen. Then he rushes towards me with one hand out in front of him, as if he can grab me and stop me from what I am about to do. But I don’t give him the chance.

  I fall through the air, bracing myself for the impact of the water beneath me.

  #HellOnWater

  Emily Bennett

  As I crash through the surface of the ocean, I am surprised by how warm the water feels. I hold my breath and keep my eyes closed as I thrash my arms and kick my legs to propel my body back up to where I can breathe again. I break through the water line again and suck in a deep mouthful of air before trying to get my bearings.

  At first all I can see is darkness but then I make out the white body of the yacht going away from me and my heart aches knowing that Ryan is still on board, confused as to why I just leapt away from him.

  But that’s all the time I have for thinking because the next moment I am sent back beneath the waves as the blast from the explosion on board sends a huge and devastating fireball high into the air and a mess of debris splintering out in all directions.

  I’m barely conscious after feeling the force of the blast and my body slowly sinks down into the ocean. Maybe it’s for the best. It means I don’t have to see the hellish scene that is waiting for me above the water.

  I don’t have to see that the yacht is destroyed.

  I don’t have to see that all those people are dead.

  I don’t have to know that Ryan and Mason are gone forever.

  #MissionAccomplished

  Anna Akari

  I can still see the yacht burning on the ocean as the helicopter I have hired to take me away from The Bahamas soars into the air and leaves the island behind. The flames from the fiery wreckage offer a small amount of light in an otherwise vast darkness. It’s like a lighthouse off the coast but, instead of warning of impending doom should you crash onto the rocks, this signal indicates that something terrible has already happened.

  I don’t have any alcohol with me right now but if I did then I would toast to a job well done. All eight of my targets were on board the yacht and so all eight of them are now dead. I have informed the man who paid me to complete the task that my work is done and so the rest of the money he owes me will be deposited into my account within the hour. That is about the same amount of time it will take me to get back to America and from there I can board my flight home. It’s been a productive trip but as is the norm after an operation, I now feel drained and in need of rest.

  For me, the excitement is in the build up to a kill. The anticipation of ending a life. The adrenaline rush of knowing what I am about to do and the fact that there is nothing that my target can do about it. But like many vices in life, the moment itself is often all to brief and then you are left with nothing but a memory. That, and a burning desire to do it again. The feeling of emptiness comes with knowing that it may be a while before my next job, but the addictive part of my personality demands that I get my next fix as soon as possible.

  I gave into my temptations in Miami with the guy in the club but that’s not something I can make too much of a habit of. While my professional kills are slick and untraceable my extra-curricular ones are the kind that leave me most at risk from capture and so I must try to refrain from killing just for fun as much as possible. I know that I definitely shouldn’t be doing any more killing in this part of the world for a while.

  I think the guy in Miami and the hundreds of people on the yacht are enough for now.

  But that’s my problem. It’s never enough. I only feel alive when I’m either killing or planning to kill. All the other times in between are just a sad and boring waste of my time. I would kill right now if I could. From my position here on the back seat of the helicopter I can see the pilot in the front, with his headset covering his ears and his hands expertly controlling the aircraft, but it wouldn’t take much for me to slit his throat or strangle him.

  But I know that wouldn’t be wise. Killing him would send the helicopter plummeting towards the ocean and I should probably avoid doing that. But that doesn’t stop me thinking about wanting to do it. I’ll probably spend the rest of this flight staring at the back of his head and imagining all the ways I could end him. And the funny part is he will have no idea. We’ll touch down at the private helipad in south Florida and he will thank me and wish me a good evening. Then he will take off again and never know how close he came to a swift and brutal death at the hands of his female passenger.

  Maybe I could smash his head against the glass window beside him.

  See, there I go again. I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to distract myself.

  The only other possible thing I can find to occupy my mind until the flight ends is to think about what it must have been like for all those people on that yacht as the explosives ripped right through them. For most of them it would have been instantaneous. There would have been no warning. No time for fear or panic. Just happiness, followed by darkness. As quick and as painless as that.

  But those on the yacht furthest away from the C4 may have had a second or two to comprehend what was about to happen to them as the fireball erupted from below the deck. They may have heard the deep rumbling beneath them. They might have seen the first signs of fire coming towards them. They may even have seen their friends on board be engulfed by the flames just before they suffered the same fate.

  There is no way to know of course. No survivors meant no stories and there was no way anybody could have survived that. Just like when a plane crashes and you wonder if the people on board knew what was going to happen to them before it did, there are no eye-witness accounts from the event to verify it.

  Just flames, wreckage and speculation.

  For someone who spends most of her day fantasising about death I have actually given very little thought to my own. Maybe it’s youthful naivety or perhaps it’s because I’m not even sure that it’s something to be feared. Most people see it as a terrifying spectre looming over them, waiting for them at some point later in their life but, for me, death is as easy and transactional as ordering a drink at a bar or sending an email.

  Maybe I don’t fear death because I see so much of it.

  I cause so much of it.

  I am the embodiment of it.

  That’s a cool thought and one that I will hold on to as I force my gaze away from the back of the pilot’s skull and out through the windows at the dark vastness of the ocean. There are no lights below us now. No sign of civilization. No sign of life. No sign of the burning yacht that the search and rescue teams will be on their way to in a few moments’ time.

  They will have a grim and fruitless task looking for s
urvivors on board the doomed vessel. The yacht will likely have sunk before the fire crews can extinguish the flames, so there will need to be an operation to remove what is left of the wreckage from the seabed in order to look for answers.

  Meanwhile, the social media world will be in mourning for the loss of so many of its favourite stars. There will be news reports, condolences, funerals and far too many hashtags. There will be periods of reflection, times of mourning and opportunities to find solace amidst all the pain. The grieving process will be a long one, but it will end because everything has to end at some point. Then there will be renewed optimism and a chance for those left behind to remind each other to “seize the day” and “never take anything for granted.” It might even seem like life will never be the same again and that things will have to change for a better future.

  But inevitably the victims will be forgotten, allowing old habits to creep back in. People will eventually move on and carry on doing things the way they always did, so any ideas of change or hope will be extinguished, just like the flames from the yacht as it sinks beneath the water.

  Life goes on. The world keeps turning. And we all have to die someday.

  So quit fearing it and get on with living.

  #DeadOfNight

  Liz Bennett

  The bed has felt empty ever since my husband died. When he was here, I always used to complain about not having enough of it but now he has gone, the mattress feels like a cavernous space that can’t be filled no matter how much I spread myself out across it. Not that I do that much. I still sleep on the same side of the bed that I did when Dave was beside me. Doing anything else would just feel wrong. Just like finding another man to take his place in here feels wrong too.

  But the empty space next to me is one of the reasons why I find it hard to sleep at night. I toss and turn and flip my pillow over several times but no matter what I try, it always takes me a couple of hours to fall asleep.

  It never used to be like this. I have always been an early riser which meant that by the time my head hit the pillow at night I was out like a light. Back then my brain didn’t even comprehend keeping me awake until the early hours because it was so exhausted from the long day that I had put it through. But now, no matter how early I get up or how much I cram into my day, I still find myself kept awake by a whirlwind of thoughts every single time I crawl under my duvet and close my eyes.

  Most of my thoughts are about Dave of course. I think about how cruel it was that cancer took him away from me and about all the things we were supposed to do together before his death. But I also think about Emily and how my heart aches for her having lost her father.

  I miss her deeply now that she is away with work so much, and even though I know she is happy with her new life as a social media influencer, I do wish I got to see more of her. Now it’s just me in the house and that creeping sense of loneliness is always there, and never more so than in the dead of night when the lights are off and there is nothing to distract myself with any longer.

  But they aren’t the only things I think about. Since Dave died, I find myself worrying about all sorts of things that never bothered me before. Insignificant things like a report I saw on the news or a crack I noticed in one of the tiles on the garden patio. Things that would have barely entered my consciousness before are now contributing to my worsening insomnia and somehow it must be connected to losing my husband because I wasn’t like this when he was beside me.

  Maybe being alone means every little thing is suddenly magnified because I know that I have no support when it comes to dealing with any problems that might occur in my life. If that news report is a potential warning about the state of the economy or the growing risk of terrorism, then I will have to handle it myself. If that crack on the patio gets any worse and ruins the surrounding tiles, then I will also have to deal with it myself.

  It’s that creeping existential dread of knowing that whatever life throws at me, no matter how small or obscure, I will have to deal with it alone. I can’t refer to somebody else. I can’t wait for someone to do it for me.

  I can’t just expect to Dave to protect me.

  I plump up my pillow for the third time since I got into bed and then settle down again for my latest attempt at trying to get some sleep. I refuse to look at my phone beside the bed because I don’t want to know what time it is. If I do allow myself a glance at it then it will only serve as a reminder of how long I have already been lying here.

  Whenever I check the time during the night, I always end up being awake for ages afterwards, cursing myself for not being able to drop off and stressing about how few hours are left before I have to get up again.

  At least I don’t have to go to my old job in the supermarket anymore. That’s one positive in all of this. Thanks to Emily, and her newfound fortune in the world of social media, I have escaped my gruelling, mind-numbing job in a supermarket and no longer have to drag myself there for twelve-hour shifts.

  But just because my daughter’s generosity has enabled me to leave the job I hated, that doesn’t mean that I don’t work anymore. Far from it. Now I have a new job to fill my days and while it’s a lot more enjoyable than being on the aisles of a supermarket, it’s no less busy and demanding.

  For one, I am in charge of Emily’s fan mail. You might think that a social media star would just receive all her correspondence online but no, there are still hundreds of people who prefer to send her post in the mail, to her registered PO Box address.

  While it warms my heart to see that so many people still take the time to write a letter, or put together a photobook of their favourite posts from Emily, it does mean that I have my work cut out keeping on top of it all. Emily is insistent that everybody who sends her something gets a reply and, while she does her best to keep on top of the messages she gets from fans on her phone, I am in charge of the physical mail she gets back in the UK.

  Emily would love to have the time to respond to all of this too, but the truth is she is barely in her home country anymore and her schedule just doesn’t allow her the luxury of sifting through the post herself.

  When she offered me the job I was, of course, happy to help. I find it enjoyable to read all the letters and see how my daughter has inspired so many other people to follow their dreams or find the strength to keep fighting when they are going through struggles of their own.

  Some of the letters come from people in hospital and they talk about how seeing Emily’s posts on their PhoGlo account provides them with the positivity that they need to face the day ahead and keep focused on better things to come.

  The letters that strike me the most are from her fans who have also lost a parent at a young age. They write about how they can relate to Emily’s posts about her father and how they find comfort in her vulnerability and honesty. I admit I am the same. Seeing how my daughter has blossomed this year into a confident, successful businesswoman after being so low after her father died, is a sight to behold and it gives me hope that I too can build myself back up into a better version of myself in the future.

  I still have a lot of work to do on that front.

  The other parts of my day are spent working with the team that runs the cancer charity Emily set up in memory of her late father. It’s still early days for the charity and we are still working on creative and eye-catching fundraiser ideas for the future but it’s extremely rewarding to be a part of something that will help so many people in the end.

  It’s also a way of channelling the pain I feel from losing Dave into something more positive and that’s definitely something that I need. Lord knows there was nothing but negativity for far too long in this house after Dave passed and before Emily found success with her online following.

  I take a deep breath and roll over again, still resisting the urge to pick up my mobile phone from the bedside table and find out exactly how long it has been since I first lay down. If I had to guess then I would say that it’s about 2am but I’m not good at guessi
ng the time. Whenever I’ve done it in the past I’ve always picked up my phone and seen that I was way off in my estimate and I dread the thought of checking now and seeing that it’s actually closer to 3am.

  I keep my eyes closed and my body still, thinking that maybe if I can remain like this for just a few minutes then I can trick my brain into believing that I am asleep and then maybe I actually will be rewarded with some much needed rest. But no sooner have I done this then my eyes shoot open again as I hear the ringing from my mobile phone beside me.

  Now I have no choice in the matter. I am going to have to pick it up and look at it, regardless of the time.

  But why is somebody calling me in the middle of the night?

  I hope it is Emily, who has lost track of the time difference from where she is and is calling for a chat. But then I see the caller ID on the screen. It’s Margaret, one of my best friends and someone who regularly calls me to check up on how I’m doing and to make sure that I’m not just moping around the house on my own. But she has never called me in the middle of the night before.

  I worry that something has happened to her husband or one of her children and so I answer the call, praying that it’s either just a mistake on her part or that it’s some good news that somehow couldn’t wait until the morning.

  But when I hear the tone of her voice, I know it’s not good news. She is talking fast but I can make out what she is saying. She asks me if I have heard from Emily. Apparently, her daughter just ran into her bedroom and told her that she had read online about a yacht exploding. It was in The Bahamas and was full of influencers and she thinks Emily was on it too.

  She wants me to try and call her and check she is okay but as soon as she mentioned a yacht exploding then I lost all strength in my body. Emily messaged me from her hotel room in Miami just before she departed for the yacht party that would take her to The Bahamas.