Strike and Burn (Penguin Publishing Group) - Softcover

Hutton, Taylor

 
9780593817759: Strike and Burn (Penguin Publishing Group)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593817753 ISBN 13: 9780593817759
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A breathless romantic thriller that doesn't just toe the line between danger and desire—it burns it to the ground.

Honor Stone is all alone in this world. No family, no money, no future. So when she locks eyes with Strike Madden—in the morgue of all places—she’s not in the mood to be seduced. Sure, he’s drop-dead gorgeous, and the sizzle of attraction between them is undeniable, but she’s reeling from her identical twin sister’s murder. It’s the wrong time, wrong place, wrong everything.
 
Still, the enigmatic billionaire hires Honor as an artist to spearhead his carefully curated erotic animation studio—a job they soon find to be a dangerous mix of business and pleasure.
 
But when her twin’s obsessive killer targets Honor, the painful secrets of Honor’s traumatic past will finally be exposed with devastating consequences. Strike will stop at nothing to protect her, uncovering his own bone-chilling demons—a beautifully broken, dark side that doesn’t scare Honor…
 
It consumes her.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Taylor Hutton is the pseudonym of a pair of writer friends, one of whom has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award and the other who is a New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award finalist. Between the two of them, they have written over forty books. When they are not passing their latest sexy thriller back and forth on Google Doc, they are browsing bookstores, sending each other ridiculous memes, walking their dogs Trudy and Potato around their Los Angeles neighborhood, and making their children cringe with their TikTok videos.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

One

Honor

Six Months Ago

It's a truth universally acknowledged that a woman should meet men on the apps and not in the morgue. Yet here I am, in the saddest place I've ever been, at the worst moment of my life, while also trying not to notice the stranger across the room.

I can't do this. I need to leave.

The first time I came to this morgue I said goodbye to my parents.

The second time was to say goodbye to my little brother.

This time is unquestionably the worst.

There should be a word for those who have lost everyone they have ever loved.

When I leave this windowless jail of a room, I will be entirely alone in this world. It will be the first day of the rest of my life without my favorite person, my best friend, my identical twin, Grace.

I'm only eyeing the guy in here because he's so conspicuously distracting, obnoxiously intruding on my grief. Who wears a tux and a dark cashmere overcoat to the morgue? Who takes a call at the morgue? Anger heats my skin. For the past ten minutes, I've been sitting alone with my sister's body, trying to process the horror of it. I did not anticipate that this final moment would be interrupted by someone who has absolutely no consideration for anyone, dead or alive, other than himself.

What's he doing here, anyway? He's obviously not grieving anyone.

My twin was three minutes and twenty-seven seconds older than me, and now, for the first time in my life, I'm older than her. How can that be true? I feel trapped in one of those nightmares where you want to scream but you can't.

Gracie and I used to stand next to each other in the mirror and play Spot the Difference. Our own parents often mixed us up, which always seemed ridiculous to me. We moved through the world like complete opposites. I once read a quote that one sister is always the dancer, the other the watcher.

Gracie was my dancer.

And yet it's my twin's face that I now look at on a metal slab.

So this is what it's like to have someone scoop out your heart.

This is what it's like to have nothing left to lose.

What happens when the person who shares your secrets dies?

Do the secrets die, too?

That could be one mercy.

The guy looks over but doesn't break his conversation. He's got the kind of arrogant good looks that probably let him get away with everything. Eyes as dark gray as the midnight sky. Thick, wavy hair, and a jaw sharp enough to slice ham. Gracie would have loved him.

How could he not see me? What could he possibly be talking about that is worth disturbing my last-my final goodbye? As he starts wrapping up his call, he sweeps past me as if I don't even exist. Like I've dissolved into vapor.

Except I am right here, under these flickering fluorescent lights. I have not disappeared, and neither has my grief.

On his way out the door, he accidentally hip-checks Gracie's gurney, bumping it.

Last straw. I wheel on him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I snap. "That's my sister that you just pushed out of the way like a-like a shopping cart! What are you even doing here?"

To his credit, he turns. Stares at me as if seeing me for the very first time. Then slides his phone into his coat pocket. His eyes linger, taking measure. Then he nods, finally apologetic, and with what looks like a wave of compassion, he holds up his hands as if in surrender.

"Breathe," he says. "Please. Just breathe."

Two

Strike

Six Months Ago

The first thing I notice is that she's hot-but more like a sunbeam than a thunderstorm. The second, that she's so teary and enraged, she looks like she might deck me.

Fair enough.

I'm so used to this place, I forget that for other people, any time spent in the morgue rates as one of the shittiest days of their lives.

I look back at the gurney I bumped. A toe-tagged girl.

This fucking world.

I should let this woman punch me. It would probably make her feel better.

"I'm not kidding," I say. "There's literally no air circulation down here. You got to breathe. In and out."

Her nostrils flare, but she inhales and exhales along with me. In my pocket, I hear Axe still talking, his distinct accent clipped and low. I tap the button to end the call without taking my eyes off her. I've got a dozen things that need to be handled right now, starting with identifying the body of Esperanza Martinez and finding out who put her here (no doubt her abusive ex-husband) and ending with the sort of gala that is so dull it makes me want to carve my own eyes out.

But I can't do anything more than contemplate this furious young woman standing in front of me.

She's got a smudge of bright green-paint, maybe?-streaked across the edge of her chin. And some on her neck? Like a kid who got a little overly excited with the finger paints.

"Sorry for being disrespectful," I say sincerely. "And I'm sorry for not making what I hope is your first and last trip to this hellscape any easier."

"It's my third time here, actually," she says, her chin lifting in defiance, her voice trembling slightly.

Oof. "Sorry. That's . . . a lot."

"Yeah, well. Reluctant return client," she says. A tear breaks and slips down her cheek. She brushes it away. She hates that she's crying, and suddenly all I want more than anything is to cheer up this heartbroken girl.

"Tell me more," I say. "I see a lot of . . . this type of thing . . . in my line of work." Not a complete lie. Plus she's got the saddest eyes I've ever seen. And I get the sense she needs to talk.

She presses her lips together. I can feel her loneliness joining forces with her need to say something about her sister. I remain stock-still. During my basic training for the CIA's Special Ops Group down in Virginia, I learned to hold a position for hours without betraying a moment of restlessness.

But in this case, it's not an assignment. I want to know. "Please," I say. "I'm . . . here."

"Gracie went missing over a week ago," she says, her words coming in a tumble. "Troy, her boyfriend, returned from their camping trip without her, claiming that she'd run off into the night after an argument. He said he'd searched for her for hours, and he was worried she'd fallen off a cliff." She seems to remember my advice as she pauses and takes a long, shaking breath. "So for ten days I've lived in this nightmare of not knowing-except I did know. I did." She looks at me, her eyes electric with fury. "I knew that whatever happened to Gracie, it was Troy. This afternoon, they found her at the bottom of a ravine. He must have pushed her. But now I've got some . . ." She swallows hard as her shoulders lift and drop in a sigh.

"Some confirmation," I say.

She nods, closes her eyes, but when I offer her a handkerchief, she half laughs. "Seriously?" she asks. "You're going to let me use that beautiful handkerchief for my snot?"

"Oh, it's not mine. It's property of the morgue," I say deadpan, hoping the joke will brighten her up. I'd do anything to coax a lighter mood out of her, trigger a sense of connection, if only for a moment. Even though that's not my usual MO. "It's part of their new hospitality revamp."

She blinks, but then nods, takes the handkerchief, and blows her nose, hard. Then she doesn't seem to know what to do with it.

"Keep it," I say. "They're doing a whole line of morgue souvenirs. Nice touch, yes?" I stroke my jawline, like I'm thinking it through.

"I mean, it's useful, at least," she says. "Better than a shot glass that says Last Shot, right?" She sniffles and blows again.

"Or a mini-flashlight that says Lights Out."

She shakes her head-but I can feel that the dark humor is also wringing out some tension.

"And," I add, "the parking lot is...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593817753
ISBN 13 
9780593817759
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
BERKLEY
https://www.penguin.com/?s=BERKLEY

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