Deadly Alliance is on a special discount of 0.99 over Leap Year weekend!
Thank you for visiting here today. The description of Deadly Alliance, romantic suspense is below:
Finbar Donahue, former Army Ranger, walked on the wild side in Iraq, but now he lives in the shadows. After his evasive partner, Les, was shot in a random drive-by, Finn discovers cash is siphoned monthly. He fights to keep his investment company afloat. When the late partner’s girlfriend, Amy Kintyre, applies for his bookkeeping job, Finn suspects she knows about his company drain and hires her.
Amy needs a nine-to-five with free evenings and weekends to get her fashion design business back on track. She unearths Les’ s secret bank account and alerts Finn. Freezing of the money laundering account sets off havoc within an Irish gang. Amy witnesses a gang fight between a brutal ISIS fundraising organization and the Irish. Desperate to escape a stalker’s crosshairs, she seeks refuge with Finn. As danger heats up, sparks fly hotter.
Let’s interview the hero of Deadly Alliance, Finbar Donahue.
- What do your friends call you? Finn. My full name is Finbar Michael Donahue.
- What’s your job? I own my own investment company, but who’s the chickenshit stealing money from me? My goal is to find the thief.
- What is your schooling? B.A. in finance, former Army Ranger. That was when I targeted a known enemy. Believe me, it’s harder now.
I’ve got a few questions for the heroine, Amy Kintyre.
- What’s your dream job? I want to get my sportswear design business back on track. A buyer phoned me, and I have an opportunity to present my line. I need a nine-to-five with evenings and weekends off to sew.
- Is that why you applied for Finbar Donahue’s bookkeeping position? Yes. Probably is that I found a mysterious bank account belonging to my late boyfriend, Les. He and Finn were partners.
- Would you enjoy working for Finn? No. He’s too arrogant, but there aren’t many job openings in Lake Arrowhead.
Here’s the bar scene with the Swiss Army Knife:
Finn Donahue’s break at Burlie’s Jazz Club was about to end. Familiar lyrics from the sultry tune floated through his mind long after the saxophonist stopped playing. Hold on like leaves and fall to what is left. Like the song, Autumn Leaves, he spiraled downward, failed to identify the chicken shit stealing his company’s cash. For three damn years, ten percent of the monthly deposits were sucked into a mysterious thief’s cash cow.
The crowd wandered out. Time for him to return to gloom and doom. He pressed a hand over his throbbing forehead with enough force to leave marks. Had the thief hired a colleague? The colleague was not a car-stealing, knee-smashing, fire-setting knucklehead. His mouth went dry at the fuck’s covert method and zest for cheating him. He’d question his snake of a partner, Les Kelly, if he weren’t already dead.
Across the room, a female patron gathered her belongings. As her ankle boots tapped toward him, a pair of shapely legs came into view.
His head snapped up. Amy Kintyre, the late Les’s girlfriend, in the running for his bookkeeping job, spotted him.
“Finn.” She swerved his way. “What a coincidence!” This chick lacked a pick-me-up line.
“Hello, Amy.” He didn’t offer her a seat.
She tilted her head to one side, studying the expression on his face. “Are we still on for nine?” She spoke with an annoying squeak.
“We are.” He watched her lips form a tight smile as she fumbled with her little purse. Turning away, she headed for the pink-windowed door to the ladies’ room.
His stomach did a quick, discomforting twist at the thought of working with Les’s former girlfriend. As time went on, karma between the partners slipped. Les held back. Enigmatic people had motive to protect inconsistencies. He assumed Amy hid a few. He sighed and gazed blankly around the club.
Pendant lights offered a fuzzy softness except for the bar. Behind it, opaque glass shelves were lit with violet light. The warm personality of the owner gave the establishment a comfortable feel. Burlie was closing up. With more oil to burn at his office, he stood to cross the mosaic tile dance floor.
The front door opened. “Sorry, we’re closed.” Holding a broom, Burlie swept behind the bar.
Finn stepped closer. Drunken merrymakers, they were not. His heart hammered like it was stuck in overdrive.
“We offer protection.” Speaking with a Spanish accent, the shortest of the trio dressed like the others, and donned the ISIS-style black ski mask.
“I have protection.” Burlie’s big mouth nailed his coffin.
A second thug grabbed the bartender’s hand and pulled out clippers. “You’ll change your mind, one finger at a time.”
“I just paid the Irish.” Panic burrowed into Burlie’s high-pitched cry. He thrashed his arms as he tried to pull his hand back.
“Us you pay.” His utterance with the object in the first position identified him as an Arab speaker. Light glinted off shiny metal. The thug pulled a combat knife, grabbed Burlie’s arms, spun him, put the blade to his neck. Finn dialed 911 and then shouted, “Finn Donahue here. Gang trouble. Burlie’s Jazz Club.” To grab their attention even more, he heaved in a breath and released a long whistle. His distraction worked.
Burlie broke from the hold, and Finn thanked God for the curious.
“Where are you?” Heavy boots pounded toward him.
Finn’s phone vibrated, but he killed the call and darted into the first door he saw, the one with the frosted pink window. He spotted Amy at the sink and pointed his index finger up.
He took off his coat and wrapped it around his fist. After rapping on the glass, he wound up and threw a hard punch through the window. Glass splintered as he connected with the thug’s nose. Prepared to jump aside, he opened the door.
Amy followed and jumped over the guy spread on the floor, holding a hand over his bleeding nose.
He struggled to stand. Finn patted him down, took his gun, and pointed it at him. After the guy stood, Finn walked him to a chair. “Don’t move.”
“I’ll phone the police.” A high-pitched squeal came from the back of her throat. “Never mind. Police are here.”
From the street, the blue light of a cop car radiated across the club’s interior like a strobe. Uniforms burst through the door.
The first officer made radio contact with homicide, and the second, much younger, rushed to the nearest thug and pulled out flex-cuffs.
“Stand over there, Amy.” Finn motioned toward a corner.
She rolled her eyes and dashed toward Burlie who wrestled with the Arab and tried to keep him from moving toward the young rookie. Amy pulled an item from her purse. A Swiss army knife? Out came a miniature cork screw.
The rookie cop turned the Arab around to be handcuffed and leaned him against a wall. The thug used the hard surface as leverage to throw himself against him.
Finn saw it coming. A switchblade sprung from the Arab’s sleeve. In a split second, he drove it into the cop’s shoulder, but Amy stabbed him in the back with the wine opener.
The Arab spun and pulled a knife from his jeans’ pocket. Amy dodged, but he thrust it into a cop’s gut before running.
Finn waited for an opening and shot him in the hip.
Howling about uncivilized barbarians, he dropped.
Up from his chair, the loser with the broken nose swung his fists, raining blows and a kick to the nuts which Finn deflected.
“Don’t make me shoot you.” Finn stunned him with a chop to the neck, caught him in a headlock. With a gun at his back, he marched him forward.
Amy broke into the center of the room and turned around, taking in the menacing scene. The girl-next-door had street smarts, competency with the corkscrew, and fearless determination.
He walked over and touched her weapon-holding hand. “You didn’t have pocket-knife experience on your resume.” It didn’t make her invincible. Nor did it mean he should hire her.
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Another Excerpt— Amy’s first day working for Finn
Hours later, Finn straightened his spine as he listened to his new bookkeeper order Rosenberg around with the authority of an Army lieutenant. She spoke with confidence from her chair and waited for answers with intensity. Somehow she came across larger than her delicate self.
“Brad,” his pretty war buddy said, “I’ll need your password to access activity-to-date.” Her attitude wasn’t for show. Her curiosity propelled her to the depths of the drain. Heaven help those who lurked there.
“Sure thing.” Brad blew out a breath and scribbled his password on a sticky note. Handing it to her, he bent to her level.
She said, “I apologize for causing chaos.”
“No apology necessary.” Brad asked, “What are you working on?”
Jumping in, Finn said, “Comparisons, Rosenberg, that’s what she’s working on.” Unholy as she’d undoubtedly turn out to be, at the moment they were forged in combat. “Give her your full support.”
“Absolutely. Consider me your scaffold,” Rosenberg said, accepting his fate. “Excuse me, won’t you? I’m running payroll.”
Finn liked his head accountant. He was solid. Dependable. Not creative, but his easy-going manner was soothing. “Payroll. You’re a masochist.”
Amy smiled, and her crystal-green gaze sought his. She found his comment amusing. Her professional attire included a gray satin blouse tucked into a herringbone skirt. When she moved, her layered, dark-blonde hair settled into a sleek flip over her shoulders.
Amy’s bending and reaching, as she took control of her four-by-four cubicle, was damn compelling. She found a rhythm with a handy notepad beside her computer. Using Brad’s password, she turned sideways to open files. Attractive summed up her symmetrical profile and creamy complexion.
For a long while, getting hot and heavy had not been on his mind. Her envelope gave him concrete evidence to bring to the sheriff and eased his tension. As she brushed tresses off her face, he wanted to nibble on her ear.
Amy packed her lithe frame with succulent curves. He enjoyed observing her ample bust which required high-performance support. He’d like to see those globes running free. He’d never considered her as dating material. Timing was off. When she started dating Les, he was hooking up with Miss California. Now it was too late. She worked for him. Hands off. Finn liked women—lots of women, all women, in all shapes and sizes and ethnicities as long as they met the enthusiasm requirement. He hadn’t tested this, but she was off-limits for another reason. He didn’t intend to put her through another relationship leading to nowhere.
Finn kept things loose. A woman in his bed but not in his life was what he often said. There hadn’t been that either. Why was he picturing her naked in his bed?