The Elite #1
Seven days until game over.
Len
Kade has seven days left to live… unless I do something about it. I am one of the best assassins around, after all. But… I’m not sure I exactly care what happens to Kade. He’s rude, only cares about himself and his casino, and did I mention he doesn’t know a single thing about video games?
Okay, okay. Maybe that’s not enough of a reason to watch him dash headlong into danger while I kick back and enjoy the show.
It’s kind of fun though.
Now I know what you’re thinking… doesn’t that make me the selfish one? See, I don’t mind helping people—it’s kind of my thing. But the ones I help aren’t anything like Kade. They’re people who have nothing left who are willing to go to great lengths to save those they love, even at the cost of losing themselves. Still, maybe Kade can show me that beneath his icy exterior is a man worth saving. A man worth loving. And maybe even a man worth risking everything for.
Issue is… he only has seven days to do it.
Reckless Roulette is a part of the multi-author series The Elite. Each book can be read as a standalone and in any order. What links these books together is The Anonymous, a club beneath the gritty city where only the elite are welcome.
Original Review August 2023:
Gotta start by saying I have loads of Alice Winters books on my Kindle & TBR lists but have only read a few. I love her ability to write humor and to make it such a huge part of the story. Many authors will write great comedy moments but few can add so much to the story that it borders on rom-com status. I don't know if the author considers her works to fall under that category but I place every one of her books I've devoured in the genre.
I mention the above statement because even though I have all entries in the multi-author series, The Elite, on my kindle I have only actually read Davidson King's book, Dealer of Secrets, so when I needed something dangerously snarky to combat the miserable no AC heat and seeing as it was the first entry in the series, it was a no brainer that Alice Winters' entry would be next up.
On to Reckless Roulette.
I've never been a gamer or into anime and my comic book knowledge is limited but as a lifelong devoted Star Wars fangirl geek, I loved, appreciated, and 150% respected Len's devotion to his geekness. As for going against the stereotype and making the geek and the not-so-squeaky-clean-Robin-Hood-ish one in the same was fresh and exciting.
As for Kade. Well what can I say about Kade? At face value you completely understand and don't mind the fact that he's only got 7 days left to live per the threat that sends him to Len's door. Let's be honest, he is not the most likeable guy on paper HOWEVER you know there is more to the man underneath and Len may just be the guy to poke holes in that basement floor to give the good guy hiding a chance to break free😉.
That is about all you're going to get out of me as this is a spoiler free zone and I'm a no spoil kind of gal😉. Just know this: once you start Reckless Roulette you won't be able to put it down, you'll be left surprised a couple of times, shaking your head "I knew it!" once or twice, and totally sad when you reach the final page because you just never want it to end. I wish I had read it slower to savor all the snark and cuddle goodness but in truth there was no way I could have slowed because I just had to know what was on the next page.
CHAPTER 1
KADE
This isn’t the first time I’ve had a gun pressed against my head.
It probably won’t be the last.
Irritation rolls through me when the man clanks his gun against my skull again as he holds a hand around my throat to keep me from going too far.
A sigh escapes me as I grit my teeth to keep myself from doing something… unreasonable. Three of my guards are currently lying dead at my feet, telling me that whoever decided to rain on my damn parade is skilled.
Doesn’t make me any less irritated. There are two men, a sniper who is the more skilled of the two and the gunman behind me who seems to think he needs to be uncomfortably close for his gun to work.
“I’m sorry, am I bothering you?” the man asks.
“Oh? How did you guess?” I ask as I lower my hand.
“Get your hands up,” he growls.
“I just want a cigarette, and it’s not like you’re going to shoot me. If I was supposed to be dead at the end of this, you wouldn’t even be here. Your sniper doesn’t need you—you’re fodder. You’re here to tell me something that’s going to annoy me,” I say as I take out a cigarette and light it. “I mean, really, why else would they send someone who has a quiver to his fingers?”
“Fuck you,” he says as I aim the cigarette for my lips again before thinking better of it and cramming the lit end into his eye.
He howls out and releases me, not shooting me, of course, because he never took the safety off. It wasn’t because he made a mistake, it was because he knew that if he shot me, even accidentally, he’d be better served crawling in a ditch somewhere and offing himself.
He lets out a growl as he shoves me forward and just as I turn around, he punches me in the face because that’s something hecando. I drop my cigarette as I grit my teeth in irritation.
“Sell it,” he orders.
“Oh?”
“You need to sell out to Norn if you don’t want to be dead at the end of this. He’s kindly decided that starting tomorrow, you have seven days to get your affairs in order and transfer ownership to him, and if in that time you don’t, he’s going to raze everything you’ve built up to the ground.”
“I can’t wait,” I say dryly as I pull out a different cigarette since his eye rudely destroyed my last one. He’s quite squinty, and it’s kind of hard to give him my full attention when he’s leaking tears the way he is.
I step up to him and jab a finger against his chest. “You tell your boss that he’s going to regret fucking with me because it’s the very last thing he’s going to do.”
Fuck, just hearing that man’s name makes me irritated.
The gunman is just staring at me as I walk past him and continue toward the casino. Mostly employees park out here, but the mess will have to be cleaned up before anyone else stumbles on it or it’ll raise some attention… not that this city isn’t used to guns and bodies.
Fuck, would I love to knock down that damn sniper who killed my guards, but gun wielding is not my specialty. My father raised me with the mindset that we were always going to be taken care of by those beneath us and that shooting those who defied us was not what we did.
He was a fucking idiot.
As I walk through the casino, the noise pounds around me. It’s something that’s been an integral part of my life since I was a child when my father built the place, so it’s nothing more than background noise anymore.
I push through the doors into the back room where a group of my men are loitering. When they see me enter, they look surprised, having thought I’d gone home for the night.
“There are two fuckheads who targeted me when I was in the back parking lot. A sniper and a gunman. They killed my guards. Someone go kill them and clean up the mess, please,” I say as I sink down in a chair and lean back while my financial advisor, Harker, raises an eyebrow. A couple of my security guys head out the door, presumably to do my bidding.
Harker is a man I’ve gotten to know through the business side of things, but he’s also probably as close to a friend as I’m going to get. It doesn’t mean we actually do much together, it just means I tolerate him more than the rest. And while his title is as my financial advisor, he does a lot more than that.
He’s about five years older than my thirty-seven, with brown hair speckled with gray. His dark eyes are currently watching me in concern behind blue-framed glasses. Honestly, he’s probably one of the only ones who’d care if something happened to me.
“You hurt?”
I shrug dismissively. “It’s Norn Peterson.”
Harker whistles as he leans back in his chair. “Well… we knew this day would come; he’s been watching you for a long while. It was nice knowing you with a head on your shoulders. Next time I see you, I’m thinking you might not look so pretty.”
I glower at him because of course this is what he has to say. “You’re a fucking irritation, you know that?”
Harker laughs, clearly amused by his own idiocy. Everyone else in the room is dead silent because they all know better than to laugh or ridicule me, but none of them have known me as long as he has. Harker, knowing that I’m not enjoying a lick of this, sighs. “Well, they left you alive. What do they want?”
“For me to sell to him.”
“You’d be absolutely stupid not to.”
I raise an eyebrow, surprised that he’d believe I’m such a pushover. “You honestly think I’m just going to say, ‘Here ya go, I hope you enjoy taking everything I slaved over for the last twenty years of my life’?”
“Yeah, I think you should. He’ll give you enough money for it. You take it and go do something else with your life. You’re not going to win this game.”
“There only needs to be one man dead for me to win this game,” I say.
Harker seems to think I’m hilarious now as he contemplates this. “Yeah. You seem to forget that Norn got his rise to power as a hitman. He literally controls a chunk of the network.”
“So then I need someone better. Simple as that,” I say.
“So fucking simple,” he says dryly.
“I know you have a guy.”
“I don’t have a guy, Iknowa guy,” Harker corrects. “And let me just save you the time… he’s not going to work for you.”
“Call him. He won’t refuse when he hears my offer.”
Harker slowly shakes his head before taking his phone out. “Alright… donotcome bitching to me about your time being wasted when this is over with.” He taps some buttons and holds the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Kade Morris wants to hire you… yeah, I told him that… yeah, I know you’re busy but you’re the only one I can think of… just… fucking hell, he’s not going to go for it… fine. Yeah, bye.”
I stare at him, already not impressed.
“He said he wants to meet you first. He only works for guys he likes, Kade. And you’re not a likeable guy,” he says.
“I’m goddamn Mr. Rogers,” I growl.
That makes Harker laugh as he shakes his head. “Oh, you’re going to die so hard.”
“Fuck off.”
“With that attitude, I’ll be the only one at your funeral.”
I glower at him as he laughs like he thinks he’s hilarious. Everyone else in the room is watching with wide eyes and remaining silent.
“Come to my office tomorrow. I’ll take you to see him,” he says.
“There is absolutely no reason that I need to go.”
“He’s not going to work for you if he doesn’t like you.”
“This is a pain in my ass.”
Harker shrugs. “Be there by ten in the morning. Don’t be late. He doesn’t like it when you’re late, either.”
“Is there anything this person does like?” I ask.
“He’s still ten times more pleasant than you. If I had to be stuck on an island with you or him, I’d pick him or drown myself.”
“You wouldn’t have to do it yourself, I’d do it for you,” I assure him.
“Perfect.”
The Elite is multi-author series.
Each book can be read as a standalone and in any order.
What links these books together is The Anonymous,
a club beneath the gritty city where only the elite are welcome.
Alice Winters started writing stories as soon as she was old enough to turn her ideas into written words. She loves writing a variety of things from romance and comedy to action. She also enjoys reading, horseback riding, and spending time with her pets.
The Elite Series
