Taking unknown steps into a clandestine world...

 Hello everyone!

It’s a pleasure to be here today – thanks to DL Jackson for inviting me. Halfway through the elation of clinching a guest spot here, I got stumped on the question – what will I, a romantic suspense author, talk about on a blog that caters primarily to sci-fi?

Can you say “I raked my brain to come up with a topic?” What could I tell you, sci-fi aficionados, about what it was like for me to write a romantic suspense/ espionage thriller with a strong, kick-arse protagonist doing her best to adjust to civilian life now that she has married her childhood best friend? And, oh yes – I forgot to mention: her husband doesn’t know she used to be a clandestine assassin, and someone inside her agency, the Corpus, does not agree with her leaving the ‘service’...

You peeps write and read about space, supernovas, star ships, battles in the stars, alien races— Wait a second – to convincingly portray your alien races/worlds/societies/far-flung corners of the universe, you do a lot of world-building, innit?

Well, it turns out that I also had to extensive research to build *my* world too – that of spies, clandestine agencies, espionage tradecraft. I had to immerse myself into a culture totally unknown to me (uh, hello? I’m a desperate housewife from a tropical island – what do I know about guns and spy tradecraft and danger, biological weapons, clandestine activity, assassinations, infiltration work, evasion and deceit ? *the extra pair of shoes I got that my husband doesn’t know about does not count here!*)

I might not write about such extensive worlds that requires as much world-building as you sci-fi peeps do; I do say, hats off to ye lot for going to these lengths to give us amazing, out of this world *pun intended!* stories... but I have written about a world totally unknown to me...

I hope you’ll come take a peek at what my clandestine espionage world building looks like, in Before The Morning (Corpus Brides: Book 2), my latest release from Noble Romance Publishing.

And, if you’re so inclined, take a bet on the first book in that series – Walking The Edge (Corpus Brides: Book 1) is FREE this week! Grab your copy!
Thanks for having me over today, guys! Big thanks too for letting me share the news about my novel’s release with you.

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Covers (compressed for optimum web display) – Before the morning, Walking the edge

Excerpt – Before The Morning

From the front-facing window on the second floor of the Shepherd's Close freehold, Corpus secret agent Rayne Cheltham watched the ambulance pull away from the curb.

Shivers crept up her arms, and she hugged herself tight to ward them off.

Get a grip!

She was a professional on an assignment, an elite, trained operative from a clandestine agency that handled operations for governments and international forces as a stealthy left hand. Her agency entrusted her with the most important missions—nothing should faze her.

Before today, she would've said that nothing could affect her when she had her eyes on a goal.

But she wasn't sure anymore. She'd never had her past collide with her present like a few moments ago, in the form of her childhood best friend.

Ashford Gilfoy, better known as Ash. The boy who had been there to catch her when, at six, she had slipped while climbing the chestnut tree that sat right on the border between their two houses in Hastings, two days after her family moved there from Salisbury. The boy who had taught her how to ride a bicycle without the training wheels on the long and winding, gravel-covered lane leading to her parents' mansion. The teenager who had smashed the nose of the first lad who had broken her heart, at thirteen, during recess in the schoolyard. The young man she had left seventeen years ago on a platform at London Waterloo, on the day she bid her old life goodbye.

For the first time since that day, she was back on British soil, and kismet decided Ash should cross her path.

Why then, of all times? She was a hair's breadth away from closing the contract on this mission. Seven months of intensive infiltration work and she was ready to achieve her aim—neutralize Nikolai Grigorievskiy's criminal operations before she took out the man. The Corpus always sent her for the kill, but the trick was that she had to make her target's death appear self-inflicted, at the bare minimum, or an accident, in the direst of cases. Measles, as such operations were known in their clandestine world—a planned assassination that didn't leave any indication of the cause of death. She would then have to sanitize everything—leave no evidence, no witness, nothing that could lead back to her. Unlike her other agency counterparts, she wasn't an out-and-out black ops assassin, but a different level of highly implicated agent provocateur.

In other words, a consummate actress who got to her ends by manipulating people and circumstances. All those years of drama school, at her mother’s insistence when, obviously, she'd be too tall to become a ballerina, came in handy. In fact, her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in the drama school's end of year play had caught the eye of the people who had recruited her into the Corpus. Seventeen years into the agency, fifteen of them as Kali, her operative name, a sociopath with no apparent conscience who followed her orders with diligence. Never had any one of her targets come close to figuring she was an undercover agent. Her track record was flawless—each assignment undertaken with one hundred percent success rate and a marginal body count.

Until today, when she'd almost gotten burned.

Ash had recognized her down there. For a second, she'd thought her cover was blown. Then, she'd taken a deep breath and forced herself to remain in character. Never panic, always stay in control, breathe and gather your wits—the first lesson drilled inside the mind of any secret agent. Pulling on a blank face was one of her fortes, and Ash had bought the act. He thought she was Irina, clueless twenty-year-old from the dirt-poor suburbs of Moscow who didn't speak any other language but Russian.

She'd had a few close encounters in the past, but never like that. Rayne and Kali had two separate, compartmentalized lives that ran parallel. The two should never have touched, because that would end up making a mess of her. She could keep each persona separate, as long as she could push Rayne to some dark corner of her mind. Her job taxed her, and she walked the tight line of paranoia every single second while undercover.

But if Rayne came to the front during a mission . . . .

Damn it, she wasn't a rookie agent on her first mission. Cherries, as the CIA called them. Hell, even during her first undercover operation, she'd had no qualms and no trouble achieving her aim.

Why today, when everything was smooth sailing toward a much-desired goal?

She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the windowpane. The glass was warm against her clammy skin.

She was sweating?

That will not do. I have to take control again.

She had to forget about Ash, about Rayne, and focus on being Irina, the one who would bring down a notorious criminal. Her agency and the whole world counted on her to take out the piece of scum. She was their last hope, sent in as the trump card after good cops got killed when trying to bring Nikolai to justice.

Someone knocked on the door, and she pulled away from the window. Damn it, she still had a job to do.

Willing confidence to steel her spine on a deep breath, she turned around. She blinked a few times, called forth tears. She was supposed to be a young wife who'd just been hit by her husband, a man she'd left downstairs at the party with a leggy blonde draped all over his side.

The moisture trickled onto her cheek, and she swiped her eyes to smear the kohl and mascara.

There—she should present the desired picture of despair.

"Da?" she answered as she stepped toward the door.

The panel opened quietly. "Zdrastuyte, Gaspazha Grigorievskaya."

Hello, Mrs. Grigorievskaya. Such formality. Only one man addressed her with such deference and respect—Boris Petrov, Nikolai's right-hand man.

"Zdrastuyte, Boris Ivanovich." She replied him with the same formal greeting, using his patronymic name to further show her respect, as was customary in the Russian culture.

Boris was the least disposable target in the whole operation—the keystone. She had to bring him down, or at least create a rift between the two men. Everything would crumble afterward. Nikolai wouldn't have his main pillar of support, and would thus crash down through the pyramidal structure of his operations.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

She shrugged, forced a small, tremulous smile. Russian wives, she'd learned, tolerated a lot of their husbands' outbursts. "It's nothing."

"You shouldn't listen to what Mikhail said. He is just jealous that Kolya's attention is not wholly directed onto him any longer."

"It does not bother me," she said in a small voice.

Make a move, she silently urged him. For her plan to work, Boris had to capitalize on the simmering embers of passion that flared between him and his boss' wife, and that he denied all the time. She'd already lost too much time, and had to start the measles process.

I have to take matters in my hands. There's no other way.

She trained her eyes on him. Boris was a big, burly man in his mid-forties. Anyone could imagine him knocking out a person with just a flick of his thick wrist. Toying with him was like playing with fire—she could get burnt. But she had no other choice. The time had come. Five months to gain Nikolai's trust and compliance; two months to insidiously plant the seeds of discord within the criminal's entourage. She didn't have much leeway to work at influencing outcomes anymore. No—she had to provoke.

Rayne inhaled, felt the oxygen fill her lungs and clear her brain. She forced herself into her character. What would Irina do?

She gasped, and brought her hands to cover her mouth. With rapid steps, she rushed to Boris' side. She reached out with one hand and trailed the tips of her fingers along one of his eyes, swollen nearly shut from a blow.

"You shouldn't have," she said in a soft whisper, letting tears streak down her cheeks. "Not for me."

Boris' swift intake of air was the only sound that hissed between them. He closed his eyes under her touch.

Do it, she urged.

"I am so"—she paused and sobbed—"so sorry." Her voice was small and breathless, heavy with sadness.

Boris settled a heavy, meaty palm on her hand, to keep her fingers unfurled on his cheek. "Forgive me, Irina. I couldn't let him say those ugly lies about you."

He is caving.

"Boris, please." She pleaded with him.

"I will do anything for you."

"I am a married woman."

"Why don't you leave him?"

She gasped. "I cannot. I pledged myself to him."

"But look how he treats you!"

"Borya," she said, using the nickname for Boris, "back in Russia, for every one like me, there are ten other girls, more beautiful, waiting to take my place."

"There isn't any woman more beautiful than you in all of Russia."

She smiled, making sure she displayed sadness and resolution on her features.

"You are such a sweet man." When he wasn't forcing underage girls into the cargo holds of boats docking out of most major European ports, plying them with drugs before supplying them like meat to brothels and sex perverts.

"Leave him," Boris said, the words a subtle urge.

"I can't. Where would I go?" She gently tugged her hand from under his and took a step closer to him. "I can't go back to that life, Borya."

"Irina, please—"

The sound of the door opening startled them. Nikolai stood on the threshold, his tall, dark form an intimidating silhouette in the dim doorway.

Kali threw one look at Boris, shook her head softly, and took a few steps away. The back of her knees hit the edge of the window seat. She stumbled backward into a sitting position on the upholstered ledge.

Nikolai's narrowed gaze went from Boris to her, and back to his right-hand man.

"Leave us," he said softly, the words obviously an order.

Boris nodded and exited the room.

Good—she’d sown the seeds of doubt. Her "husband" would wonder what went on between her and Boris, and Boris would try to get closer to her. She would play on this nearness between them, subtly make people wonder if something was happening behind Nikolai's back.

At that point, she would move her final chess piece—Nikolai would die at the same time as Boris. For the world, things would look like an altercation gone wrong between a spurned husband and a forbidden lover, with her caught in the crossfire. That's how she'd ensure her exit from the operation.

Yes, all the pieces of the game were falling into place. She just had to play along.

Nikolai closed the door behind Boris, the click of the latch falling into place sounding louder than it should have.

He turned toward her, pressed his shoulder against the doorframe, and pushed his hands into the pockets of his Gieves and Hawkes champagne-coloured, tailor-made linen trousers.

Her "husband" focused his steely grey eyes on her.

The stare burned into her skull. Still, she refused to look up. Not yet.

Bio:

Zee Monodee
Stories about love, life, relationships... in a melting-pot of culture
Zee is an author who grew up on a fence - on one side there was modernity and the global world, on the other there was culture and traditions. Putting up with the culture for half of her life, one day she decided she'd stand tall on her wall and dip toes every now and then into both sides of her non-conventional upbringing.
From this resolution spanned a world of adaptation and learning to live on said wall. The realization also came that many other young women of the world were on their own fence.
This particular position became her favorite when she decided to pursue her lifelong dream of writing - her heroines all sit 'on a fence', whether cultural or societal, in today's world or in times past, and face dilemmas about life and love.
Hailing from the multicultural island of Mauritius, Zee is a degree holder in Communications Science. She is married,mum to a tween son, & stepmum to a teenage lad.

Buy Links:

Before The Morning: An action/adventure, romantic suspense tale on the backdrop of a clandestine espionage agency - come read the story of Rayne, a spy who leaves that life in the name of love, & Ash, the man who changes her world!
https://www.nobleromance.com/Books/420/Before-the-Morning

FREE for this week: WALKING THE EDGE (Corpus Brides: Book 1): A romantic suspense novel, wherein an amnesiac woman is on the quest for her forgotten memory... Escape from London all the way to Marseille, France, and discover the secrets, deceit, danger, & the powerful love, she uncovers during her search!
https://www.nobleromance.com/Books/304/Walking-the-Edge 

Contact Links:

Blog: http://zeemonodee.blogspot.com/

Facebook & Goodreads: Zee Monodee

Twitter: @ZeeMonodee