The Deadline

by Kiki Swinson

Genres: Crime Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

National bestselling author Kiki Swinson always ups the ante with shocking twists, relentless characters,
and a hard-edged portrait of Southern living—and dying. Now all bets are off as a newbie journalist desperate
for the spotlight plunges into a killer story …
Anything for the fame
As an off-air TV news journalist, Khloé Mercer covers the tough Norfolk, Virginia, neighborhood she grew up in.
But between a hostile boss and stiff competition, she has to break a major exclusive to save her job—and lock down
the coveted anchor desk slot she feels she deserves …
Anything for the lies
When a murder takes place on her home turf, Khloé has easy access to the dirty truth behind it. But she’ll have to
decide whether to exploit every angle and leverage any favor to make her career explode big-time—or keep quiet and
keep herself, and her family, safe. Until the choice is out of her hands …
Anything to stay alive
Once the ruthless power brokers behind the hit put Khloé in their sights, they start brutally cleaning up loose ends.
Now with an inescapable target on her back and odds racking up against her, she’ll find nowhere is safe, and ambition
may be her most dangerous enemy …

Release date: August 25, 2020

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 256

Sample

Four months earlier

I stood in the WXOT-TV evening news executive producer’s office and wrung my hands. My boss, Christian Aniston, had called me into her office like there was an actual fire burning under her desk. She’d told me to sit down, but I told her I preferred to stand. I was of the mind-set that I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees. My father had taught me that. Give me my verbal punches standing up. Everyone in the station knew about my boss’s reputation. In my mind it was more ruthless than Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. In fact, that character had nothing on the mean-mouthed, cruel, heartless, power-drunk, ratings-whore Christian Aniston. But I hadn’t gotten this far by chance . . .

I had always worked hard all of my life. I didn’t have anything given to me on a silver platter. I was a girl from the hood who was no stranger to the street life. I had grown up in a poor and eventual single-parent household in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. My father had been murdered right in front of me and my twin brother, Kyle. We were six when my dad was shot dead at my feet. I can still see how his body jerked and spun while his eyes bulged out of their sockets from the powerful shots.

I was always a daddy’s girl before then. I had been standing so close to him when the man shot him, the tinny smell of his blood shot up my nose until I had been able to taste it on my tongue. To this day I remember the smell and taste every time I think about it . . .

“Daddy!” I remember emitting an earthshaking scream. Tears had burst from my eyes like a geyser. Even in the face of danger, I had thrown myself down at my father’s side.

“Shut the fuck up!” the man who’d shot my father screamed, grabbing me by my hair and tossing me aside like a rag doll. I felt something crack in my back as I hit a wall inside our small town house.

“Khloé!” Kyle had called out to me. I was still on the floor when I saw Kyle charging at our father’s killer. At that age Kyle was a bit smaller than I was, but his size was not indicative of his fury in that moment. Kyle growled and his small fists flew out in front of him. Swinging wildly, Kyle had tried his best to connect with any part of the man who had assaulted me and killed our father. The other man, the one with one eye, grabbed Kyle around his throat and hoisted him off his feet like he was a toy. Both men laughed, making the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Kyle’s little legs had pumped feverishly, like he was pedaling a bike or running an invisible race. His arms had swung like the blades of a windmill too.

The man holding Kyle by the neck had begun to squeeze harder and harder, choking off Kyle’s oxygen, until his little legs finally slowed to a halt and his arms dropped at his sides. The color had faded from his face and his eyes rolled up until all I could see were the whites. Fear had put a stronghold on me, and my stomach muscles had clenched so hard I wanted to faint, but I scrambled to my feet instead, and ran into the man holding my brother.

“Let him go!” I had hollered, and bulldozed into the man’s legs. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and chomped down on his inner thigh, the only thing I had been tall enough to reach back then. I was like an attack dog. I sank my teeth into the man’s leg and used every bit of strength in my little jaws to latch on like a steel-jaw trap.

“Agh!” the killer screamed. “You little bitch! Get off of me!”

With that, the one-eyed man had no choice but to let go of Kyle’s limp body and they both dropped to the floor. I finally released my jaw and freed him. I watched in horror as Kyle jackknifed onto his side, wheezing and coughing until the color started returning to his face. But because of the bite, the other man turned his attention to me. Suddenly I felt the cold kiss of a pistol against my temple.

“Shoot the little bitch!” the one-eyed man had growled, still writhing on the floor. I closed my eyes, and my bladder released all over my feet as I sobbed.

My mother bursting in with the cops was what had saved our lives.

After my father’s murder, we moved a lot. My mother couldn’t cope and she started using drugs heavy. She could no longer care for me and Kyle in the way she had before my father’s death. The state stepped in and took us. That forced my mother to finally go to rehab.

Unfortunately, there would be several stints of drug rehab before she stopped relapsing, and while she struggled, Kyle and I lived in many different foster homes. If that shit did nothing else, it had toughened me up. Tragedy has a way of making clear what you want for your life. I knew then that being poor and dealing with the dangers of living in the hood wasn’t the life for me, so I fought to stay a straight-A student all through my schooling.

I completed graduate school and earned my master’s degree in journalism. I wasn’t going to just stop there. I had big dreams of being an on-air news anchor, so I’d taken this job as a news research aide here at ABB affiliate WXOT-TV in Norfolk, Virginia.

I was working my ass off too. Unlike all of the other little flunkies around here, I was one of the only ones bringing in interesting stories. I had done all sorts of shit to get good stories. One time I took a job as a bartender in a strip club to blow the lid off a story about someone who was setting up and robbing strippers. I was there the night the damn robbers decided they were going to step up their game and not just rob the strippers when they left at night, but the whole damn club. Just my luck. I had been behind the bar with my back turned when I heard the first scream a short distance from where the bar was located. The noise had caused me to almost drop the bottle I was holding, and before I could turn around, another echo of screams reverberated through my ears.

Silver, one of the newest strippers at the club, belted out another guttural scream that threatened to burst my eardrums. She had been the first one to notice the dudes filing in with their guns out in front of them like they needed them for direction. I had whirled around on the balls of my feet just in time to come face-to-face with the barrel of a black pistol.

“Where’s the fucking money, bitch? And don’t try nothing funny,” one of the masked men had snarled. All I could see was the fire flashing in his eyes. I had actually seen the pupils of his eyes and they were devil red. I knew then that nothing but sheer evil resided in that man. Silver would not stop screaming.

“Shut her the fuck up or I’ma blast both of y’all bitches!” the masked man growled at me. I turned on her so damn quick.

“Shh,” I warned her harshly. “Be quiet or we are dead.”

Silver quickly clamped her left hand over her mouth to stifle her own screams. I could see that her body was trembling like a leaf in a wild storm.

My head was swimming with fear. I didn’t think going undercover for a story would have ended up like this. It made me ask myself, how far was I willing to sell my soul for the perfect story?

“Y’all bitches better get down right now before I lay y’all down. This ain’t no bullshit!” the masked gun-waving robber had barked. It was traumatic, to say the least. To have his gun leveled at my face had put me back to my childhood, for sure. I couldn’t help but think that there must’ve been a reason God kept putting me in these situations.

“Please, please, I . . . I . . . can’t die . . . please,” Silver had started begging.

“Just do what he says and be quiet,” I instructed Silver. Just then, two more strippers, Blaze and Billie, were herded out of the dressing room in the back into the main club area where we were. The other robbers put them down on the floor facedown. Both were begging and pleading for their lives too. They were crying, but I just couldn’t bring myself to cry. Maybe I was numb. Maybe I was ready to die. When the robber holding Silver and me had turned, it gave me a few seconds to sneak my cell phone and hit the record button. I hadn’t done all of this not to get the story. If I was going to die, at least there would be something left behind.

“Bitch, I said where is the money?” the robber boomed after only getting about six hundred dollars from behind the bar. I had almost jumped out of my skin thinking he had seen me sneak the phone. My hands were shaking. I swallowed hard as my eyes darted around wildly. There were three more gunmen in my immediate sights. All sorts of things had run through my head, but my thoughts were quickly interrupted when I noticed another gunman dragging the club owner, Sly, into the main club area too. Sly was bleeding from his head. I knew then he had been hit with a gun.

“Please don’t kill me,” Sly begged. He was begging and crying harder than some of the women in the club. The Big Bad Wolf that he had pretended to be had surely changed into a blubbering bitch in that instant.

With sweat beads dancing down the sides of my face, I moved forward apprehensively to the register to see if there was any more money inside to offer the gun-wielding thieves.

“There’s not a lot of money in the register,” I said, raising my hands in surrender to let the masked gunmen know I wasn’t going to resist. “But in the back . . . there’s a safe. Sly can get you inside. He’s the only one who knows how, so if you hurt him . . . you’ll end up with nothing.” I locked eyes with Sly. He looked relieved, upset, hurt, all in one glance. I didn’t care. I wanted to get out of there alive, especially because my ass shouldn’t have been there in the first place. All for a story. All for a story, I kept chanting in my head.

“I want every dime! Every dollar, you fucking bitch!” the second assailant growled through the black material of his mask, while two more had yanked Sly up from the floor and started dragging him to the back.

“If this nigga try anything funny, y’all are going to find his brains all over that office,” the masked man had said. His words had taken me back to seeing my father shot dead, and a shot of heat spread throughout my body. For the first time since they had busted into the club, I had felt sheer and pure fear grip me tightly around the throat. It had been so bad, it made me gag.

“Take the bartender too. I think she know more than she’s saying,” the biggest of the robbers had said, pointing his gun in my direction. I shook my head no, but it was too late. They’d snatched me up and dragged me to the back with Sly. All the way I was praying Sly didn’t try to front on them. I knew he was scared, but I also knew he was an asshole.

“I . . . I . . . don’t know . . . um . . . anything,” I had pleaded. I was desperate because I wanted him to believe me.

“Bitch, nobody asked you. You’re my insurance policy, just in case your fake-ass gangster boss here act up. Now shut up!” he boomed. His words had reverberated through my skull so hard, I felt like it had shaken my brain. I swallowed hard. I was pushed forward. I stumbled toward the back office. My insides churned so fast that I just knew I’d throw up. Once we were in the back office, they tossed Sly down in front of the safe. He got to his knees and I could see that his hands were shaking badly; he could barely twist the knob for the combination lock. Who the fuck still has a dial combination lock and not one with a keypad? But I had quickly learned from the short time I’d gone undercover at the club that Sly was a cheap bastard. He treated the strippers like pure shit too. All of this had probably been his karma, but I couldn’t understand why the universe would involve the rest of us if it was paying Sly’s ass back.

“Don’t fuck around, you punk-ass nigga! Don’t play like you can’t open the shit. I ain’t got no problem spilling your brains,” the main gunman had ordered, swiping his gun across the back of Sly’s head.

Sly winced and frantically fumbled with the ancient combination dial again. I finally heard a loud clicking sound. I breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Move,” the gunman had demanded, and pushed Sly down onto his back. I heard Sly’s head hit the floor so hard even I felt it.

“Fill this shit up,” he called out to the others. They all filed in with black garbage bags that they’d pulled out of their jackets. The other two robbers went about filling their bags. I couldn’t believe how much money Sly had in that safe. It didn’t even look big enough.

When they were done, Silver, Blaze, and Billie were all brought into the office. The robbers made us all sit together with our backs against one another.

“Stay sitting like this until we are out of here, or else I will spray all y’all,” the tallest and meanest of the gunmen had commanded. It was almost over, and just like everything else in my life, nothing could just go smoothly.

“You niggas ain’t going to . . .” Sly never got a chance to finish what he was saying. Before he could utter another word, a loud crunch sounded through the room. The metal of a gun had connected with his skull. Sly didn’t stand a chance. The impact from the blow of the gun knocked Sly out like a light. His body slumped to the left and blood leaked out of his head like a faucet. It was the last act of violence before the robbers fled.

When it was all said and done, I had the exclusive, but I was also traumatized as hell. When I brought the story in, Christian was all impressed back then. She had bragged on me in front of all of the other assistants and junior reporters. I could see them green with envy. It had happened several more times too, when I’d had to get down and dirty to get a story.

At first, I was rewarded at the studio for how gritty and real and up close my stories were. They didn’t ever ask me if I was all right after nearly losing my life a couple of times for a good story. I didn’t care either. I was in their good graces. Within a year and a half, I was promoted to an off-air journalist, and in no time was dubbed the most valued junior segment producer.

Granted, most of my stories up until now had been about robberies and prostitution rings and some car larcenies, and in my opinion those were interesting. But those types of stories weren’t where I wanted to be in the end. I had big dreams and the biggest was that I would get a seat at the six o’clock on-air news anchor desk. I knew I had my work cut out for me, and if you asked me, I’d say I had been doing what I needed to do to get there.

Still, even after risking life and limb for stories, here I stood in Christian’s office with my mind reeling backward in a million directions and her staring me down with a look of disgust like I was a pile of dirty laundry.

“You sure you want to stand there looking all goofy?” Christian asked without cracking a smile. You would’ve thought she was joking, talking to me like that, but there was nothing funny about her tone.

“Yes, I’ll stand,” I said, barely above a whisper. She had that effect on me. Around Christian, I felt like the kid that got called out in front of everyone for saying the dog had eaten her homework. Getting called in by Christian was nerve-racking, to say the least.

“Listen, Khloé, you’ve done some decent work thus far. I won’t take that away from you, but if you expect to earn a seat at the news desk, you’re going to have to act like a real journalist and step up your game. You’ve gotten to the point where petty theft and hood rat robberies just aren’t going to cut it anymore,” Christian said, constantly licking her dry lips like she always did when she was acting like a straight passive-aggressive bitch. I wanted so badly to tell her to kiss my ass and that I had been going above and beyond to bring in quality stories, but she was my boss and I did want a permanent seat at the desk, so I just shut up and let her have her moment.

“I’m working on it, Christian. I just don’t know what else to do. I get out there and get involved, you know that from my past stories,” I said, biting down into my jaw. This bitch shrugged like she didn’t care.

“And your point is?” she shot back in a sarcastic manner.

That comment made my blood pressure rise. “We are the local news, so we pretty much have to go by what is happening in the area to predict the types of stories we will have. I can’t just make stuff up,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice level. I mean, what did she want me to do . . . kill someone for a story? I almost died twice getting stories from the streets!

“You’ve been saying the same thing for a month now. It’s up to you. I would think you would want to make sure you secure a spot here at WXOT-TV, right?” she pointed out.

“Wha . . . what do you mean?” I asked, my voice crackling with fear.

“I mean that nothing is guaranteed . . . not even the job you have right now. If you don’t pull your weight around here, there are thousands of other hungry young reporters out there that would love to be in your shoes,” Christian shot back without one ounce of empathy. She was a cold bitch, and she didn’t care who knew it.

“Are you saying my job is at risk?” I asked, my heart racing at an alarming rate.

“Well, you said it, I didn’t,” she said sarcastically. “What I am saying is you need to stop standing here looking like a silly kid and get your ass out there and get me a story worth this station’s time and money,” she finished up.

I felt angry tears burning at the backs of my eyes, but there was no way I could cry in front of Christian. That would have definitely been career suicide. I turned on my heels fast and started for her office door.

“Khloé,” Christian called at my back.

I stopped walking, but I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d rattled me to the core.

“Just know that if. . .