Collision Point--A Brute Force Novel

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  Memories can whisper of a child’s laughter, a mother’s advice, a father’s strong embrace. They can recall a song, a teenage crush, the whisper of the soul’s greatest desire.

  They warm cold bleak nights, bring hope, strength, or a rueful smile.

  They remind us that we make mistakes when we’re certain we’re right, and that even when we’re right, we can still be wrong.

  They are tears, heartache, passionate kisses and sighs in the dark, parking on a deserted lane, or an argument brewing from unrequited love.

  They are the culmination of our lives, our promises and our passions. Our hopes, dreams, and failures, stored forever where we can but close our eyes and access them at will.

  They are a gift. They are a curse.

  They are who we are, and they’re what created us.

  And sometimes, they are magic …

  For the memories

  Because death has taken you and there’s no bringing you back.

  Because all the tears, the fears, the hopes, and the dreams can never recreate what’s been forever lost.

  For the memories, because without them,

  where would I be?

  For my grandbaby, Manny—we miss you …

  foreword

  The Legend of Irish Eyes

  Irish eyes see through eyes not their own, feel with a heart outside their chest. Wild Irish Eyes. When you love, love well and love true and take care, because those Irish Eyes are windows into not just your own soul, but the soul of the one you love. Don’t lose that heart, for you lose a part of your soul when you do. The legacy of those eyes will ensure it. And if you lose that soul yours clings to, you can’t leave the places where your memories are best. To leave would be to leave the comfort of the soul that even in death, your own will always cling to.

  There are layers to life. Nothing is as we think. There are always layers and layers, shades of gray and shades of black or white. You have to find out why, not see what. Those layers are always shifting, always moving, and always revealing layers you never knew waited below. Remember that there’s always what you don’t know and what you don’t see. And love doesn’t always do what we think it should.

  Grandpops Malone

  prologue

  “What took you so long?” The words rasped from the young woman’s swollen, split, and bleeding lips.

  The beauty she had been weeks before was marred by the heavy fists that had landed repeatedly on her fragile face.

  Her once long, inky black hair was chopped off to only the few inches that covered her scalp, and the clothes she wore were stained with far too much blood.

  Riordan “Rory” Malone could feel the rage crawling up his back and moving steadily to explode at the base of his skull as he crouched in front of her, his palm cupping her cheek with a ghostly touch. Just enough to feel the warmth of her, to assure himself she was actually there, she was actually alive.

  “Your father,” he muttered, finally answering her as his brother, Noah, swept the bright pinpoint of light off her fragile body. “He had me locked in a cell until he could get a team together.”

  “Liar,” she whispered as she tried to smile.

  He wished he was lying.

  That was exactly what Ivan Resnova had done.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, baby,” he reminded her.

  How many times had he promised he’d never lie to her, and still, she refused to trust him?

  “What happened when you left, Riordan? Why did you leave me?” Pain and tears filled her voice, making him crazy. The sound clawed at his chest, tore at the control he’d fought for over the years. “Why didn’t you tell me goodbye?”

  “Because it wasn’t goodbye.” The light paused, high on her legs, pulling his attention to the blood heavily staining the light-colored denim.

  God help him, what had they done to her?

  “Amara, I’m going to have to move you.” Lifting his gaze to the shattered blue of her eyes he steeled himself for the pain he knew he was going to cause her. “Tell me what hurts worse.”

  He knew the breaks, the wounds, but he needed her talking, needed her focused.

  “Broken ankle,” she said. “At least one broken rib, and they broke my wrist to make certain I couldn’t get up the ladder.” Her gaze moved to the crudely built ladder extending from the trapdoor in the floor above. “Get out of here, Riordan. Please. You know it’s a trap. Get out now.”

  He knew a lot of things, just as he knew there were men positioned outside to ensure their exit.

  “As soon as I have you ready to transport. Now, rein in that sailor’s tongue of yours while we secure these breaks. Remember, your daddy’s on the link. We don’t want to upset him by letting him hear what a wicked tongue you have.”

  Panic flashed in her expression, in her eyes. Yeah, she knew her father and she knew exactly what the sound of her curses, or her screams, would do to him.

  What they had already done to him.

  “He should be arrested.” It was her favorite curse where her father was concerned.

  He heard the love in the accusation though, the belief that her father was far better than others believed, more honorable than others saw.

  “Do something about it then.” As Noah arranged the supplies he needed, Riordan stared down at her, forcing himself to hold back the agony he could feel threatening to explode past his control as her head settled weakly against the side of his arm. A whimper escaped her lips as Noah secured her wrist first. “If you can beat me to it.”

  He was going to bust every tooth Ivan Resnova possessed in that arrogant head of his, then he was going to rip his damn dick off.

  Amara caught his wrist, distressed, her face pale, her blue-gray eyes filled with pain. “Don’t hurt him. Swear it, Riordan. Don’t hurt him.”

  She was too pale, there was too much blood, and it terrified him.

  “Then live,” he snapped, nose to nose with her, ignoring the fear in her eyes. “Live or I swear to God, Amara, I’ll make him pay, personally.” And he was capable of doing it. “Now, we’re going to do this, baby so we can haul your butt out of here,” he encouraged her, feeling the ragged pain burning his guts at Noah’s signal that they had to secure her ribs next.

  Behind him, Micah and Nik caught the metal life basket being lowered into the cavern. Even secured in the basket, her trip up would be painful—and there was no way to make it easier.

  “Not going to happen.” She sighed as though resigned to that fact. “There’s no way you can get me out, whether you bind these breaks or not.”

  He almost laughed at the certainty in her tone.

  “Have a little faith in me for once.” He ignored the bitter slash of memory that assured him just how little faith she did have in him.

  “It’s not a lack of faith in you,” she told him, her voice weary as she lifte
d her head, allowing him to ease the torn material of her shirt above her ribs so Noah could tape the area of the break. “I know what you’re facing. Get your men out of here.… You get out of here. I won’t let you die for me—”

  “Shut up,” he snapped, “We’re going out together, stubborn-ass, or neither of us will go out. Take your pick.”

  Even as he spoke, he considered and weighed options, forcing himself to ignore her pain-filled, smothered sobs.

  Her strangled cries destroyed him. The sharp, ragged scream she cut off the second it left her lips had a curse slipping free.

  He’d once thought nothing could have been worse than hearing his sister-in-law Bella’s screams of grief when his brother had been reported dead years before. The agony of holding Bella and dealing with both their grief at the same time was marked as the most painful period of his life.

  This surpassed it.

  How had he managed to let this woman get so close to him in such a short amount of time? So close that the need to murder the men who had done this to her was burning inside him like an inferno threatening to rage out of control. Threatening to destroy the man he had been and leaving in its wake nothing but pure fury and the soul of a man laid bare.

  * * *

  The agonizing pain had her crying out, even knowing the raw, ragged fury that would be consuming her father if he was truly listening through the link the agents wore.

  Riordan and an agent tried to secure the breaks and stabilize them as much as possible, but movement was still the enemy. Movement, and fear. She knew the men who beat her were expecting a rescue force. She’d told Riordan they were expecting her father to send someone after her, they’d be waiting.

  They wanted her to suffer …

  “Almost there, baby,” he assured her as he moved up the ladder, staying next to her as the basket they’d secured her in was hauled up the expanse of the cavern she’d been thrown into.

  “They’re waiting,” she whispered again, pain and fear building in her mind, through her senses. “They’re waiting.”

  “We have friends waiting topside as well,” he promised her. “You remember Noah, right? His men are up there just waiting for some dumb-ass to stick his head out.”

  His voice was calm. So calm and so confident.

  And she did remember Noah. Remembered the man Riordan introduced as a good friend, as well as the three others who hadn’t been introduced at all when she’d caught them meeting with Riordan and her father in the Resnova penthouse months before.

  They were hard, dangerous men, she’d seen that immediately. But they weren’t inhuman. They weren’t immortal.

  “Don’t die for me.” She couldn’t let him do that. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

  A sob tore from her and immediately sent a wave of agony tearing through her mind as the broken rib protested the movement. The haze of white-hot agony raced through her, stealing her breath, and for a moment, her very senses.

  Dead men …

  They were dead men …

  “Easy, baby. Easy. Here we go. Let’s get you out of here…” It was his voice that drew her back from the darkness waiting to take her, from the soul-shattering knowledge that the enemy was waiting.

  “Copters moving in,” reported one of the men suddenly surrounding her, his tone dark, steel-hard. “Evac in three.”

  It was going to happen, she could feel it.

  “Riordan, leave…” she gasped, feeling the basket level, looking up into the dark, shadowed faces of the two men supporting it as Riordan and the other agents surrounded them, covering them.

  “Copter in sight,” Riordan stated as the sound of blades beating in the air could be heard in the distance.

  It was coming.

  “Get him out…” She stared at the shadowed face of the man at her feet. “You have to stop this.” Blue eyes stared back at her. Eyes like Riordan’s. Eyes that bore into hers. “You have to—”

  “Riordan, take the basket,” the shadow snapped, the authority and clear command in his voice causing the others to tense, to watch the night more closely.

  “Copter’s landing,” Riordan growled. “No time. Move out. Now.”

  The first shot was fired.

  “Now! Move out!”

  They were running for the helicopter, racing for it, fireflies filling the darkness, the sharp explosions echoing around her as she fought to keep her eyes on Riordan.

  “Go! Go!” The shadow holding the bottom of the basket pushed it to another of the dark shapes firing back as she watched Riordan fall.

  “No! Riordan!” She fought against the pain, struggled against the restraints holding her in the basket.

  “Get her out—” He was almost on his feet, almost, when he suddenly stiffened, his back bowing before a shadow caught him, threw him over his shoulder and ran.

  They were all running, racing …

  * * *

  “We’re losing him.… We’re losing him!…” A voice shouted out as the helicopter was lifting off, banking and shooting across the sky. “Goddammit, Micah, do something. Rory … Rory, don’t you do it, damn you.… Don’t you fuckin’ die on me…”

  She felt him.

  Amara swore she felt his heart stop, felt him give up and leave her. She felt him die and she wanted nothing more …

  … than to die with him.

  “Don’t leave me…” she whispered, giving in to the darkness, to the comforting embrace of nothing. “Please, don’t leave me…”

  chapter one

  Six months later

  She’d been told that West Texas in the spring wasn’t much different from West Texas in the fall, but as Amara Resnova pulled in the driveway of the small house outside Alpin, she felt she had to disagree with that summation.

  Stretched out in front of the house with its wraparound porch was a lush green valley fed by a lazily running stream winding through it. Sunlight speared from the cloudless blue sky, bright and warm, spreading its heat in a comforting embrace.

  And the charming little house sat just beneath the warming sunlight. Spreading out in front of it was the picturesque valley; behind it, the normal West Texas part-grass, part-scrub, potential-desert landscape that never failed to amaze her.

  On a rising knoll stood a lone tree, thickly branched and heavily leafed, shading what appeared to be a small cemetery. Rather than looking desolate and lonely, that little plot of land with its surrounding black iron fence, appeared instead to keep watch over the land below it. As though those buried there kept a gentle eye on those who came after them.

  As isolated as the property was, it should have appeared stark. Instead, an air of contentment and peace lay over it. As though the land, the house, the vibrant green of the valley, and the cemetery that overlooked it all, knew all there was about life and love and had locked all those secrets within it to sustain it.

  Drawing in a deep breath to steady herself against the fears she hadn’t been able to push behind her even in such a lovely setting, Amara turned off the engine, forced her hands not to shake, and opened the door before stepping into the warmth that filled the valley.

  It wasn’t a blazing heat, but rather a gentle wave that filled the air and wafted around her. And in it there was a strange sense of familiarity. A “been there before” feeling that had her heart racing, her mouth drying as she stared around and drew in the sights and whispered sounds of a land as yet untouched by civilized life.

  Here, a person could see the stars at night rather than the city lights. The sound of the lonely coyote rather than the rush of traffic. Peace rather than a hectic race.

  Here, perhaps, she could find some answers. And maybe there was a chance to find everything she’d lost.

  Tugging the hem of her tank, she straightened it over the band of her jeans beneath the light denim jacket she wore as she walked slowly from the car to the stone path that led to the porch. The thick carpet of grass stretched from the valley to surround the house, but she’d noticed
as she parked that it became sparser at the back. As though that carpet of green with its lazy stream could only struggle so far to embrace the weathered home.

  The dark blue pickup parked at the side of the house attested that someone lived there. And she knew the vehicle belonged to the man those in town called Grandpops Malone.

  Riordan Malone Sr. was grandfather to Riordan Malone the younger, she’d been told, when she stopped at the gas station and auto repair garage outside town that bore the name MALONE AND BLAKE—SERVICE AND REPAIR. There, she’d learned Riordan the younger was part owner but currently out at his “grandpops’” place.

  Riordan.

  That name haunted her dreams, her fantasies. Though the man in those dreams wasn’t an old man. The one who came to her in those nightly images was tall, strong, impossibly sexy.

  As Amara forced herself to walk to the porch, she looked around, searching for the face, listening for the voice of a man she knew only in those dreams. The man she’d escaped her father’s protection to go search for.

  Was he friend or foe?

  Even she couldn’t answer that question, not fully. But for some reason, she couldn’t seem to help the need to learn which he would be.

  As her foot lifted to the first step, the front door creaked, causing her to pause, to wait with bated breath as it slowly opened to reveal an aged, gray-haired gentleman she suspected was Riordan Sr., Grandpops.

  In his worn loose jeans, well-washed white shirt with sleeves folded neatly back below his elbows, scuffed leather boots, and with that serene expression, the man looked as old and wise as the mountains themselves. And there was no doubt he was just as damn stubborn.

  “Well, hello there.” The smile that lifted the corners of his mouth was reflected in his dark blue eyes. “Can I help ya, young lady?”

  There was a whisper of a lyrical accent. Irish. Just a whisper though, not the full, male lilt she sometimes heard in memories that never fully revealed themselves.

  “I’m looking…” She swallowed nervously. “I’m looking for Riordan Malone.”