Havoc, p.1
Havoc, page 1
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No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of both the publisher, Oliver Heber Books and the author, Shannon McKenna, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © July 2021 Shannon McKenna
http://shannonmckenna.com
Cover Design by Wax Creative
Edited by Hilary Sares
Interior Design by Renee Rocco
Published by Oliver-Heber Books
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Contents
He’s in no mood to play nice…
AUTHOR NOTE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Meet Shannon McKenna
Also by Shannon McKenna
He’s in no mood to play nice…
Mace Trask is setting a trap for the bastard who just tried to kill both his brothers, and he can’t wait to spring it. Then a sexy, mysterious woman shows up and starts wandering around GodsAcre, the remote property in the mountains that he’s wired to blow, putting Mace’s plan in jeopardy and herself in deadly danger. There’s only one thing to do—so Mace whisks her away to a cabin in the woods, determined to find out what this fiery beauty wants, and knows…
Her beauty inflames him…
Cait LaMott is terrified when the huge guy with buzzed off hair and ice-blue eyes drags her off into a remote cabin in the lonely woods. She’s on a mission to find her father, a virologist who disappeared fourteen years ago, and nobody is going to stop her. Certainly not this suspicious, muscle-bound, infuriating, fascinating man. Not even her body’s traitorous reaction to him.
But as they work together to uncover the terrifying truth, they start to crave each other’s touch. Mace’s armor is no defense against Cait. Her sweet passion burns him, her courage inspires him, and her razor-sharp mind might just be what it takes to keep them both alive.
Because their enemy is closing in fast—and the stakes are higher than they can imagine…
* * *
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Praise for Shannon McKenna
“Blends an intensely terrifying psychic thriller with a mind-blowing erotic romance.”
—Library Journal, on Fade To Midnight
* * *
“Blasts readers with a highly charged, action-adventure romance . . . extra steamy.”
—Booklist
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“Pulse-pounding . . . with searing sex and raw emotions.”
—Romantic Times, 4 ½ stars
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“Shannon McKenna makes the pulse pound.”
—Bookpage
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“Shannon McKenna introduces us to fleshed-out characters in a tailspin plot that culminates in an explosive ending.”
—Fresh Fiction
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"An erotic romance in a suspense vehicle on overdrive . . . sizzles!”
—RT Book Reviews
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"McKenna expertly stokes the fires of romantic tension."
—Publishers Weekly
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"McKenna strikes gold again."
—Publishers Weekly
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"Her books will take readers on a nonstop thrill ride and leave them begging for more when the last pages are devoured.”
—Maya Banks, New York Times bestselling author
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"Full of turbocharged sex scenes, this action-packed novel is sure to be a crowd pleaser."
—Publishers Weekly on Edge Of Midnight
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"Highly creative . . . erotic sex and constant danger."
—Romantic Times on Hot Night (4 ½-star review and a Top Pick)
* * *
"Aims for the heart with scorching precision."
—Publishers Weekly on Ultimate Weapon
AUTHOR NOTE
Dear Readers,
Thank you for holding my book in your hands! Here’s a little cheat sheet to orient yourself in the world of the Hellbound Brotherhood…
The first two books of the series, Hellion, Book One, and Headlong, Book Two, have the same hero and heroine, and Headlong picks up Eric and Demi’s interrupted love story seven years later. Hellbent, Heedless and Havoc all have their own HEA, so they can be read as standalones.
The Hellbound Brotherhood:
Eric, Anton and Mace Trask, and their friend Nate…bound together by the violence in their past. The Trask brothers were raised at GodsAcre, a doomsday cult deep in the mountains, and they are the only survivors of the deadly fire that consumed the place long ago…or so they thought.
But evil lingers in Shaw’s Crossing. Unexplained deaths. On the surface, they look like natural causes, but there are just too many of them. People call this phenomenon ‘the Prophet’s curse,’ named after ‘the Prophet,’ Jeremiah Paley, the charismatic leader of GodsAcre before he was killed in the fire. Death casts a longer, more frequent shadow in this town than it should. The townspeople figure it must be the fault of those Trask boys, since who else was there to blame?
In Hellion, Book One, set seven years earlier, Eric Trask comes back from his stint in the Marines, intent on overcoming the problems of his past and getting his life on track. He meets the gorgeous Demi Vaughan, the town princess, and falls hard, but the Prophet’s curse hits harder. Because Demi’s dad will stop at nothing to separate Eric from his daughter, and he sets in motion a chain of events that leaves Eric and Demi with shattered hearts—and Eric on the run for his life…
In Headlong, Book Two, set in the present, the Trask brothers return to Shaw’s Crossing for a funeral. Eric is now a tech billionaire, but this place makes him feel as tense and hunted as it ever did. Otis, their beloved foster father, has died under mysterious circumstances, and his death points to a deeper mystery which leads Eric all the way back up to the eerie, desolate ruins of GodsAcre. Demi and Eric finally get a second chance at love, and passion soon rages between them, but the Prophet’s curse isn’t done with them yet. Because now more people are dying—and all hell is about to break loose…
In Hellbent, Book Three, famous DJ Anton Trask gets a visit from the stunning Fiona Garrett, another GodsAcre escapee. Anton had helped her flee GodsAcre before the deadly fire. Fiona makes a shocking claim—that Redd Kimball, their tormenter and nemesis back in the GodsAcre days, is still alive, and is trying to kill her. Anton can’t believe that. Kimball’s charred body was identified years ago, after the fire. Then violence engulfs them, and they join forces with Eric and Demi back in Shaw’s Crossing, where they must face the incredible truth: Kimball is alive, and he is after them both. Years ago, he developed a deadly virus at the GodsAcre lab—and he will stop at nothing to get it back…
In Heedless, Book Four, Nate Murphy is head of security for Anton Trask’s chain of Hellbound nightclubs. He’d come to Shaw’s Crossing to help keep his friends safe, and then he meets the elusive, beautiful Elisa Rinaldi, who works at Demi’s restaurant. Elisa tries to keep him at arm’s length, as she has dangerous problems of her own, completely separate from the nightmare that the Trasks face. But Nate won’t be kept away from her, and he never backs down—and now he and Elisa are facing deadly violence from all sides…
In Havoc, Book Five, it’s Mace Trask’s turn to tangle with the Prophet’s curse, with the help of the brave and brilliant virologist Cait LaMott. They must stop Kimball’s evil plan once and for all—but the stakes are higher than they can possibly imagine. Coming July 2021!
1
Mace Trask lowered the binoculars, and followed the swiftly moving splotch of lavender with his naked eyes. The mysterious woman wandered behind the fire-blackened ruins of the GodsAcre Great Hall and out of his field of vision. Moving so casually, as if the place weren’t the scene of a mass murder. As if it didn’t hide deadly secrets that could kill in ways that no one could even yet begin to understand.
This woman just strolled around, poking here and there, taking pictures, kicking rocks and dirty clumps of melting snow. No clue. Lah-di-dah.
And there she was again, on the other side of the Great Hall. Who
GodsAcre, Mace’s childhood home, was officially considered to be a death trap. The authorities had gone to insane lengths to keep people away from the place. Every local ordinance forbade coming near. No one had been up here in months, other than Mace himself, not since the winter snows had sealed it in and the CDC had put off their investigative efforts until the following spring.
Spring came late up here. It was almost April, and up here, there were still snowbanks hanging on.
Could she be a lost hiker? She was dressed for it. Stretchy sports pants showed off a memorable ass, and the sweatshirt hugged her shapely torso. She wore muddy lace-up hiking boots, a featherweight backpack. Classic hiker’s gear.
He focused the lenses once again as she shrugged off her backpack and took off her jacket. It wasn’t warm this high up in the mountains, but the sun was high right now. Under the sweatshirt, she wore a fitted sports top that showed off strong looking shoulders, and clung lovingly to the curves of a truly spectacular rack. Not thin. She was sexy-strong. Toned, muscular legs. An athletic hair band around her forehead held back a halo of tight black ringlets, just short of shoulder length. Her hair had lots of bounce and flop to it. She had golden-brown skin, and her face looked pretty from here. Big, striking eyes. Too far away for detail.
Not that he cared about detail, for fuck’s sake. Eyes on the ball, Trask. The hiker’s gravity-defying tits were irrelevant. It had been a while since he’d blown off any sexual steam, so of course he noticed. At this point, a pitched fight with blood, carnage and mayhem would be a welcome relief to this strained, aching tension of constant battle readiness.
But so far, nothing. He’d missed all three of the big battles that asshole Redd Kimball had inflicted upon Mace’s two older brothers and then upon his best friend, Nate.
Mace wasn’t going to miss another one of these fights. This next one would be the final and definitive battle. That motherfucker Kimball was done tormenting Mace’s family. He’d been hard at it for a decade and a half. It stopped now.
He found himself fiddling with the detonator, which hung around his neck on a long cord, safely tucked into its smooth, oval steel case. He could bring that cavern down at any time, right on Kimball’s head. If he could just get that son of a bitch to crawl back inside.
Where the hell did this woman fit in? She didn’t strike him as one of Kimball’s people. She didn’t fit the mega-sleaze profile. And after all that had happened, it seemed strange for Kimball to send someone like her to do recon. Knowing she’d be seen, and remarked upon.
Then again, maybe that was the whole point. Who better to send than someone who looked so innocent and random?
She was dressed for hiking, but there were no public hiking trails nearby. There were no state or national parks within miles. The single road that led up to GodsAcre had been blocked miles down the canyon, and there was no approach from the other side. There was nothing out behind GodsAcre other than increasingly desolate and inhospitable wild country at higher and higher elevations.
So whatever her reasons, this woman had deliberately meant to come here. It was a long, cold, muddy walk, in a not-ideal season, so she was highly motivated. And she was wandering around the ruins, taking pictures. Not of flowers or birds, but of wet holes in the ground, burned, collapsed buildings, unsightly scorched rubble and garbage. The hell?
Even the way she walked struck him as suspicious. She didn’t look lost. She didn’t look aimless, or confused, or hesitant. She looked curious. Focused. Purposeful.
Or maybe that was just her personality. Maybe she always looked that way.
Mace was acquainted with every member of the CDC team that had studied the living shit out of this big hole in the ground last fall, as well as the local, state and federal police officers who had showed an interest in the case. She wasn’t one of them.
He would have remembered anyone that hot.
No one had made much headway on figuring out what the fuck Kimball was digging for in that cave. The CDC, after studying the info that Fi had decrypted, had several disquieting theories, but so far, nothing actionable. Mace craved action.
One thing was sure. Whatever devilish bullshit Kimball was planning, he was insanely, murderously committed to it. He’d killed upwards of fifty people over the years, and those were just the ones Mace knew about.
And to make matters worse, now Kimball was furious about his friend Nate’s desperate gambit a few months ago. Nate had tricked Kimball and his henchmen into hammering his girlfriend Elisa’s homicidal ex-husband into the ground. It had been a slick and desperate move. Bugfuck crazy, in retrospect, but hey. Nate and Elisa were still alive.
So far, anyhow.
So Kimball was not only furious, but also humiliated. He had GodsEye under constant surveillance, a huge budget, an army of killer goons, cutting edge murder-drones he’d used to strafe the shit out of Elisa’s ex up at Beecham Lake a few months back.
Enter a brand new enigma; a hot girl with mysterious eyes, trotting down the hill toward the excavated cavern, tits bouncing cheerfully. Like she had no clue where she was, and who might be watching. How fucking dangerous it was for her.
She shrugged off her knapsack again and rooted around in it, pulling out an object about as long as her hand. She fiddled with it for a couple of minutes, and then started walking slowly, steadily toward the cavern, holding the device in front of her.
She was following an electronic signal. And she was following it right to the front entrance of the cavern, which had been enlarged and reinforced to permit the investigation.
Oh fuck.
His heart revved in alarm. What was the signal? Where did she get it? And what the hell was she looking for?
Kimball was asking the same questions, right now, in real time.
Possibility A) She was Kimball’s, and she needed to be stopped and interrogated.
Possibility B) She wasn’t Kimball’s, she had some entirely different mysterious agenda, and she needed to be rescued before she got herself captured, tortured and killed.
Either way, he had to get to her fast. Before Kimball did.
2
Cait LaMott tossed aside some tree boughs that the wind had blown up against the big slabs of plywood that functioned as doors to the reinforced entryway. They were plastered with big scary signs. Do Not Enter. Danger. Falling Rocks.
It looked like no one had been here since the winter snows had started to melt. The place must have been buried in ten feet of snow over the winter.
Ping. There it was, the intermittent signal. Her heart thudded.
Dad’s coordinates were right on.
Stuff had happened up here, for sure. Dramatic stuff. But it had happened a long time ago, and it looked like nobody cared anymore. The place was deserted. Fine by her. It was much better if she didn’t have to fight anybody for permission, or explain herself.
Not that she had anything to explain. Not yet. Just a handful of disconnected dots, with no way to pull them all together. Just ‘X marks the spot.’ The GPS coordinates that Dad had left on that journal, trapped in a safe deposit box for fourteen years. Dad had also written down a frequency in his lab notes and left them in the safe deposit box, along with a handheld tracking device. That was all she had.
