MERCILESS
A Crime Victim Turns Vigilante
By Matt Lenz
Mark Stone’s friend, Tony, is killed in broad daylight by one of two bullets shot from a sniper’s rifle meant for both of them.
When he finds out that Tony had been working to track down the third member of the group that killed his wife, Lee, Stone takes up the hunt for the killer. Using information from Tony’s investigation, Stone tries to maneuver the killer into his sights.
But, with the killer a former soldier in organized crime and now seeming to run his own little organization, Stone is outmanned and outgunned. Stone has little experience as an investigator and even less working in the shadows, but nothing else matters to him except taking down the third man in Lee’s murder.
DEFENSELESS
One Man’s Fight for Justice
By Matt Lenz
Mark should have saved Lee, his wife.
Waking in the dead of night to armed intruders, he tries to protect Lee. She’s killed and he’s wounded. Buried under the horror and agony of the moment, the seed of guilt begins to grow. By Lee’s funeral, the guilt overtakes mourning. But as Mark tries to restart his life, he finds his career as an engineer means nothing to him anymore. Nothing about his future means anything, except finding Lee’s killers, extracting justice.
Mark runs out of patience with the lack of progress by the homicide detective. He decides to find the killers himself. With a hint of evidence from the night of the break in, he works on it for weeks until he develops a genuine lead on one of the killers. The homicide detective dismisses Mark’s lead outright. He threatens Mark, forbidding him to continue his personal investigation. Mark thinks the detective is wrong and goes after the suspect. He knows it is dangerous and, he proceeds with care. But, the suspect and his partner capture him and lock him up while they wait for a third member. Mark’s technical skills work in his favor and he escapes. They pursue. Mark leads a high-speed car chase across the city and a run through the midnight woods, where he finally eludes the killers in a swamp. He makes it home at dawn.
All three killers grab him, stuff him into the trunk of a car and take him to a secluded house out in the backwoods. They drag him inside.
Lying bound in the dark on the garage floor, he knows he may be only minutes away from death. Exhausted and in pain, his top priority now is establishing evidence.
He knows he’s found the killers.