Michael Holt is an engineer, a ballistics expert, and a devoted family man living a quiet life in the suburbs with his wife, Elena, and their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie. But when a gang-related drive-by shooting turns Sophie's birthday dinner into a bloodbath, Michael's world implodes. His wife and child are killed. The police call it "collateral damage." The case is shelved.
Haunted by grief and fueled by the silence of a broken justice system, Michael turns to the only thing he knows-precision. He crafts a custom crossbow and begins hunting the men responsible, dismantling the Crimson Dragons gang one calculated kill at a time. Each strike brings him closer to the truth behind his family's murder-and deeper into a citywide conspiracy that goes far beyond gang violence.
Detective Elena Rossi, a profiler with a sharp mind and a growing suspicion, starts connecting the dots. She sees the pattern. She sees Michael. As she races to stop him before he crosses a final line, she must ask herself: is he a murderer, or a man forced to become something darker when justice failed him?
Collateral is a razor-edged thriller about loss, vengeance, and the high cost of silence. For fans of Prisoners, The Equalizer, and The Punisher, this novel explores how far a man will go to make the world answer for what it stole-and what's left of him when the killing is done.