Six months later, Tessa and I disappeared into the Pacific Northwest. From the outside, our quiet cabin looked peaceful, but beneath the surface it was heavily fortified by the same men who helped destroy the Sterlings. In the garden, we built a memorial beneath an oak tree for the child we lost.

I had resigned from the military, but war never truly left me. One evening, while watching the sunset with Tessa wrapped around my waist, an encrypted phone vibrated on the porch table. A new file. A new victim. Another powerful family crushing innocent people because they believed nobody could stop them.

Tessa looked at me and immediately saw the old darkness returning. She didn’t try to stop me. She simply stepped back, nodded once, and whispered, “Go. Show them.”

As armored tires rolled across the gravel driveway, I picked up my tactical jacket and opened the next dossier. Somewhere in Chicago, another monster believed wealth and power made him untouchable. He had no idea we were already coming