Nineteen-year-old Kirato has spent his entire life guarding a brothel. The women who work there, the guards, the madam—they're his family, the only one he's ever known. But in a single brutal night, they're torn away from him, killed or taken by guild attackers.
Alone and desperate for answers, Kirato crosses paths with Hector, a fifty-two-year-old former commander trying to outrun his past. Seeing something of himself in the grief-stricken young man, Hector reluctantly takes him in, along with his companions Atlas and Kosha. Together, they begin tracking down those responsible.
What starts as a rescue mission quickly after training unravels into something far darker. The trail leads them into a hidden world of human trafficking, corruption, and conspiracies reaching the highest levels of power. Kirato discovers the attack wasn't random—it was targeted, and impossibly connected to his own forgotten past.
As they plan their assault on the criminal network, Kirato transforms from a simple guard into something more dangerous under Hector's guidance. But each revelation, each horror witnessed, changes him. The old commander watches with growing concern as the darkness they're fighting begins to take root in his young charge.
Hector has already lost one family to this world. Now he must guide Kirato through it without losing him to the same abyss—while the truth they seek threatens to destroy what little humanity they have left.
I came for a good book and got a fucking thesaurus chucked at my face