ICE

It started with smoke—

not the kind that drifts from cheap cigars or burned-out backrooms.

The kind that rolls off concrete after a blast, thick and hot, clinging to the walls like guilt.

The East Wing of the Pentagon got its teeth kicked in at dawn. Nobody died, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t about bodies. It was about embarrassment. Power cracked in half with the cameras rolling.

And just when they were still patching the walls and their pride, Wall Street lit up next. That one did have bodies. Plenty of them. Brokers, guards, janitors—names that’d be forgotten by next quarter’s earnings call.

The press called it terrorism.

The suits called it a catastrophe.

The President called it an ultimatum. Thirty days to fix it, or he’d start handing out pink slips to generals.

One name floated to the top: Jalal Hussein.

A butcher with a passport and too many friends in the shadows.

He moved from city to city like a virus. And every team sent after him disappeared like a bad secret.

The Pentagon threw everything they had.

Delta. SEALs. Tier-One ghosts.

All of them ended up cold, bloody, and on the news.

There was only one name left in the drawer.

One they didn’t want to read.

One they buried years ago.

Cain Taggert.

He wasn’t a soldier. He was a verdict.

Not part of the machine—he was what got called in when the machine jammed and someone had to start breaking parts off with a crowbar.

They’d burned him once.

Left him bleeding in Kazakhstan.

Tried to kill him to clean the mess.

Didn’t work.

Now the same bastards who set the fire want him to put it out.

They called.

Cain answered.

And this time, he’s not coming to clean up.

He’s coming to collect.