Postcard from Ipanema

There are men who kill for country.

Men who kill for money.

And then there’s Cain Taggert.

He doesn’t kill for a flag, or a boss, or even revenge. He kills because when it’s time for someone to die, he’s the one who gets the call.

No aliases. No team. No warning. Just a final breath and a body bag.

They call him a ghost. A myth. A curse you earn when your sins pile too high.

For years, Taggert has left a trail of bodies across continents — cartel lieutenants, paramilitary colonels, oil warlords, smugglers, traitors, generals, and government men who thought they were untouchable. He doesn’t leave messages. He is the message.

But Rio de Janeiro changed something.

The job was simple: eliminate a Serbian arms dealer in a nightclub crawling with bad men. It should’ve ended like the rest — quick, violent, surgical. And it did. Until he saw her. Isabella Pereira.

She wasn’t a mark. She wasn’t a threat. She was just a waitress.

But in the smoke and screams, she looked at him like he wasn’t just a killer.

She looked at him like he was still a man.

And for one year, Cain Taggert vanished. No jobs. No contracts. Just love on a quiet island off the coast, like he could outrun everything he’d ever done.

But peace is a lie men like him don’t get to live.

And when Isabella was murdered — dumped in the sea by Triad thugs who didn’t know what they were waking up — something old and feral snapped inside him.

They thought they were sending a message.

They forgot what happens when the message fights back.

Now Cain Taggert is coming for them all — not for money, not for orders, not even for vengeance.

He’s coming because there’s nothing left to lose.