When America fell, Marcus Reid was ready. What he wasn't ready for was them.

For a decade, former Delta Force operator Marcus Reid lived in perfect isolation in the Montana wilderness—no people, no problems, no past. He saw the collapse coming and disappeared before the first shot was fired.

Then twenty college cheerleaders stumbled onto his land.

Captured by human traffickers in the chaos of civilization's death throes, the women are being marched through Marcus's forest to be sold to the highest bidder. He could let them pass. Stay hidden. Stay safe.

Instead, he breaks his silence with bullets.

The rescue is just the beginning. With nowhere to go in a fractured America ruled by warlords and gangs, the women take refuge in Marcus's remote compound. But survival in the new world requires more than shelter—it demands transformation. As Marcus trains twenty terrified college students to become warriors, bonds form that transcend the old world's rules.

When the trafficking ring comes for revenge, they'll discover that Marcus Reid doesn't just protect his own—he turns them into an army.

In the ashes of civilization, they'll forge something the old world could never accept: a family built on loyalty, survival, and love without boundaries.