Dale Hardy thought he had seen the face of evil with Sheriff Gaines and Mayor Reid. That was before the cartel arrived and laid claim to a town still reeling from a devastating global virus. With Encendido falling increasingly in its iron grip, the cartel soon sets out to finish Dale and his family once and for all. To stop them, Dale will need to overcome sharp divisions at home and within the local population. More than that, he'll need to leave his fortified sanctuary in order to unite a fractured people against a ruthless enemy. But the time for mounting an effective resistance is quickly...

Imprisoned by the Cartel, Dale Hardy must battle to escape his captors and find a way home before everything and everyone he holds dear is lost forever. For the Cartel, it turns out subduing the small town of Encendido was only the beginning. Ruthless crime boss Fernando Ortega has his sights set on reclaiming great swaths of the American South-West, an empire he intends to rule with an iron fist. But there's a secret hiding in the desert, a secret that could spell the difference between tyranny and freedom. As the country teeters on the brink, the stakes couldn't be higher.