Jack Cade once trained Iraqi troops how to fight to regain their homeland. Back home now, he drives a cab but can’t escape the survivor’s guilt and nightmares from an IED that killed seven Iraqi soldiers in his squad.
One day a notice arrives announcing the pending sale of the apartment complex where he lives. A forced move will upset a precarious balance in his life of cash flow and a budding romance with Cassandra. The experience of fighting a hopeless war left Cade with a bitter taste, so he resists pleas to lead the opposition to the sale. Many of his fellow tenants are Salvadorans who escaped a civil war and the US-backed death squads. The war drove thousands of peasants and workers from their homes. For these tenants, it's déjà vu as they are once again being forced from their homes by powerful corporate and government interests.
Simmering turf issues boil over as the apartments are also the territory of a Latino gang led by Soul Patch, a vicious killer with enterprising dreams of a dark web drug network. Enter Rita Castro, a fiery tenants’ rights organizer and a street-savvy agitator. Thinking Rita is an ally, Cade does not realize she is in fact stalking the CEO of the development company, a Brit named Robert Oliver. Rita views Oliver as a ruthless destroyer of the homes of the politically and economically weak underclass.
A turning point occurs when Cade has a violent altercation with two employees of the developer. Now Cade feels the tenants' cause is not only righteous, but a cause for revenge.
Meanwhile, Oliver’s point man, Mick Finn, strikes an uneasy alliance with Soul Patch who agrees to terminate Cade as the opposition leader and make it look like a gang hit. During a tenant protest in City Council chambers, Soul Patch guns down a beloved member of Cade's inner circle, a Jesuit priest. Media coverage of the shooting spills over onto Cade and reveals a shameful secret from the IED attack that he has kept hidden for many years.
Cade hits rock bottom. He falls back on booze and painkillers to deaden the pain over a growing list of personal setbacks and failures. But Fate deals Cade one more chance to redeem himself. Oliver wants to negotiate a settlement. Cade strikes a deal to save the apartments from the wrecking ball. But on his way home, he runs into Soul Patch.
It is not the expected denouement of Underdog David defeating the hired henchman of the Corporate Goliath. Instead, Cade meets a grisly death.
The story jumps ahead two months. Finn is set to give a marketing pitch to an audience of hot prospects on his latest development project. He is interrupted by a silent protest of college students who will be displaced by the new project. The protest is led by Javier, a Cade protégé who helped organize the demonstration that resulted in the priest’s murder. The torch is passed to a new generation to carry on the fight to remain in our home until our last dying breath.
