Book excerpt: Chicago is home base for Protectors Inc., a corporation renting out super-powered men and women as franchises and heroes and spokespersons...making money and enjoying prestige and power in a world without super-powered bad guys. But when one of the Protectors is found murdered, the trail begins to lead back to one of his other teammates. None of them want to consider the possibility that one of their own has turned to the dark side...so it falls to Lieutenant Detective John Riley to follow the evidence wherever it goes. His journey will take him into a maze of secrets going back over seventy years, to the creation of the very first Protector...and a killer whose identity may threaten the very existence of Protectors Inc.