Hardin is a hired killer for Frank Loper, until Beaudreaux manages to stop him in his tracks. The D.A. tries to make a deal with Hardin in exchange for his testimony against Loper, and assigns Beaudreaux to protect him. Adam enlists the help of his friend Ted Willis to help him find Grady Jameson, a young boy who saved his life many years ago. He thinks he's finally on the right track when Hardin escapes.
Adam gets Grady a job at Malloy's, and soon learns that Grady tracked him down because he was looking for Hardin...Hardin told the VietCong that his parents were CIA agents, which is how they ended up dead. Grady then disappears, and not only are Adam and Teddy looking for him, so is Hardin. Adam shows up at Chan's dojo and patches things up with Grady just in time for Hardin to show up. Grady's hopes of getting vengeance are squashed when (after managing to live through an explosing car), Hardin is run down by another car.
Grady meets pop star Gabrielle in a shop and foils an attempted robbery. Gabrielle hires him to be one of her bodyguards. Adam tells Grady he doesn't trust her and not to get involved, but Grady doesn't listen. After Grady has left to tour with her, Adam is assigned to investigate her for money laundering.
Grady is pulled back into an underground world of no holds barred, to the death martial arts fighting when two of his students find themselves in the competition, and in over their heads. Beaudreaux is investigating a string of bodies with broken necks, and the trail leads straight to the Circle of Death.
Adam is trying to handle a hostage negotiation situation when he is introduced to his new partner, Eric Rothman. Initially Adam resents Rothman, because he believes his father bought him a place on the force, but changes his mind when he watches Rothman walk away. Any doubts he had left disappear when he realises that Rothman's got demons of his own...his sister was brutally raped and attacked months earlier, and has never come out of her coma.
Malloy is shocked to learn that her former sweetheart, Billy, is in town, and while she is saddened to learn of his wife's death, it opens the door for a relationship between the two of them. The only problem is that Billy is widely suspected of having caused his first wife's death, and there are some pretty bad people after him.
Grady saw Thomas Hardin, the man who killed his parents, alive. And when he tells Beaudreaux, Beaudreaux tells him that Hardin is dead, and they saw him die remember. However, Beaudreaux was lying it seems that Hardin didn't die but was in a coma and Beaudreaux chose not to tell Grady about this. But what Beaudreaux doesn't know is that Hardin regained consciousness and has been walking around, and has accepted a job. Grady finds out who he is working for, and he and Beaudreaux get Hardin and this time he is dead.
When Miguel saves an old man from being beaten to death, Adam is shocked to realise it's his former foster father. He hasn't seen Joe or Catherine Johnson since he was ten years old and he was taken away from them. Unfortunately, Joe is in the throes of Alzheimer's, and is unable to help Adam learn about is past, and also unable to help capture the men who beat him.