When young Alex Ives is implicated in a deadly car crash, Paul Madriani joins a case as tangled as any he's ever taken. Alex swears he only had one drink, but can't remember the evening in question. Ives is being charged with drunk driving and manslaughter. When Paul discovers that Alex was investigating the deceased, a hard-charging lawyer named Olinda Serna, Madriani realizes that Alex could be facing a murder charge.

In Washington, D.C., attorney Cletus Profitt, who worked with Serna, knows that she held dark secrets reaching the highest levels of national politics. Profitt will go to any lengths to ensure that this dirt dies with her. Senator Maya Grimes, who is implicated, also begins crafting her own web of deceit to suffocate anything that might come back to bite her.

Now others want to kill Alex and the only way to save him is for Madriani to uncover the corruption that surrounds Serna's friends and find her killer.