Troy Duncan has just two worries on his mind: how he is going to give his two young children and fiancé a Christmas they deserve and whether his job at a struggling restaurant will last through the winter. As he leaves work early on another slow night, he runs into something that changes his life forever.

Cleveland Police Officer Marc Baldwin has been on the job for more than two decades, risking his life every day to keep the city streets safe for others. One cold night in December, he gets a routine call to break up drug activity in the newly popular Flats district, but what happens there is anything but routine, as circumstances prompt Marc to draw - and use - his service weapon.

Attorney Casey Cort is finally changing her life for the better. After an uplifting year of pro bono adoption work under her belt, she is hoping to start a practice free of the emotional turmoil and problems of criminal defense and divorce. Easier said than done, particularly when a new, high-profile referral comes from a most unlikely source. Once again, Casey finds herself in the middle of a major controversy - and a city on the verge of riot.

In this continuation of the Casey Cort series, Aime Austin - a former trial lawyer in Cleveland - weaves another tale that blends the best of today’s top legal thrillers with the heart and soul of women’s fiction, in a story ripped from real-world headlines.