A typically tough private investigator and criminology professor, Harriet "Harry" Smith distracts herself from heartbreak by diving headlong into her latest surveillance job. On a steamy New York City night, she sets out on foot, cocksure and reckless, landing face to face with Trey Popov, a serious rising star in the Trubetzkoy crime family whose eyelashes just might be worth killing for. She escapes the verboten interaction, but when the two meet again, Harry plunges undercover as a wholesome schoolteacher who turns Trey's head despite his compulsion to climb the criminal ladder.

Harry's unconventional scheme and forbidden attraction combust in a violent disaster. All she can do is work toward justice for her murdered police detective-dad. Along the way, she hopes to rescue the good, bad guy too far down the wrong road to be saved. For Harry, doing the right thing is also the hardest thing, but crossing some lines isn’t in your DNA when you bleed blue. Devastated by heartache, goaded by ambition, and blinded by attraction, Harry's allegiances falter, and the differences between academic theory and real life prove that no one makes it out unchanged. Hell, some don't make it out at all.