Someone saved Maxine Latin's life eight years ago. Now they want to be repaid. Maxine is the woman Los Angeles' rich and powerful call when their problems are too dangerous, embarrassing, or illegal for anyone else. But behind the crisis manager's sharp tongue and carefully constructed reputation lies a stolen identity, and a past she has spent years trying to forget. When celebrated artist Winston Craig is found murdered in his Echo Park studio, Maxine's assignment to recover three missing paintings should be simple. Instead, it leads to staged deaths, deepfakes, hidden fortunes, and a criminal network powerful enough to erase identities and reach inside the LAPD. Then Maxine receives a photograph taken on the London night when she should have died. Someone was watching. Someone helped her escape. And the life she built in America was never truly hers. Now the people who bought her freedom are ready to collect their debt. To survive, Maxine must uncover who saved her, who betrayed her, and why the father she believed abandoned her may be at the centre of it all. Because this was never protection. It was ownership.