Vowing to honor an impossible promise, Simeon Carver, a black man falsely damned to a hellish fate emerges from Fort Leavenworth Penitentiary into the company of the Secretary of State's daughter, Nadine Porter, the very woman who, while suffering from mental illness fourteen years before, fabricated the terrible lie that robbed him of his life-and liberty. A still unstable Nadine has come forward with the stunning truth that sets Simeon free and led to the beginning of their emotion-filled, unfathomable attempt at reconciliation. When she disappears however shortly after his release, the trail leads toward unexpected discoveries of an intricately veiled deception. A deception that makes men loyal to Nadine's father eager to kill to keep it secret. And the life of an orphaned ex-convict means less than nothing to any of them.