Judy Carrier struggles with torn feelings about her friend Mary DiNunzio's happiness, as well as racing to the side of her cancer-stricken aunt, whose close friend, an undocumented worker at a local farm, has died under suspicious circumstances.

When nemesis Nick Machiavelli targets her family with frivolous legal claims and slander that escalate to an unthinkable tragedy, Mary DiNunzio discovers her own unsettling capacity for dark retaliation.

Named the guardian ad litem of a middle-school boy with emotional issues on whose behalf she is suing the Philadelphia school district, Mary DiNunzio is confronted by elite lawyer Nick Machiavelli and risks her engagement in her obsessive investment in the case.