Young Nathan Corrigan has just been released from prison, he who was serving a sentence for auto theft. He is basically a good but misguided person, due in part to the company he keeps, namely the friends he's known since high school and his partners in crime, Leo and Dennis, and feeling unloved or unaccepted by his preacher father, Martin Corrigan. The feeling associated with that latter sentiment is strengthened when his mother, Maddy Corrigan, confesses to him that Martin is not his biological father, that person being who was then a law student named Callum Crane with who she had a one time liaison and who she never told about the pregnancy. Nathan decides to search for Callum. Meanwhile, Callum is now married and a high powered lawyer, whose colleagues in the know consider amoral and devious. Just before he is appointed a federal judge, Callum rapes Sophie Lennon, a secretary new to the law firm where he works. Because of that situation, Callum has Sophie fired. Feeling otherwise helpless in the situation, Sophie threatens to expose what Callum did unless he gives up his judgeship, she unable to stomach the thought that he would be overseeing rape cases. Based on the event surrounding their auspicious initial meeting, Callum, who wants Sophie just to go away, ends up asking Nathan to kill her, not knowing that his and Nathan's encounter was not by chance and that he is Nathan's biological father. Callum hands Nathan a sealed envelope with a $5,000 retainer and the identity of the person he wants killed, the remaining $25,000 payment only if the hit is carried out. Nathan decides not even to open the envelope. In addition to not knowing about being Nathan's father, Callum is also unaware that Nathan has become friends - Nathan's hope is to be more than just friends - with Sophie through a chance meeting through Sophie's roommate, Tanya Duncan, who in turn is attracted to Nathan herself. The web gets more complex when Leo manages to steal the envelope, he who plans to carry out Callum's request in Nathan's place as Leo desperately needs the money to pay off a mobster.