It’s early July and across the United States, people are preparing for the upcoming Independence Day holiday. Millions of children are on summer break from school. One of them is Isabel Vargas. At a fair on Long Island, New York, Isabel avoids death by a millimeter when a knife buries itself into a wall behind her. Only NYPD Detective Sam Archer and his small circle of colleagues know why she may have been targeted; Isabel is the daughter of a former Manhattan mafioso, killed three years earlier along with his entire family apart from the girl, a man who’d made countless enemies in his lifetime. Isabel has since been adopted by Archer’s colleague Alice Vargas, and she and Archer both know the thrown knife was no accident. Since his first major police operation, Sam Archer has had to face death numerous times, but this time, it’s not his life on the line. For now.

With events rapidly unfolding, from Iceland to Louisiana, England to Texas, what follows is a breakneck ride, as they are pursued by a relentless and pitiless foe. Their job in the NYPD requires them to protect the city, but Archer and his colleagues’ concerns become focused on protecting an eleven year old girl who has already been to hell and back in her short life. With no choice who her family were, and having played no part in their criminal history, the child thought she’d be able to move on with her life, but not yet. Someone seems determined to make her pay for her family’s crimes.