Place, time and family. Three things that shape individuals. Sometimes with love. Other times with violence. Former covert operative, Horace Chase, has just discovered he has a son; a son who fled the Military Institute of South Carolina a year and a half ago after being accused of murder. The victim is the grandson of the most powerful woman in Charleston, South Carolina, who has sworn vengeance. Chase teams up with another former covert operative, Dave Riley, and one of Riley's old CIA friends, Kate Westland, to find his son and uncover the truth. Barely into their investigation they become caught up in a land development deal for Daufuskie Island worth hundreds of millions. Chase and Riley's covert background has taught them many things, but the most valuable has been that nothing is ever as it appears as an old nemesis rears her head, hell bent on revenge against them both along with a good helping of greed. And in the shadows hovers THE CELLAR, the agency that polices the world of covert operations. One by one, the competitors for the land deal are being killed and the threat to Chase's son grows. And nothing, not the present, not the past, and no one, are as they appear to be. Who will be left standing?