Hitman Nick Arbogast has one simple rule: Never talk to the mark. But when the mark is Lucy Walters, rules were meant to be broken.

"You've got to kill her, brother. Or you're a dead man." Vincent, p.41

Nick is a hitman. He deals with problems most people would like to pretend don't even exist – and he does it very well. But his life is by necessity a lonely one, and working for Bernadette “Bernie” Coyle means no future but the one she allows. He is in a prison of his own making, and his relationship with the one person he has left, his terminally ill father, is strained beyond repair. So, when Bernie sends him to do a job in his hometown of Houston, Nick is glad for the escape. But his target, Lucy Walters, is more than Nick bargained for.

As Nick watches Lucy from a safe distance, he becomes captivated by this woman who seems to live life to its fullest. Most people Nick is sent to "take care of" live off the grid, looking over their shoulder, scared. But not Lucy. At the moment when he's supposed to finish the job, however, Nick breaks the cardinal rule of his profession – he talks to the mark.

What begins as a series of subsequent stolen moments between two lost souls soon turns deadly, as Nick finds out his new love interest was one of Bernie's hitmen, too, and just as dangerous. With no way of escaping Bernie's clutches together, Nick faces an impossible choice: kill the woman he’s fallen in love with or run away with her and end up as just another one of Bernie’s hunted victims. But Lucy doesn’t give in easily. The lovers square off in a brutal game of cat and mouse, culminating in a tense showdown at Bernie's hotel room. Shocking secrets are revealed and each is forced to decide if being free and alone is better than a life on the run with someone to love.