Engineer Avery McAndrews believes a project in the border town of Zapata, Texas, will be the assignment that finally earns her a promotion. Instead, her strategic plan backfires when she becomes a pawn between rival drug cartels. Kidnapped and imprisoned in a Mexican brothel, Avery struggles for survival in a place where her only ally is the cartel boss's silent henchman, Alejandro.

As lead attorney for the cartel, Alejandro's unofficial responsibilities include the oversight of Javier—Avery's captor and the cartel boss's deranged son. Cleaning up after Javier is a precarious balance between maintaining peace within the cartel and keeping the authorities at bay, but this time Javier's cruelty has reached epic proportions. If Alejandro doesn't risk everything to save Avery, Javier will destroy her. And for that, Alejandro would never forgive himself.

With Mexico's underworld at their heels, Avery and Alejandro make a run for their lives and Avery soon realizes the only way out of Mexico is by putting her complete trust in a man with a cartel alliance and a murky past. Amidst danger lurking at every corner, Alejandro struggles to ignore his growing attraction to red-haired Avery and focus on the job at hand—to get her safely out of the country.