la Jessup desperately needs someone in her corner. Her unlikely savior is an aging bouncer with early-onset dementia, grappling with his own ghosts. All they have to do is trust each other.

At first glance, Paula thinks she's found her protector in sixty-four-year-old Joe Pendergast, a famous bouncer in Hampton Roads. Even though he is ancient by her standards - sixty-four years old and counting - he still packs a punch. He's more than a match for the traffickers who want to find her.

But then she learns Joe has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. She also discovers he was much more than a bouncer. He worked as an enforcer and collector for a local loan shark for more than forty years. He has been cut loose due to his dementia diagnosis, and now he's plotting to kill his old boss before the disease takes him.