Criminal defense attorney Paul Johns-if that is his real name-feels out of his league on K Street in Washington, DC, home of cutthroat lobbyists and the even more venal legal world in which he's a junior associate. The lawyers serve the street; the street serves them. It's a lucrative symbiosis fueled by billion-dollar deals and power games among a class who already have more wealth than they'll ever need.

That's not Paul; not yet. He still drives his college junker, lives in a tiny apartment, chooses takeout from the deli over the hundred-dollar lunches many of his colleagues enjoy. But he wants more. Much more.

When a senior partner at the firm, Eric Cantor, learns of Paul's family connection to an influential bureaucrat at the FAA, the young lawyer finds himself propelled into a linchpin, life-changing position-suddenly he's the only one who can bring home a billion-dollar airline merger. Soon Cantor treats Paul not only like a major player but a son, especially when they're sailing out on Chesapeake Bay together...

But soon the less-than-honest intentions of the various players come to light, and the idea of loyalty becomes tenuous and vague: When Jack Tate, the owner of the airline, makes him an offer he can barely refuse-a chance at a payday totaling millions, if he's willing betray his boss and father-figure Eric Cantor-Paul will be forced to choose whose avarice, his own or that of K Street, he will truly serve.