Benjamin January is hired to follow Oliver Weems, a bank official who has absconded with $100,000 in gold and securities; money that is vital to the survival of the school for freed slaves that he and his wife Rose have founded. When Weems is found murdered, suddenly the job of finding the pirated stash grows not only more difficult, but more deadly. Working in tandem with a young planter named Jefferson Davis, he must uncover the dark web of corruption, betrayal, and greed that has already cost one man his life, and, if he can't catch a brutal, remorseless killer, will soon cost January and his friends theirs.