Devin "Smoke" Dillinger lives by a simple code—protect what's his at all costs. As the third oldest Dillinger and owner of a successful weapons distribution business, Smoke has a reputation that precedes him. He's a man of few attachments who prides himself on control, discipline, and keeping people at arm's length... until an unexpected visitor walks through his door.

Romi Mitchell is fighting battles on all sides. Seven months pregnant with her second child, she's desperately seeking protection from threats she can no longer handle alone.

Simone Harris has always known how to hold it down. For her son. For her clients. For the sports agency she built from scratch. She keeps things running, keeps herself moving, and keeps her heart tucked safely out of reach. But this birthday feels different. It falls on a leap year, a date that only circles back every so often. A rare kind of day that feels like it arrives exactly when it’s meant to. The kind that makes you pause and ask what you have been pushing through just to keep going. In that stillness, something begins to surface alongside it.

Halani Henley experienced a shocking and devastating loss. At six months pregnant, she loses the child she is carrying, and it turns her entire world upside down. To make matters worse, she feels she is the only one taking her miscarriage as seriously as it is. Her boyfriend of three years, Onyx Sawyer, is moving through life as though he hasn't just lost a child as well. When a secret comes out, Halani is faced with the fact that she may not have known her man as well as she thought she did.

Salima Navarro, a driven young woman with dreams larger than her current circumstances, takes a job at the upscale Aura nightclub to support herself and her recovering mother. This decision unexpectedly propels her into an unfamiliar world. Deuce Dillinger, the commanding heir to a powerful family empire, is accustomed to control in all aspects of his life. Upon seeing Salima, he resolves to make her his, despite her initial resistance to his domineering personality and lifestyle.

In this urban love story filled with betrayal, jealousy, shocking revelations, and forbidden obsessions, will the good girl and extra rude bad boy be able to develop a true love? Or will Camarih's negative outlook on life and love, continue to be true? But how easy is it for her to walk away when she gave him her all, and when there wasn't much left to begin with?