Truth is relative, and Shelia's been playing loose with it for years. She's been lying to her husband about his attempts to get her pregnant. She's been lying to her best friend about what really happened in Paris. She's been avoiding her next-door-neighbor, Ayaan, ever since moving to Flossmoor, Illinois. The deception has worn her down to the point that she is sitting in her home becoming a bit unhinged.

Dee dropped out of high school the moment her mother's battle with cancer took a downward spiral. She became the unlikely breadwinner in a house that had too much pain and not enough money. That also meant dealing with a transient father who struggled with addiction. Dee had more than paid her dues; she had been overcharged by life from the very beginning. When Auntie M brought Dee to live in Atlanta, things were supposed to be better than life in the Chicago projects. In Atlanta, Dee had new clothes, a full fridge, and her own bedroom. She could finally have a future dictated by opportunity...

They say there is no place like home. That might be true. Unless of course, your home is a neighborhood with buildings so closely packed and stacked that they blocked out all sunlight and hope. Of course, that also means it locks in liars, thieves and drug dealers. When your home is in a place so volatile that the devil himself would give it a wide berth, the only direction you're trying to move ... is out.

Seraphina Glen had come up from an average street hustler to a married woman with a prestigious address and two teenage twin stepchildren. She walked away from her old life...