Ethan Morris of rural Kansas learns that his three best friends have burned down the competing funeral home. He reluctantly decides to protect them by saying nothing, making himself complicit. But a cartel has been smuggling drugs in caskets, and they need a new conduit. The cartel’s Oxford-educated enforcer, Joachín Torres, blackmails the four friends to become their new distributors. Their initial, clumsy methods result in the murder of a dealer and a near miss with the law, spurring them to invent a better approach. They become immensely profitable. The cartel pressures them to expand into other regions.

Ethan meets and falls for Brooklynn Martinez, the investigator on special assignment to crack the drug ring. Unaware of Ethan’s involvement with the cartel, she elicits his help as the only person she can trust, having discovered that there is a mole in the department.

Ethan faces ruthless drug overlords, the vengeful owner of the burned competition, the law; and above all, his own internal conflict. Ultimately he must plot a way out of the drug business; knowing that doing so may destroy his relationship with Brooklynn, place him in prison, and cost him his life.