The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore, and Chicago is its beating heart. Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the “wealthiest Negro in America,” whose affluence catapulted his family to the heights of Black society. After the unexpected death of her only brother, Nelly becomes the premier debutante overnight. For the past year, she has worked undercover as an investigative journalist. Her latest assignment thrusts her into the den of a dangerous vice lord: the so-called Mayor of Maxwell Street. Born in rural Alabama to a murdered biracial couple, a tragic turn of fate gave Jay Shorey a rare path out. He washed up on Chicago’s storied shores and forged his own way to the top of the city’s underworld, running Chicago's swankiest speakeasy. When Nelly’s and Jay’s paths cross, she recruits him to help expose the Mayor and bring about lasting change in a corrupt city.