A criminal defense attorney, unhappy in her marriage, finds herself seduced by her mysterious new client, an artist accused of murdering his girlfriend.
When criminal defense attorney Mea Harper takes on the murder case of artist Zyair Malloy, the truth isn't as obvious as it seems. While she tries to determine the innocence or guilt of her cagy-yet-seductive client, it is uncovered that everyone is guilty of something.
Chicago-based Mea Harper (Kelly Rowland) and her husband Kal (Sean Sagar) are seeing a marital counselor for infidelity and his extremely overbearing mother Azalia (Kerry O'Malley). Mea says that Kal feels guilty since Azalia has cancer and he lost his job 8 months ago.At a restaurant to celebrate the matriarch's birthday, the older woman tirelessly undercuts her. Azalia loudly suggests that she will get Kal married again and introduces Mea to Kal's friend Jenna (Arianna Barron) and declares that she wishes that Jenna was her daughter-in-law. Mea is angry to find out that Kal sold a piano, without telling Mea, to buy an expensive watch for Azalia.
Mea's brother-in-law, assistant district attorney Ray Hawthorne (Nick Sagar), loudly declares he must unload paintings his wife Charlise (Shannon Thornton) got from charismatic artist Zyair Malloy (Trevante Rhodes) as he is set to prosecute him for murdering his girlfriend Hydie.
Mea is a defense lawyer who Zyair approaches to take on his case. Not respecting boundaries, he barges in to her law offices without an appointment to convince her. Zyair insists that Ray hates him but claims he doesn't know why. Mea promises to look over his case and get back to him. Mea is conflicted as Ray is her brother-in-law.
After Mea and Charlise's boxing class, she reveals she is considering taking on Zyair's defense. Charlise wants her to promise she won't, but she doesn't. Then Kal sees her reading Zyair's file and demands she not take it. Mea points out he's been unemployed eight months, so has no leverage in stopping her from taking the case.
Not only did Kal lose his job as an anesthesiologist due to drug and alcohol abuse, but Mea gives Ray money each month to help pay for insurance-less Azalia's cancer treatments. Mea says that they are behind almost all bills including the mortgage and the car payments. Mea says that Zyair's case will pay her enough to get them through the next few months.She gives him the option to let her consider Zyair's case or tell his unemployment secret to his family, so he backs off.
To avoid the paparazzi that plague him, Mea visits Zyair in his loft-artist studio. He tells her about his relationship with Hydie, a Mexican he met waiting tables in Italy. Zyair was there on vacation. They had an intense six months which abruptly ended when she vanished.
Mea shares with Zyair the overwhelming case the prosecution has against him, including copious amounts of blood that match Hydie's type, skull fragments and her DNA. When she presses him to explain it, it upsets him. Mea goes on to show Zyair a video message by Hydie, supposedly fearing he might kill her and finally mentions a $3 million life insurance policy. Both of these he finds ludicrous.
Azalia and the rest of the family swarm in on Mea to openly pressure her to not take on Zyair's case, as Ray has decided to run for mayor. This solidifies her determination to defend him. After a conversation between Mea, Ray and the judge Marvo Brodan who will oversee the case, he allows for both Ray and Mea to be involved.
Mea meets with her private investigator friend Jimmy (RonReaco Lee).Jimmy treats Mea like a sister and is the one who told Mea about Kal's substance abuse, before he was fired. Mea gets him to question Zyair and he concurs that he can't read him either. Zyair claims that Hydie never told him about her family in Mexico. Jimmy insinuates that Zyair sexually abused another one of his exes (Gagging her, spitting on her, biting her nipples, choking her and causing her pain), but Zyair is calm and says that she liked it, and did the same things to him as she was a sexually insatiable woman. Zyair says that when it went too far, he ended things with her. He claims that he never did those things with Hydie.Jimmy continues to Mexico to research Hydie. He cannot find any birth records for a girl named Hydie.Meanwhile, as her marriage with Kal starts to fizzle out, Mea starts to find herself attracted to Zyair. Mea sees that Kal is spending more and more time with Jenna.Mea questions Zyair about prosecution witness Renee. Zyair claims that Renne gave her his big break in the art world without even looking at his paintings. It was clear what she wanted and when he wanted to end things, she got bitter.Over several sessions, Zyair tries to seduce Mea. Mea and Zyair sleep together after she is mistakenly led to believe by Jimmy that Kal is seeing another woman, when he was actually visiting Azalia at a hotel room where she is recovering from chemotherapy. Disgusted with herself, Mea announces to Zyair that she's passing him to another lawyer.
Distraught, Mea tells Jimmy, who convinces her to talk with the prosecution's character witness against Zyair. The Evervine Gallery owner Reneé (Angela Robinson) is the older woman who'd discovered him. Mae is sickened upon hearing of how he seduced her, as it was exactly the same as with her. Mea confirms it upon discovering several portraits of other women under her own hanging above his bed. Mea quits as Zyair's lawyer as she finds a painting of Hydie, with a threatening message painted all over her face. This painting is enough to bury Zyair in prison.
Needing to clear her head after being forced to confess to the affair to Kal in front of his family, Mea goes to the Dominican Republic and finds Hydie working as a maid at a resort. Although she can't get her to talk, Mea tries to contact Ray to get investigators to track her down and get Zyair out of jail, as he'd entered a plea bargain.
Ray convinces Mea to return to his suburban Chicago home, where she gets a message from Jimmy revealing that Azalia was lying about having cancer. It turns out she and Ray cooked up a whole scheme against Zyair as he had an affair with Charlise.
Azalia stabs Charlise dead, so Mea then hurries out of the house while being pursued by Ray and Azalia. She jumps into Ray's pickup truck, while Azalia gets on its hood. Mea kills her by crashing the pickup truck into a tree.
Mea runs into Kal on the road, who she soon learns was also in on the scheme and plans to keep her in line through violence. She responds by unbuckling his seat-belt and making him drive into the path of a tractor trailer truck, causing him to fly through the windshield and die.
Ray is arrested and Zyair is exonerated. He publicly thanks Mea and privately asks to see her again, but she ignores him.
