Shelly Williams is an African-American former teacher from Washington, D.C., who now owns a successful online beauty business. When she isn’t working, she spends her free time attending lavish D.C. social events and buying high-end designer clothing. Her world collapses into chaos when a favorite past student, Wendell “Wicked” Washington, is found murdered.
She volunteers to attempt to find Wicked’s killer to keep an angry mob of young black men from locating the killer first. Wicked’s friends wish to avenge his murder by using their own brand of lethal street retaliation. As if things weren’t complicated enough, Shelly also meets two ragamuffin brothers, Tyrone and Tyree, at a Chinese carryout. She helps them solve their family problems as she investigates Wicked’s murder.
In fear for her safety, her family demands she take her cousin Mink along with her during the investigation. Mink is a female ex-kickboxer and army veteran with a penchant for violence. Armed with street smarts from growing up in one of Washington, D.C.’s toughest neighborhoods, the two women follow a single clue across parts of Washington, D.C., that tourists rarely visit.
Shelly must trade in her designer clothes—and some of her morals—and hit the inner city of Washington, D.C., to find out who killed Wicked Washington.