The novella is centered on Charlie Rant, a law student who's forced into being a rum runner to save his brother's life. When Charlie visits his brother in the hospital, he's confronted with an ugly truth: his brother has been rum running for the Caprice family, and someone has been stealing the shipments, leaving the crew for dead. With one delivery left to make, it's now up to Charlie to make things right. However, when a mysterious woman tracks him down, he learns of a rivalry that was supposed to have ended two years ago in a speakeasy, when the Durante family was killed off by the Caprices. Someone has resurrected the Durante name, and with the Caprice shipments being stolen and their rum runners being murdered, the clash of the mobsters has started all over again. Caught between an old feud, Charlie has to put aside his morals in order to be a rum runner for a night so that he can save his brother and, inevitably, himself.