On the surface, seventeen-year-old Malaika Evans lives a picture-perfect life. She’s blessed with loving, doting parents who spoil her with all the material things a teen could want. But it’s all a carefully constructed façade. In truth, Malaika’s home life is anything but ideal. Her parents are abusive, they’re controlling, and they are forcing her into an arranged marriage to the son of a powerful couple to pay off their business debt.

Roman Rodriguez is the quintessential bad boy of his senior class. He was raised on the wrong side of the tracks and is a member of a notorious gang. Covered in tattoos and an aura of mystery, no one dares cross him, and his reputation for drinking, smoking, and fighting causes his classmates to fear him. But Roman is also hiding his true self from the world. His bravado is a mask to hide the fact that he’s just a troubled and confused young man trying to keep his family together.

When Malaika and Roman are paired together for a class project, they both begin to slowly lower the walls they’ve built to protect themselves. And soon, Malaika and Roman realize how much they really have in common and that they can no longer deny their growing feelings for each other.

But when the two teens learn the same person is responsible for the trauma they have both experienced, they promise one another they’ll do whatever it takes to exact their revenge.

The only problem is, Malaika is still engaged to a stranger, thanks to her parents, who put their business before their own child. If she can’t find a way to finally stand up to her parents, Malaika will be damned to repeating the vicious cycle of abuse and lose the one chance she has at happiness with the bad boy she truly loves.