While growing up in a household with a father who verbally and physically abused her and her mother, Kim Rashell Williams was forced to fend for herself. To escape the turmoil she suffered, she buried herself in books and attained a higher education, resulting in her leaving behind the life she knew as a young girl. However, she still could not escape the lingering psychological damage inflicted upon her. 

In college, she meets and becomes close with an Asian girl named Malana. She soon discovers that they endured the same childhood struggles. After graduating and becoming successful. Kim feels all of life’s drama is behind her. Until she receives a call from a distraught Malana one dreadful night.

Kim hurries to her house, but arrives too late. She finds Malana and her entire family except Malana’s daughter had been murdered. Along the way, she meets and falls for Lui. With his help, Kim steps up and confronts the cold-hard killers trying to take her out. Being the only known witnesses to the murders of Malana and her family, Kim and Malana’s daughter, Alika, are marked for death.

Knowing that the police, along with a deadly Asian gang, is connected to the crime, Kim has no clue who to turn to or how to keep her and Alika alive. Kim’s only option is to use her book smarts and what little street sense she remembers to protect them from Master Tran, the leader of the notorious Hip Chong Tong, and the corrupt police, without falling prey to Detroit’s...Cold Hard Wind.