Harlem is a beautiful, smart, and funny seventeen-year-old. She lives in the projects with her drug-addicted parents. They are so far gone that Harlem must fend for herself and at times do a little hustling of her own to feed their habit. Harlem's world is turned upside down when her mother dies from a drug overdose and her father pulls the ultimate betrayal by prostituting her. Harlem is pushed into an adult world and into the hands of a crime and drug lord named Chief, who gives Harlem every luxury she has ever dreamed of, and more pain and suffering than she can stand.