Taylor Brooks is a young, overachieving coed at a posh New England college whom decides to pledge the secret society The Skulls whom her father and many of the faculty are members and whom her older brother died years earlier during an initiation practice. But Taylor's willingness to break the all-male Skulls taboo of pledging as the first woman to do so put her at odds with the other pledges and alumni members. When she finally succeeds in fulfilling her membership despite inference from the Skull members, she soon finds herself in hot water when her boyfriend is found murdered, and she's accused of the crime. Taylor must find a way to prove her innocence and find the real killer despite the fact that no one around her can be trusted.

Frank Falenczyk loves his job. He just happens to be the hit-man for his Polish mob family in Buffalo, New York. But Frank's got a drinking problem and when he messes up a critical assignment that puts the family business in peril, his uncle sends him to San Francisco to clean up his act. Frank is not a touchy-feely kind of guy, but he starts going to AA meetings, gets a sponsor and a job at a mortuary where he falls for the tart-tongued Laurel, a woman who is dangerously devoid of boundaries. Meanwhile, things aren't going well in Buffalo where an upstart Irish gang is threatening the family business. When violence erupts, Frank is forced to return home and with an unlikely assist from Laurel, faces old rivals on new terms.