Ricky Malone is known to the world as a vicious crime lord who monstrously rules the city of New York with an iron fist, with even more power than the politicians. However, his sorrowful introspection suggests that his reign of terror may be nearing a close. Bobby Falcone, an eighteen-year-old boy from Brooklyn, has dreams of attending Harvard Law School and becoming one of the only legitimate politicians in his city, in the hopes of enacting a change for the better, and his entire poverty-stricken community has invested in him. However, those aspirations are snatched out from under him as the $5,000 trust awaiting his eighteenth birthday is stolen by the Irish mob, leaving him desperate for any inkling of hope that he can cling to. As the events of the two mens lives progress, they find that their fates are intertwined and that the presence of each of them will have lasting momentous implications in the life of the other.