After learning that their young daughter, Emily, is suffering from leukemia, Cheryl and Greg have no choice but to seek out Cheryl's violent ex-husband, Kurt, to have him tested as a possible bone marrow donor. Cheryl is particularly disturbed about seeing Kurt again, since her testimony sent him to prison ten years earlier.
Meanwhile Kurt is out of prison and owes money to a powerful underworld crime boss, who threatens to kill him if he does not pay his debts.
When Cheryl and Greg finally track him down, he agrees to be tested. The family is relieved when he is found to be a match, but this is when Cheryl and Greg's troubles really begin: Kurt tells them the price for saving Emily's life is half a million dollars.
Drawn into a vicious blackmail scheme, Cheryl and Greg manage to raise a portion of the money, but when Kurt fails to show up at the hospital, Cheryl goes to his apartment to look for him and is horrified to discover the body of his murdered girlfriend.
Later, a terrified Kurt shows up at Cheryl's house, insisting that she and Greg allow him to "lay low" with them for a while. Unsure of Kurt's involvement in the young woman's murder, they are forced to accept Kurt's presence in order to have him go through with the transplant procedure, while they scramble to find the rest of the money.
But soon the crime boss discovers where Kurt is hiding out, and Kurt is forced to flee with the only trump card he has. Emily herself. And thus Cheryl and Greg must try to save their daughter. from the only man who can save her life.