Story Cafe

This is a one-page synopsis of a idea for a novel that I have, about a young woman who gets tangled up in organized crime. I also have a bunch of random scenes written out if anyone's interested in those. I'm wondering what people think in general and whether there are any problems that I need to iron out before I go on if I go on.

Working Title: What We've Hidden

With the help of the Witness Protection Program, Kyndrie Lang has spent the past seven years hiding behind an unimposing, self-made name and an unimposing, self-made life. Under the name Alexandra Bradley, she lives in a plain white house in tiny East Belldale, Vermont with Tyler Colton, the man she hopes to marry. Her career is the management of a successful local café with her best friend, Trish Parnes. Tyler and Trish know nothing of Alex’s entanglement with organized crime, knowing only that their close cohort is a fiercely private woman who avoids photographs and social networking. The only person in Alex’s new life who knows of her true identity is her stepfather, Dan Bradley, an emergency room doctor who fled New York City with Kyndrie and her mother Ariana for reasons of his own.

Meanwhile, James Devon, the New York crime lord with whom Kyndrie’s brutal father, Cedric Lang, worked is attempting to find an explanation for the seven-year-old murder of his eldest and favorite son, Randall. He knows that it has some connection with the Langs, as Randall was killed in the hospital where Cedric Lang worked, just before Lang’s wife and daughter ran away to testify against them and disappeared. James Devon suspects that Kyndrie and her mother might have important information, and he launches a search. He learns through government connections that Ariana Lang committed suicide several years earlier but that Kyndrie is living in East Belldale under an alias. What James does not count on is the rebellious streak of his second son, Will. Will, out of loyalty to his former best friend Kyndrie, finds her before James does and after a heated chase, warns her that she must flee if she hopes to avoid capture.

Kyndrie drives across the country, never stopping in one place for long until she reaches Chicago, where Michael Farrugia, a skilled hacker and old associate of her father’s, lives. She convinces Farrugia to help her bring down Devon Company Insurance, James Devon’s corporation. He hacks into DCI’s security system and together the two formulate a plan to infiltrate the place and assassinate James Devon. Kyndrie also runs into a couple of old college friends, a lesbian couple who convince her to come to their house and hang around for a while, against her better judgement. This continues for a month or so, until Kyndrie receives a text message from Will, yet again a warning: “Farrugia sold you out. Be at Terrapin Hotel in Kansas City by 7 tonight. You must trust me or JD will find you.”

Unsure whether to trust Will, Kyndrie heads to Kansas City, realizing that she has no other choice. Upon meeting with Will, he offers to help her bring down his father, but she says that it would be best for her to go about her business alone. He confronts her, asking her why she has been so cold to him when they used to be the best of friends, and she admits that she has put everything to do with Kyndrie Lang in “a little box in Alex’s head”. This turns into an argument, and Will storms out. Kyndrie then checks her local newspaper on the Internet, liking to keep up with East Belldale. She finds a picture of Tyler Colton and Tricia Parnes, the young couple that work at the Randonée Café. Furious and betrayed, Kyndrie leaves the hotel to find Will and finds him drinking alone at a nightclub. The two end up sleeping together back at the Terrapin, but in the morning, Kyndrie insists that their one-night-stand never happened and will never happen again. However, she agrees to let him help her take out DCI, an agreement that happens just in time, as James Devon shows up that same day. James captures his son and locks him in the Company’s basement, but Kyndrie escapes.

Kyndrie is then faced with the choice between continuing to flee and going back to New York City for Will. Finally accepting her feelings for Will, she chooses the latter; her last act as Alexandra Bradley is to purchase a plane ticket from Kansas City to New York. Using the plans that Farrugia created, Kyndrie sneaks into DCI and frees Will from the isolation cell in which his father has kept him. On the way out, James Devon discovers the two young people, and shoots Kyndrie. In rage, Will shoots his father, and runs, carrying the badly wounded Kyndrie with him. The last scene is in Will’s point of view, reflecting on the death of James and his relationship with Kyndrie.

Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions on the plot or characters. I have more thought out than I have here.

-Scover