The story is narrated by an adult Nino Montanari, who looks back on his family's history in Brooklyn, New York, around 1976. Angie resists abandoning her baby daughter Patty Montanari on a cathedral doorstep and raises her on the streets, surviving by wit and grit. Years later, a teenage Patty Montanari meets and marries the kind policeman Dante Montanari, and the couple have two sons: Joey Montanari and Nino.
After Dante dies of cancer, the hospital bills strain the family, leaving Patty to find a way to make ends meet. She quickly befriends local funeral director Frank Russo, and his boss Salvatore Palmeri, with whom she soon becomes entangled in a dangerous world. Frank uses his persuasive charm to reel Patty into a realm of organized crime, offering her a job that begins with running a faltering Italian restaurant and transforming it into a thriving transvestite nightclub. Salvatore Palmeri attends the opening night and is impressed by Patty’s business savvy and street smarts. He soon assigns her to serve as his mule, sending her on a trip to Toronto to pick up half a million dollars at a shipboard casino. Patty completes the pickup and earns Palmeri’s confidence.
Later, Patty and June, Palmeri’s girlfriend, must make the same trip to Canada together. En route, Patty witnesses June snorting cocaine. Back in Brooklyn, Frank’s son Mouse has been selling cocaine in the neighborhood, and the teenage boy appears at Patty’s doorstep afraid that his father will beat him for not staying clean. Soon a newspaper headline reveals that Mouse has been murdered.
During Mouse’s funeral, FBI agent Robert Wilford approaches Patty for help in taking down Palmeri’s criminal empire. He asks that Patty wear a wire to record incriminating evidence that could facilitate Palmeri’s arrest. Patty discovers that June had turned Mouse on to selling drugs and that Palmeri had placed a hit on him. June flees for her life, but Patty intercepts her at her apartment and learns that she, June, and Frank are likely the next targets on Palmeri’s hit list.
Patty eventually convinces Palmeri to let her go free and to spare Frank unless he continues threatening her family. Palmeri and his men are either arrested or killed, and June’s body is found, apparently the victim of a drug overdose. The Montanaris and Angie then board the next train to Florida, hoping to leave their criminal past behind and start anew.
