Carson Adams lived life in the fast lane. Determined to overcome the low standard of living his parents had accepted, he became an attorney and worked tirelessly to support his wife and advance his career.
His big break came when an attorney from another firm had a medical emergency and brought in Carson to handle an important case for one of their top clients. The client, Charlie Wu, was accused of assassinating someone. Carson soon realized the man he was to defend was guilty, so rather than try to get him off, Carson decided to go for a hung jury. After winning that case his career got an upward push, a big one. Soon he was taking on a ton of other "unwinnable" high profile defense cases and working even more hours. He never lost a case, and quickly became a legend for his ability to charm the jurors and succeed in getting hung jury verdicts.
After every case he told himself he'd take a break. He was bringing in money but he wasn't spending any time with his wife and could feel her slipping away. Unfortunately, the types of criminal clients he worked for were very demanding – and could be pretty "persuasive." He was already running on adrenaline and facing burn-out when he got a call from a past client. The client who had launched his career – Charlie Wu. He'd been arrested again, and needed Carson's help.
Carson knew he shouldn't take the case, he was too exhausted already and desperately needed a break, but he felt an odd sense of responsibility to him. If it hadn't been for Charlie Wu's case win, he'd still be starving in Legal Aid. So he agreed to defend him again, vowing to take a break and spend more time with his wife after this one last case.
The case turned out to be impossible to win. Despite countless hours and pulling out all the stops to discredit the prosecution's case and charm the jury, he lost. It was the first case he'd ever lost and he was devastated. Exhausted, devastated, and desperately in need of some comfort.
But when he got home, his wife was waiting in the living room with another man – someone she'd had an affair with before they'd gotten married. She wanted a divorce. Carson had no fight left in him and knew he only had himself to blame. He moved out the same day, taking only a bottle of whiskey and all the pain and sleeping pills in the house with him. He went to a park and washed down the pills with the whiskey, thinking they'd do the trick. They didn't.
Having lost the will to live, but without means to buy more pills to kill himself, he became homeless and found a street corner where he sat in the same suit he'd worn during his last trial with a sign that read, "No pot to piss in, no window to throw it out. Need help."
One day, a long black limousine pulled up and a man invited him into the car with a job proposition. It was Charlie Wu's old boss, Angelo, looking for a new assassin to replace Charlie. Carson accepted and traded in his homelessness for the life of an assassin.
Everything seemed to be falling back into place in his life when he met a young woman at one of the parties and fell in love. Carson told Angelo he wanted to settle down and get out of the assassination business. Angelo agreed and wished him well, but Carson soon learned that because he knew too much he was his replacement's first target, and found himself having to prevent his own assassination.