The morning starts like any other. Rachel Klein drops her daughter, Kylie, at the bus stop and heads into her day. But then a cell phone call from an unknown number changes everything. On the line is a woman informing Rachel that she has Kylie bound and gagged in her back seat, and the only way Rachel will ever see her again is if she pays a ransom. And if she kidnaps another child. The caller is a mother herself, whose son has also been abducted, and if Rachel doesn't do exactly as she's told, the boy will die, and so will Kylie. Rachel is now part of The Chain, a terrifying scheme which turns parents from victims into criminals and is making someone else very rich in the process. Rachel is an ordinary woman, but over the coming days, she will be pushed beyond ordinary limits. She will have to make impossible moral choices and do terrible things. The Chain is ruthless, terrifying, and completely anonymous. The rules are simple: find the money, find your victim, and then commit a horrible act you'd have thought yourself incapable of just twenty-four hours ago. What the masterminds behind The Chain know is that parents will do anything for their children. But what they don't know is they may have finally met their match. Rachel is smart, determined, and a survivor. Can she be the one to finally break The Chain?