Church of the Holy Angels and its grammar school were the center of Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s--a place of refuge for many neighborhood kids from troubled homes. Father Bobby had his favorites--among them were Lorenzo and his pals, Michael, John, and Tommy. Because their blue-collar, hardworking parents were more often fighting than not, the four boys formed a kind of family of their own. Then, one boring summer day, a street prank gone dangerously awry resulted in the quartet being sent to the Wilkinson Home for Boys in upstate New York where they were tortured, abused and raped under the leadership of a sadistic guard named Sean Nokes. A decade and a half later, nothing can erase their painful memories, but the lessons of Hell's Kitchen allow them to even the score of the terrible hand that Fate had dealt them. In their shocking retaliation, they are daringly aided by Father Bobby and an aging, shadowy mob figure, both of whom have known the four boys since their childhoods.