Senator Will Sullivan and his wife Gwen are a golden couple—brilliant, beautiful,charismatic, and powerful, facing a glorious future few Americans will ever know. Only one important piece is missing from their lives: a child. But now their dream is about to become areality—at a price too terrible to imagine. After years of heartbreaking disappointments, Gwen is finally pregnant, thanks to a special procedure performed at a private clinic. But the small life that grows within her may not have been created by her husband. Instead it could be the spawn of an imprisoned psychopath responsible for an unspeakable slaughter—a twisted cult leader whose powers extend far beyond his prison cell, a dark messiah whose acolytes are everywhere.