On New Year's Eve 1999, an armed man enters a TV studio during a broadcast, takes the host hostage and makes one demand: to give a message live on air.
On a winter day in a southside Queens high school, events collide and six students are suddenly in an armed standoff with the NYPD. At the school, classrooms freeze, teachers come and go, resources are scant.
When a mafia accountant is taken hostage on his beat, a police officer – wracked by guilt from a prior stint as a negotiator – must negotiate the standoff, even as his own family is held captive by the mob.
After losing her sight while working as a photojournalist in Afghanistan, Sara Frost, now reclusive, lives quietly in a New York penthouse with her boyfriend, until a smooth but sadistic criminal looking for a hidden fortune enters her life.
A year after witnessing a murder, residents of Tower Block 31 find themselves being picked off by a sniper, pitting those lucky enough to be alive into a battle for survival.