The episode opens with the Hayes family, including the bride's father, Ashton Hayes, a wealthy financial advisor, taste-testing food for his daughter's wedding.
Ashton and the groom, Derek, meet privately. Hayes reveals that the family's wealth is rooted in covering criminal activity before Ashton gives Derek a generationally held watch, symbolizing Derek's commitment to the family's discretions.
Following the bachelor party, Ashton and his wife meet with the stripper, who was in attendance, and pay her for information regarding anything Derek said at the event. Through the exotic dancer, they learn Derek is not at all tight-lipped and is very much a liability to the family's well-being.
At the wedding reception, Ashton pulls Derek away from the party for a private conversation before drugging and dumping the groom in a water hazard on the golf greens at the country club where the wedding is being held.
Officer Kaya and Elsbeth are teamed up with Detective Donnelly, and it isn't long before they realize that the pieces of an accidental drowning don't add up.
The final factor to fully incriminate Ashton Hayes comes when the police discover that the watch in his possession had been given to the groom and recorded on him at the wedding but was not found on the corpse due to Ashton retrieving it before murdering Derek.
At Elsbeth's housewarming party, Captain Wagner pulls her into a private conversation to inform her that he believes his long-time associate, Lieutenant Noonan, might be the corrupt individual in the police department that Elsbeth was sent to New York to Investigate.