GRU intelligence lieutenant colonel Ilya Orlov, nicknamed "Monk", interrupted his military career after 15 years of service and... went to a monastery. However, he soon realized that non-resistance to evil was not for him and returned to worldly life, taking a job as a taxi driver.
In the center of the story are former lovers who have to go a long and dangerous path in order to save their son and find a common language with each other again. A young veterinarian from Moscow, Vasily Bulatov, is kidnapped by a group of terrorists from a Greek hotel and transported to one of the regions of Syria.
Viktor Vetrov, a successful businessman, is accused by a mysterious blackmailer of murdering his wife. His life turns into hell: his business collapses, his friends betray him, and the investigative authorities are desperately digging the earth, trying to find at least some evidence and send Vetrov to jail. The only person who took Victor’s side was his former lover, Investigative Committee investigator Inga Alme. But over time, she begins to doubt the man’s innocence when she learns that his first wife, Tatyana, also mysteriously disappeared many years ago. Both of Victor's wives are soon found dead. The handwriting of the crimes exactly matches the handwriting of the “Kuntsevo Ripper”, whom all the security forces in Moscow have been searching in vain for many years.
Elbrus Tamayev, a guy from a working-class family, was brought up in the spirit of fundamental male principles: not to offend the weak, to be able to fight back and help those in need. During his school years, he makes a friend and a girlfriend. Elbrus gets a job on a dry cargo ship. His friend pulls off a drug scam. It is exposed, and Elbrus becomes the scapegoat in this case... He is sentenced to life imprisonment in a prison for especially dangerous criminals, from which it is impossible to escape. But the hero - now his name is none other than Graf Krestovsky - succeeds twenty years later. He returns to his homeland and begins to take revenge on those who treated him so cruelly.