A dancer goes missing on the eve of her début performance. An asylum-seeker reveals women are disappearing on the smuggling route and a body is discovered floating in the waters of Venice.

A dancer goes missing on the eve of her début performance...an asylum-seeker reveals women are disappearing on the smuggling route...and a body is discovered floating in the waters of Venice... Investigations of these seemingly separate events join together to reveal the link between a secret society and organised crime. They find a far-reaching shadow from a nightmare world of perverse exploitation on an international scale and this unmasking exposes a dangerous reality of life or death.—Joe Rabl

In Marseilles, R.A.I.D. Captain Olivier Massal of the French Police is injured and his partner killed when they are ambushed going to see an Informant. Suffering from P.T.S.D. his physical injuries and guilt for her death, he is taken to Italy by his old boss Patronelli, to recover. Disillusioned and realising he has no future in his career he accepts an offer to work with Patronelli doing Private Security for the Marchese d'Este Sforza di Visconti and his family based in Milan. He enters a luxurious world of the social elite and despite being haunted by his past sees the way to a future that might save him from self-destruction and reconcile him with his estranged son. But he begins to suspect there is a shadowy face behind the gilded mask of privilege, will he compromise or will he return to a path of justice... Meanwhile, R.O.S. Major Alessia Cassari of the Caribinieri leads a successful operation to intercept an importation of drugs in Trieste. She is sidelined from the follow-up investigation but thinks there is a wider conspiracy in the form of the 'Salamander', one that involves drugs, murder, kidnapping, exploitation and corruption linked to figures at the top of society and Organised Crime. She stops Massal exacting revenge when he discovers the identity of his partner's murderer and they join together to capture a corrupt secret order and free the innocent people they have ensnared at the Carnival of Venice.—Joe Rabl