Slicing into the poisonous underbelly of the global sex trade, prize-winning investigative journalist Tess Alexander finds herself catapulted into an unspeakable world that she barely knew existed. It also puts a target on her back.

Driven by a tragedy in her own past to hunt down and expose the worst of human corruption and brutality, this isn’t the first time Tess’s work has put her in danger—but this new investigation puts her in far worse peril than anything she’s faced before. It begins after she meets Katia Voitenko, who as a small child living along the Black Sea coast of Crimea was kidnapped and sold into decades of sex slavery. Hearing Katia’s appalling story, Tess becomes determined to unmask the ruthless sociopaths behind the international sex trafficking ring that enslaved the young woman.  

Her search for the ringleaders behind the conspiracy drives her thousands of miles from the safety of her northern California home to the streets and alleyways of Ukraine, Crimea, and Great Britain.

During the course of her investigation—and with the help of a collection of characters that includes a Ukrainian revolutionary, an officer with London’s Metropolitan Police Department, and one of the leaders of a transnational organization dedicated to rescuing victims of the sex trade—Tess uncovers the sinister extent of the trafficking operation, and almost pays with her life.