For decades, signora Francesca Ginori has kept her true identity secret. Living a quiet life now, her children grown with children of their own, she no longer worries about assassins coming in the middle of the night to kill them all.

Then one bright, summer afternoon a stranger appears on her doorstep. He knows her secrets and threatens to destroy her world. It is not gold or power he seeks but something far more dangerous; knowledge. He demands to know the truth about his mother's past.

Francesca is forced to make a most unpleasant decision; tell him the truth or risk destroying not only her own life, but also the lives of her children.