Moscow, 2016. Ilya is released from prison after seven long years and returns home. But nothing is the same anymore. His mother has just died, his girlfriend has found another partner, and his childhood friend treats him with suspicion. Ilya, feeling wronged and disappointed, drowns his sorrow in alcohol and, at some point, driven by an uncontrollable frenzy, decides to settle the score with Petya, the narcotics officer who put him behind bars.
And indeed, he commits an extreme act. Immediately afterward, he takes the police officer's mobile phone and, with the device now in his possession, Ilya delves into his past. And when he starts receiving anxious messages from Petya's loved ones, including the pregnant Nina, Ilya does not hesitate to respond in his place.
Gradually, he adopts a foreign identity and infiltrates the life of the man he sought revenge on. Dmitry Glukhovsky, chillingly dissecting modern Russia, intertwines the fates of two young men who are guilty, each in their own way.