Croatia, November 1991: Anka Banović, age twenty-five gives an exam to her middle-school students. While daydreaming about her secret engagement and a wedding less than six months away, the Yugoslav National Army and its renegade militias attack the village without warning. From that terrifying moment forward, control of Anka’s life will rarely if ever be in her own hands. After suffering unspeakable horror and degradation she is abducted and consigned to an international Italian brothel organization. Anka laments time and again that she must be nothing less than the perfect victim—until an unusual patron appears in her bedroom. Not only is he a celibate in a whorehouse, he is an elite forger, and his current project concerns Boston’s stolen Vermeer. At first, Anka thinks of him as the Dark Monk, but he is the man who will gamble everything to save her.