Vulgar, brash and loud, Dom Hemingway has just been released from prison after serving twelve years for his crime as a safe-cracker working for Ivan Fontaine, who Dom's best friend and associate Dickie Black calls one of the most dangerous men in Europe. Dom left the employ of Lestor McGreevy, a man he generally disliked, to work for Fontaine. Dom could have easily plea bargained with the authorities to give up information on Fontaine for a reduced sentence, he not doing so which resulted in he never again seeing his wife Katherine who died of cancer while he was in prison, and now being estranged from his young adult daughter Evie who sees his choice as his priority of Fontaine over her and her mother. For his silence and giving up twelve years of his life, Dom believes Fontaine owes him and owes him big, and with Dickie by his side, tries to track down Fontaine for that payment. Despite his encounter with a young new ageist woman named Melody, his actions which she vows will lead to luck shining down on him, Dom impatiently waits for good luck to come his way as one thing after another seems to go wrong, whether it be in dealing with Fontaine and by association his trophy Romanian girlfriend Paolina, in his attempt to reconcile with Evie, and/or in his attempt to find work specifically with McGreevy's son, Lestor Jr. who, as an apple, doesn't fall far from the tree.