In 1880 Rome, a patriarch closes the family bakery. His ambitious daughter-in-law manipulates her brothers-in-law to prevent their father's remarriage, securing her inheritance.

Sicily, Fascist Italy, 1925. Dictator Benito Mussolini appoints Cesare Mori, a man as tough as he is honest, as the new police prefect of Palermo and entrusts him with the arduous task of putting an end to the Mafia, a sinister criminal organization that has sown terror on the island for centuries.