Kostya Voronov's parents were previously convicted, he himself was born in a colony. Thanks to his authoritative father, he enjoys the support of "legalists" - criminal bonds who, on the eve of the collapse of the USSR, thought out a new strategy related to the export of thieves' common fund to one of the neighboring countries and the creation of an organized criminal group there, like a mafia, crowding the local underworld and paving the way for Russian criminals to the West. The implementation of this plan is entrusted to Voron, who is coping with the task, but his love for the girl who turned out to be a prosecutor makes him look for a compromise between different ideologies and torn between the law and gangster concepts. But is it possible to live in a wolf pack and among people at the same time? The real story behind the novel provides a compelling answer to that question.