Madrid, 1939. General Franco has just declared Spain's bitter civil war over. For the supporters of the defeated Republic, among them the wounded veteran Gonzalo Llorente, hope is dead. For Carlos Tejada Alonso y León, a sergeant in the feared Guardia Civil and a supporter of Franco's fascist backed nationalists, a new world is being born.
As a member of the Guardia, Tejada is charged with suppressing the last resistance of "Red" Madrid. When he finds Gonzalo's lover Viviana kneeling over the body of a murdered colleague he assumes she is the killer, and shoots her out of hand. But a strange clue by his comrade's body makes him investigate further, and he soon suspects that he has made a terrible mistake.
When Gonzalo returns from the hospital, convalescent, he discovers that his beloved Viviana is dead. Knowing that he himself is a wanted man because of his role in the defense of Madrid, he decides to spend the time remaining to him searching for her murderer, and trying to avenge her death. His search for Tejada sets the two men on a collision course that will make one lose everything he loves, and the other question everything he believes in.