Mai-yeen and Rafaella Bardini emigrate from Rome, Italy, and plunge into life in America, the land of opportunity. The first friends they make are possibly crooked. The men Rafaella meets are far more aggressive than any of the Italian men she has known. Moreover, she has left Stefano behind in Italy, an agonizing separation for both. Go out, do things, meet men, he urges. I won't make you promise to wait for me. And so she tries to lead a normal life. All she truly wants is to get on with her education and to have Stefano with her. Stefano's own story is one of struggle to join her. Then Mai-yeen makes a shattering discovery. The thieves who stole the Bardinis' money in Shanghai, China, are right here in San Francisco. Because of that grand theft, Rafaella and her parents departed the Communist regime with only a few dollars in their pockets. When her father died soon afterward, the survival of the Bardinis in Italy has been both a nightmare and the test of 18-year-old Rafaella's strength of character. Now, in America, she wants revenge on those thieves.
