Russian Emperor Paul I ruled for a little while, but his entire life he dreamed of taking revenge on his mother, Catherine II, who had seized the throne with a palace coup and removed his father, Peter III.
Paul valued loyal people very highly, and one of them he granted the greatest favor—he gave his portrait, in which a secret message was encrypted… Returning home two months after his father’s death, Galya finds a horrifying picture. The house is run-down, the entire old staff has been replaced with a new one, and everything is handled by her mother’s lover—bank manager Sergey Gruzdev. And soon it becomes clear that Galya won’t be allowed to live peacefully, because she is the sole heir to her father. But before she can enter her inheritance rights, she still has to live until it happens—only a month from now, when Galya turns twenty-five…