Sicily, summer 1990. Two young boys, sons of ardent communists, run away from home to re-found the Pioneers, the glorious and now extinct scouts of the Party. But not everything goes according to their plans.

A summer fling born under the Sicilian sun quickly develops into a heartbreaking love story that forces a boy and girl to grow up too quickly.

Judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino would eventually fall at the hands of Italy’s Cosa Nostra in 1992. However, before that, in 1985, they were preparing for the ‘Mafia Maxi Trial’ when a tip-off of a planned attack against their families sees them taken to an island in Sardinia to wait out the threat. This situation, somewhere between a forced vacation and witness protection, sees the men delve further into their work, the retreat allowing them to hone their case. Fate, however, is not to be escaped, and all too soon danger returns.

Follow Teresa Iorio, a young woman who leaves her rural Sicilian hometown for Milan to find work--and much more--at a newly opened department store: The Ladies' Paradise.