It is the mid-1800s. At Sweet Home in Kentucky, an era is ending as slavery comes under attack from the abolitionists. The worlds of Halle and Paul D. are to be destroyed in a cataclysm of torment and agony. The world of Sethe, however, is to turn from one of love to one of violence and death - the death of Sethe's baby daughter Beloved, whose name is the single word on the tombstone, who died at her mother's hands, and who will return to claim retribution.

Part of the gambit involves an idealistic American youth, fresh out of college, who joins a non-government humanitarian relief effort in war-torn Serbia and is casually tortured and murdered by a band of anonymous marauding outlaws led by a violent and dangerous psychopath who seems to have vanished after the deed was done.

The victim's grandfather, a self-made millionaire, seeks that which is almost impossible to obtain: justice. He wants his beloved grandson's killer brought to the United States and tried for murder before a court of law. For this, he is placed in contact with a man known only as Avenger.