A contract killing in the red-light district shocks the Hamburg neighbourhood. During the investigation Thorsten Falke meets his old acquaintance Lübke and is confronted with his own St. Pauli past and personal memories of his time as a teenage bouncer. In the face of prostitution and modern human trafficking, Julia Grosz is alien to any nostalgic neighbourhood ties. Together they hunt down the contract killer and his backers before the smouldering war in the red-light milieu escalates. Falke's old friend and mentor, Lübke, a neighbourhood veteran, turns out to be more and more of a tricky opponent ...