The Passion of Vengeance is the story of Michael Goodman’s surrender to the fury of revenge, and Lauren Stanwood’s efforts to rescue him. While recovering from the physical and emotional wounds of the events in Macedonia told in The Courage of Passion, they finally complete what they started over lunch five years earlier.

When President Merrill sends Michael back to Macedonia, Lauren is fearful of what may happen and insists she go with him. Vitaly Berezin has escaped and returned to the Balkans, blaming Michael and Lauren for his capture by the Americans and seeking revenge.

Learning of Berezin's escape when he meets with Bajram Demiri ignites Michael’s desire for revenge of his own. Bajram directs Osman Hoti and his fighters to protect Michael as he journeys across the snow-covered mountains that divide Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro to take his revenge on Vitaly and his daughter, Katerina, whose false accusations of harassment forced Michael to resign his professorship at Harvard.

Osman knows that vengeance marks the beginning, not the end, of killing in the Balkans and does what he must to protect Michael. Lauren takes Michael to her mother’s family home in Paris to give him time to recover from the shock of what he has done.

But she knows her husband must return to America, and she does what she must to ensure he can, on his own terms, so they can begin the life she wishes for them and for their unborn child. .