A young Russian intelligence officer, Dominika Egorova, faces a bleak and uncertain future after an injury ends her career as a prima ballerina. When her manipulative uncle, a high-ranking government official, offers her a way to ensure her ailing mother's medical care, she is forced into the service of the state. She is sent to a secret training school—the Sparrow School—where she is trained to use her body and mind as weapons, learning the art of seduction to manipulate, entrap, and extract information from enemies of the state.

Assigned to her first mission, Dominika must target and form a relationship with a CIA officer named Nathaniel Nash, who handles the agency's most sensitive Russian intelligence. As she prepares to betray him, Dominika's first task is to gain his trust and uncover the identity of a mole within the Russian government. Torn between her new allegiance to the Sparrow School's brutal methodologies and her desire for personal freedom, connections, and values she still holds dear, she navigates a treacherous path of espionage and deception, her loyalties tested at every turn.