Strangers in the Villa

Sydney Cleary, a former New York public defender in her forties, lives with her husband, Curtis Lowe, in a secluded hillside villa above the Mediterranean town of Cadaqués, Spain. The couple moved abroad after Curtis confessed to a one-night stand with a client named Collette Jasper, a betrayal that occurred while Sydney was grieving her mother's death from cancer. They sold their New York apartment, bought the property, and began couples' therapy with therapist Ellen Dwyer. Sydney takes antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication and swims in the cold pool each morning to clear her head. Despite the idyllic setting, she feels numb, and Curtis lives in constant fear that she will leave him.

Their isolation is interrupted when Bianca and Damian, a young couple claiming to be Australian travelers, knock on the door. Their van has broken down on the hillside, and their phones are dead. Sydney, starved for company, invites them inside over Curtis's objections. Bianca bonds with Sydney over the shared experience of losing their mothers, and Damian impresses Curtis with construction knowledge, suggesting the old shed could become a winery. Sydney persuades Curtis to let the couple stay and help with renovations while they wait for a replacement fuel pump, a process Damian says will take about 10 days.

Over the following days, tensions build. Curtis hides a burner phone in the shed and makes secretive calls. Sydney obsessively checks Collette Jasper's Facebook page and discovers the profile has vanished. She also learns from a former colleague that her last client has died by suicide in prison and that the client's father has made threats against her. Meanwhile, Bianca confesses a romantic attraction to Sydney and suggests that Curtis gives off an "available energy," planting seeds of doubt about his fidelity. When the group discovers cigarette butts, leather gloves, and a machete hidden behind a large oak tree on the property, Sydney panics. Damian volunteers to return the items to a neighboring farmer and reports that the farmer confirmed ownership. Curtis, increasingly suspicious, searches the guest room and spots the machete inside the van through a window, proving Damian lied.

One night at a Cadaqués nightclub, a drunk Sydney is kissed by Bianca on the dance floor while Damian presses against her from behind. Sydney is aroused and confused until she spots Curtis watching from the edge of the floor. She tears herself away and lets Curtis drive her home.

The narrative then reveals Damian and Bianca's true identities. They are not Australian. Damian Walsh grew up in Washington state and Indiana; Bianca Muller grew up in Indiana with a narcissistic mother. Bianca's half-sister, Lyric Bentley, was the person she loved most. At 17, Lyric moved to New York, got a job at an elite restaurant, and was recruited by Fay, a procurer for the exploitation ring, to attend lavish parties as a paid hostess. At these events, Lyric was drugged and sexually exploited. Fay used compromising video to coerce Lyric's continued attendance. When Bianca visited New York, she witnessed a driver dump a barely conscious Lyric on the sidewalk from a town car. As the sisters walked to the subway, Lyric spotted a real estate sign bearing Curtis's face and identified him as one of her abusers. Back in Indiana, Lyric developed a substance addiction and died of an overdose within a year.

Bianca blamed Curtis. She and Damian traveled to Spain to demand five million dollars in cryptocurrency in exchange for not releasing video evidence of his crimes. They faked Australian accents and staged the van breakdown by removing the fuel pump relay. When Sydney invited them to stay, Damian seized the opportunity to torment Curtis before delivering the blackmail demand. The cigarettes and machete behind the oak tree had been Bianca's all along.

Damian delivers the demand, and Curtis agrees to try to get the money. Their objectives diverge, however: Damian wants the money and is developing genuine feelings for Sydney, while Bianca cares only about Curtis's total destruction.

Sydney conducts her own investigation. Using a reverse image search on photos from Collette Jasper's Facebook, she discovers they belong to a married woman in Vancouver, proving Curtis fabricated the entire affair. She finds American passports for Damian and Bianca in the van, along with the fuel pump relay, confirming the breakdown was staged. She also repairs the villa's old basement security cameras.

Curtis, desperate, calls West Beatty, the powerful tech mogul who ran the trafficking ring in which Curtis was implicated, on his burner phone. West dismisses the idea of paying off the couple and tells Curtis to eliminate them, or West will send someone to kill everyone in the house. Curtis devises a plan using death cap mushrooms, a lethally toxic species growing at the base of the oak tree that the Realtor had warned them about. The mushrooms resemble edible varieties and taste normal but cause delayed, fatal organ damage. Curtis prepares beef stroganoff, adding death caps to the guests' portions while serving himself and Sydney safe food. Bianca barely eats, claiming she has a cold, but Damian finishes his plate.

That night, Bianca senses danger and attempts to flee. She reinstalls the fuel pump relay but collapses in the driveway from severe abdominal pain before she can drive away. Damian wakes in agony. Sydney confronts Curtis, playing security footage of his driveway conversation with the couple in which he accepted responsibility for what he did to Lyric. Cornered, Curtis confesses. Collette Jasper does not exist. West Beatty's organization lured Curtis to a party where underage girls were drugged and exploited. Curtis was drugged, had sex with Lyric, and was then blackmailed with video of the encounter into providing vacant properties for future parties. He invented the affair to explain his guilt to Sydney. Sydney calls him a child rapist and an accessory to trafficking. She retrieves Bianca's leftover plate of poisoned food, sets it before him, and tells him it is his only way out: If he dies of an apparent accidental poisoning, she can report the ring anonymously. Curtis, weeping, picks up the fork.

At dawn, Sydney finds Bianca in the van and urges her to seek medical treatment, explaining that the poison is still attacking her organs. Bianca provides details about Lyric's exploitation to aid in reporting the trafficking ring, then descends to the basement, where she finds Curtis sobbing and beginning to die. Before departing, Bianca throws all three phones into the pool, ensuring no one in the house can call for help. Damian, unaware of the full picture, tells Bianca he is ending their relationship to stay near Sydney. She kisses his cheek and walks away. Damian falls into a delirious sleep by the pool, still believing his cryptocurrency fortune is imminent.

A Catalan news article reports that an American expatriate has died and another man remains in critical condition after ingesting death cap mushrooms near Cadaqués.

Six months later, Sydney lives alone in a village outside Toulouse, France. She had called Spanish police from Madrid; they found Curtis dead in bed clutching a wedding photo and Damian collapsed in the hallway, barely alive. The coroner ruled the deaths a tragic accident. Sydney erased the surveillance footage before fleeing and sold the house. She kept her promise, sending an anonymous email to a New York journalist and the state attorney detailing the trafficking ring, including West Beatty's involvement. She discovers that Simon Waters, Curtis's former business partner who took over providing venues for the parties, has been found dead of apparent suicide. Sydney considers whether the death stemmed from genuine remorse, an assassination ordered by West Beatty, or Bianca's revenge. She remains in hiding, cautious but hopeful, watching as the consequences of her report unfold.