At 1:47 in the morning, I came home expecting an empty mansion and found a six-year-old girl cleaning my private office with her baby sister strapped to her back. I was already wondering why her mother had vanished when the child suddenly stared at the bookcase behind me and whispered, “Why does the crying lady live inside your wall?”

The gunshot echoed through the high ceilings of the mansion, leaving a heavy, ringing silence in its wake.

Lorenzo’s body collapsed onto the white tile floor, motionless.

I stood over my traitorous cousin for a long moment, my chest rising and falling in slow, controlled breaths. The threat inside my house was neutralized, but the broader war had just begun. If Lorenzo was working with the Moretti family, their mob boss, Don Sal Moretti, was currently waiting in a vehicle nearby for a signal confirming the informant’s death.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my encrypted satellite phone, and speed-dialed Luca Vance—my head of security and most trusted lieutenant.

"Boss?" Luca’s deep voice answered on the second ring. "Are you back from Providence?"

"Luca," I said flatly, stepping over Lorenzo’s body toward the infirmary window overlooking the street. "Lorenzo betrayed us. He brought a strike team inside the Beacon Hill estate tonight."

"WHAT?!" Luca roared through the receiver. "Boss, are you hurt?!"

"I'm fine," I replied calmly. "Lorenzo and his men are dead. But I need you to bring twenty heavy operators to the estate immediately. Block off the perimeter on Mount Vernon Street. Sweep the surrounding blocks for any Moretti surveillance vehicles."

"On my way, Boss! Give me five minutes!"

I hung up the phone and looked out the window.

Parked two blocks away under the dim yellow light of a streetlight sat a black Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows—the exact model Sal Moretti used when conducting private business in Boston.

They were waiting for Lorenzo’s confirmation call.

A cold, dark smile touched my lips.

I picked up Lorenzo’s burner phone from the floor, unlocked it with his thumb, and located Sal Moretti’s contact. I typed a single text message:

It's done. The informant is dead. Roman is still in Providence. Come up to the rear delivery gate to pay the remaining balance.

I hit send.

Ten seconds later, the brake lights of the black Lincoln flashed. The luxury sedan slowly pulled away from the curb, turning into the dark alleyway leading toward my mansion's private rear courtyard.

I reloaded my weapon, pulled a heavy tactical shotgun from the infirmary supply locker, and walked down the back service stairs toward the delivery gate.

The night air was cold and crisp, smelling of wet asphalt and sea salt from the bay. The heavy iron gates of my courtyard stood shut.

The black Lincoln pulled up to the gate, its engine idling softly in the rain.

The front passenger window rolled down, revealing Sal Moretti’s trusted lieutenant, Frankie "The Hammer" Moretti.

"Lorenzo!" Frankie called out into the dark alleyway. "Open the damn gate! We ain't got all night!"

I stepped out from the shadows of the brick archway, racking the heavy shotgun with a loud, terrifying CLICK-CLACK.

Frankie’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated horror. "ROMAN?!"

BOOM!

The heavy 12-gauge blast blew through the passenger door, shattering the glass and tearing through the engine block! The Lincoln lurked forward violently as the driver panicked, crashing hard into the stone gatepost!

Before the driver could draw his weapon, I stepped up to the driver's side window and fired twice through the glass.

BOOM! BOOM!

The car went silent. The engine died, steam hissing into the cold rain from the ruined radiator.

In the back seat, Don Sal Moretti himself—a sixty-year-old fat man in a leather coat—was screaming, clutching his bleeding arm, scrambling frantically to open the rear door.

I pulled the rear door open, reached inside, grabbed Sal by his lapels, and dragged his heavy body out onto the wet cobblestones!

I threw him face-down onto the pavement, pressing my boot firmly against the back of his neck.

"Roman! Please!" Sal wheezed, his mouth pressed against the wet stone. "It was Lorenzo's idea! He came to us! He said he wanted to take over the Duca family!"

"You made a mistake coming to Beacon Hill, Sal," I said softly, staring down at the pathetic crime boss. "You thought because I was quiet, I was weak. You thought you could buy my family."

Tires screeched down the alleyway as four black SUVs carrying Luca Vance and twenty heavily armed Duca operators pulled up, blocking the street.

Luca stepped out, pulling his gun, his eyes taking in the bloody scene in the courtyard.

"Jesus, Boss," Luca breathed, looking at the destroyed Lincoln and the dead hitmen. "You took care of the whole team yourself?"

"Sal Moretti is alive," I said, lifting my boot off Sal’s neck. "Lock him in the basement cellars. By sunrise, I want his entire family syndicate dismantled. Every dock, every warehouse, every illegal gambling den in South Boston belongs to the Duca family by morning."

"Understood, Boss!" Luca barked, signaling his men to drag Sal away.

I turned back toward the warm lights of the mansion. The rain was beginning to stop, golden light from the rising sun catching the upper windows of my study.

My mind immediately shifted away from the blood and the mob war.