Forty-eight hours was supposedly the longest any maid had survived inside Falcone Manor,

We didn't catch Moretti at Pier 4.

By the time we blew through the iron doors of the brewery tunnel, the cutter was already roaring out into the choppy, black waters of the harbor, vanishing into the freezing coastal fog.

“He didn't run to New York,” Gabriel said, staring at his glowing tablet as we piled into Roman’s heavily armored Maybach. His fingers flew across the keyboard. “His boat is heading north-northeast. Along the coastline.”

Declan slammed his fist into the passenger headrest. “He’s heading toward the estate! Lily!”

My blood turned to pure acid. “Lily is still at the manor!”

“The manor is garrisoned by thirty of my best men,” Roman said, his voice tight as he floored the accelerator, the twin-turbo engine screaming as we rocketed onto the coastal highway at ninety miles an hour. “The security perimeter is impenetrable.”

“Not from the sea,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping into sheer horror as satellite imagery loaded on his screen. “The sea cliffs. The tide is high. Moretti doesn't need to breach the front gates—he’s hitting the boat house beneath the eastern wing!”

The drive felt like an eternity. Rain began to fall, turning to sleet against the reinforced windshield as the Atlantic storm made landfall.

When the wrought-iron gates of Falcone Manor appeared through the trees, the estate was already under siege.

Tracers lit up the midnight sky in streaks of neon green and crimson. The sound of heavy caliber gunfire echoed over the roaring surf like thunderclaps. Smoke poured from the lower terrace where the boathouse had been breached with explosives.

“Declan, Gabriel, clear the terrace,” Roman commanded without slowing down. He rammed the Maybach through a side security gate, skidding to a halt directly outside the private family entrance. “I’m taking the master suite. Maeve, you stay in the car!”

“Like hell I am!” I shouted, racking the slide of the silver pistol he had given me. “My sister is up there!”

Roman looked at me for a split second, saw the feral, unyielding fire in my eyes, and didn't argue. He kicked his door open. “Stay behind me!”

We tore into the manor.

The grand hallways that had once felt so cold and intimidating were now filled with acrid cordite smoke and the deafening echoes of combat. Roman moved like a shadow of death, his weapon firing with terrifying, lethal economy. Every Moretti soldier who rounded a corner was cut down before they could raise their rifles.

We took the back servants' stairs—narrow, wooden steps that bypassed the main landing.

When we reached the second floor, the doors to Lily’s suite were smashed inward.

Two of Falcone’s guards lay unconscious on the Persian carpet. In the center of the room, standing beside the four-poster bed, was Victor Moretti.

He held a snub-nosed revolver pressed against Lily’s temple.

Lily was crying silently, her frail body trembling beneath her flannel nightgown, but her eyes locked onto mine the moment I crossed the threshold.

“Maeve…” she sobbed.

“Let her go, Victor,” Roman said, stepping into the room, his gun raised, leveled dead-center at Moretti’s forehead.

“Drop the weapon, Roman!” Moretti screamed, his slicked-back hair wild, his expensive tuxedo soaked in saltwater and grime. He was a cornered animal, manic and desperate. “Drop it, or I paint the ceiling with her brains! You think you won? You think a few FBI agents can touch me? I’ll kill this girl, I’ll kill her sister, and I’ll take this city back stone by stone!”

Roman’s jaw set into stone. Slowly, agonizingly, his fingers loosened on his weapon. The heavy black pistol slipped from his grip and clattered onto the floorboards.

“Good boy,” Moretti sneered, laughing hysterically. “Now, on your knees, Falcone. On your knees, or the sick girl dies right now!”

Roman began to lower his body toward the floor, keeping his eyes locked on Moretti, buying time, drawing all of the madman’s attention toward himself.

Moretti was so focused on humiliating the don—so consumed by his hatred for the Falcone heirs—that he completely forgot about the girl standing in the shadows by the door.

He forgot about the maid.

I didn't yell. I didn't hesitate. I didn't think about the legal system, or the debt, or the blood.

I remembered my mother’s burnt hands. I remembered the cold nights in the cellar. I remembered the five years of agony Lily and I had suffered because of this monster’s greed.

I raised the silver-plated compact pistol with both hands.

I aimed straight at Moretti’s right shoulder, just above Lily’s head, and pulled the trigger.

*BANG.*

The gunshot sounded like a cannon in the enclosed bedroom.

The bullet struck Moretti cleanly through the collarbone, shattering the bone and sending a spray of crimson against the wall. The force of the impact ripped the revolver from his hand and spun him backward off his feet.

Lily screamed, ducking into the mattress.

Before Moretti could hit the floorboards, Roman moved.

In a fraction of a heartbeat, Roman closed the distance, his boot slamming down onto Moretti’s shattered shoulder with crushing, unrelenting force. The old mob boss shrieked in agony, pinning him helplessly against the floor.

Roman didn't draw another weapon. He simply reached down, grabbed Moretti by the throat with one hand, and lifted him off the ground until the man’s feet dangled three inches above the rug.

“That was for Clara,” Roman whispered, his voice vibrating with absolute, merciless finality.

Roman hurled Moretti backward through the shattered French doors of the balcony.

Moretti crashed through the splintered wood railing, screamed once into the howling storm, and plummeted eighty feet down into the churning, rocky black waters of the Atlantic below.

The crashing surf swallowed him whole.