One Ring at the Crime Scene Made the Mafia Boss Question Everything He Knew About His Secretary

The cold wind off the Hudson was like a slap of ice after the furnace of the tunnel.

Dante and Clara emerged onto the rocky ledge beneath the Palisades. Thick oily smoke poured from the cliff vents above them, drifting across the black water and blinding the searchlights of the patrol boats idling in the river.

"They can't see us through the thermal signature of that fire," Clara shouted over the roar of the current.

"The Zodiac is down there," Dante pointed toward a narrow cleft in the rock where an inflatable hull bobbed against the surge.

A bullet cracked against the granite two inches from Dante’s ear.

Dante spun around, raising his rifle.

Emerging from the smoke on the lower ledge was Nikolai Voss. His charcoal shirt was shredded, his face blackened by soot, but in his hands he held a submachine gun, aimed dead-center at Clara’s chest.

"Yelena," Voss called out, his voice hoarse, distorted by coughing. "Did you really think I’d let you leave with him?"

Clara froze. Dante stepped sideways instantly, putting his massive frame between Voss’s weapon and Clara.

"Step aside, Romano," Voss spat, his eyes wild. "You don't know what she is. She’s not your little pet. She’s an instrument of the state. She watched her own brother burn and didn't shed a tear. You think she cares about you?"

"Get behind me, Clara," Dante said, his voice deadly calm, his rifle leveled at Voss’s chest.

"Dante, don't," Clara said from behind his shoulder. "He has a dead-man trigger on his belt. Look at his left thumb."

Dante’s eyes flickered down. Voss held a small remote detonator in his left hand, wired into a vest concealed beneath his torn shirt.

"If I die, this whole cliff face collapses into the river," Voss sneered. "Moretti is dead. Your safe house is cinder. But the Directorate is already auctioning your shipping corridors in Brooklyn tonight. The ledger is being unlocked right now at the Atlantic Basin terminal."

"You don't have the key," Clara shouted.

"We have the drive, Yelena! And Moretti’s techs found a backdoor using your old St. Petersburg protocols. You're out of time." Voss smiled, a bloody, desperate grimace. "Give me the woman, Dante. Walk away. You can rebuild your little crime family in Florida. Leave the grown-ups to run the world."

Dante didn't lower his rifle.

"You made one mistake, Voss," Dante said.

"Oh yeah? What’s that, Romano?"

"You assumed Clara was working for me." Dante took one slow, deliberate step forward, closing the distance despite the bomb vest. "In my family, loyalty isn't bought with state stipends or black files. It's earned in blood."

Before Voss could react, Clara moved.

She didn't shoot. She dropped flat to the wet rock, whipped her Station SIX out, and fired a single round not at Voss, but at the rusted steel tension cable anchoring an old quarry crane directly above Voss’s head.

The cable snapped with the sound of an artillery shell.

The two-ton steel boom collapsed instantly, crashing down through the smoke.

Voss’s eyes went wide. He tried to depress the detonator, but Dante lunged forward with inhuman speed, his boot kicking Voss’s left wrist, snapping the bone like a dry twig. The remote flew into the churning black river.

A second later, the crane boom crushed Voss against the granite shelf, pinning him from the waist down.

Voss screamed, vomiting blood onto the wet stone.

Dante stood over him, rain washing the sweat and soot from his dark face. He racked the slide of his pistol and pressed the hot barrel directly against Voss’s forehead.

"Where in the Atlantic Basin?" Dante whispered.

Voss gagged, his fingers clawing at the rock. "Pier... Pier 11... Pier 11 warehouse... The auction ends at dawn..."

Dante didn't ask a second time.

He pulled the trigger.

The gunshot was swallowed by the roar of the burning safe house above. Dante turned, grabbed Clara by the hand, and hauled her down toward the waiting boat.

"Can you pilot this in the dark?" he asked.