The Mafia Boss Mocked Her Cheap Watch—Then It Beeped With the Syndicate’s Secret Distress Signal

In the sub-basement of the Grand Plaza Hotel, tied to a heavy steel chair beneath the humming hum of industrial refrigeration units, Maya Collins refused to lower her eyes.

Her lip was split, a thin line of blood drying along her jaw, and her left shoulder ached fiercely where the operative had struck her. Yet she sat with her spine straight, watching Damian Cassano pace back and forth in front of her.

Damian held the cracked gray plastic casing of her watch in his hand, turning it over with disgust.

"Where is the cylinder, Maya?" Damian asked, his tone deceptively sweet as he knelt before her chair. "The casing is empty. The transceiver was gutted. Did Alex take it, or did the old man?"

Maya spat a bead of blood onto the concrete near his polished Italian shoes. "Go to hell, Damian."

Damian's expression twisted into fury. He raised his hand to strike her, but Maya didn't flinch. She leaned toward him, her hazel eyes blazing with such venom that his hand hovered in mid-air, frozen by her absolute lack of terror.

"Hit me," Maya dared him, her voice ringing clear over the machinery. "Go ahead. Because the second you do, you prove to your men that you’re terrified. You’re shaking, Damian. Look at your hands."

Damian instinctively pulled his hand back, clenching his fist. "I am the next head of the High Council! You are an orphaned secretary from Queens who got lucky in an Astoria diner!"

"I am the woman who kept Alessandro Vitali alive while you hid behind your Russian mercenaries," she countered fiercely. "You think you're going to win tonight? You don't know Alex. You know the man who sits across from you at board meetings and tolerates your greed. You have never seen him when he stops caring about the rules."

Damian laughed, a harsh, nervous sound. "Alex is a businessman! He plays by the syndicate charter! Upstairs, the heads of the Five Families are waiting. When I show them that Alex harbored Salvatore’s rogue beacon and refused to surrender the cipher to the Council, they will vote to strip him of his title. And when I show them this watch, they will crown me."

"They will crown your corpse," Maya said calmly. "Because he's already in the building."

As if summoned by her words, the hotel's emergency power shuddered. The heavy industrial lights in the basement flickered once, twice, and died, plunging the room into darkness save for the amber emergency beacons.

Above them, muffled through four feet of reinforced concrete, the staccato roar of automatic gunfire echoed down the elevator shafts.

Damian’s four guards instantly drew their weapons, looking toward the heavy steel blast doors leading to the loading dock.

"Report!" Damian barked into his radio. "Security team one, what is that noise?"

Only static hissed from the speaker, followed by a voice so cold it made Damian’s blood turn to ice: