SHE WAS SOBBING AT THE MAFIA BOSS’S GRAVE—NOT KNOWING HE WAS ALIVE, WATCHING HER FROM THE SHADOWS

Pier 14 was an isolated, rotting spit of concrete and wooden pilings that extended three hundred feet out into the black, churning water. At the far end sat The Sovereign—a ninety-foot motor yacht with dark windows and twin diesel engines that were already thrumming softly, casting a white haze of exhaust into the night air.

Don Camillo Moretti, a wide, heavy-set man of sixty-five with silver hair and a coat made of expensive mink, stood on the deck, his hands shaking as he held a satellite phone to his ear.

"What do you mean the pilot isn't there?" Camillo screamed into the receiver over the roar of the wind. "I paid him fifty thousand dollars to have the helicopter ready at the quayside!"

“He’s dead, Don Camillo,” a terrified voice answered through the static. “A car blocked the runway three minutes ago. They... they say Duca is alive. They say he walked out of the ground at St. Jude’s.”

Camillo’s hand went limp. The satellite phone slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the teak deck before rolling off the stern into the black water below.

"Lies," Camillo whispered to himself, his face turning the color of curdled milk. "He's dead. I saw the teeth. I saw the DNA report."

"The report was sixty thousand dollars, Camillo," a voice called out from the darkness of the pier. "You overpaid."

Camillo spun around, his hand reaching inside his mink coat for his snub-nosed revolver.

Out of the misty rain, walking along the narrow concrete walkway of the pier, came three men.

In the center walked Alessandro Duca.

He didn't carry a gun in his hand. He walked with his hands tucked casually into his coat pockets, his heavy leather boots making a slow, rhythmic thump-thump-thump against the wet concrete that sounded like the ticking of a death clock.

On his left stood Matteo. On his right stood Marco.

Behind them, lining the entire three hundred feet of the pier, were twenty armored vehicles, their high-beam headlights turning the fog into a blinding wall of white light that pinned Camillo against the deck of his yacht like a beetle under a microscope.

Camillo’s six surviving bodyguards on the deck immediately raised their weapons, their faces pale, their hands trembling as they aimed at the three men walking toward them.

"Don't shoot!" Camillo shrieked, backing away toward the cabin door. "Don't shoot him!"

"Why not, Camillo?" Alessandro asked, stopping ten feet from the gangway. The white glare of the headlights carved his profile out of the darkness—sharp, iron, and entirely devoid of mercy. "You shot at me six months ago. You spent two million dollars on fertilizer and diesel fuel to blow up four blocks of the harbor district."

"Alessandro..." Camillo whimpered, his voice cracking as he held up two trembling hands. "It... it wasn't my idea. It was the families in New York! They pushed me! They said you were becoming too strong in the North End!"

"New York is currently being audited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Alessandro said softly. "They will be very busy for the next twenty years."

He took three steps up the gangway.

Camillo’s chief bodyguard—a heavy-set man named Vito—snapped his rifle toward Alessandro’s chest.

Before Vito could pull the trigger, a sharp thwip-thwip echoed from the shadows of a nearby crane. Two small, red holes appeared in Vito’s forehead. He collapsed over the rail, splashing into the harbor water below.

The other five bodyguards immediately dropped their weapons onto the deck, raising their hands above their heads in complete surrender.

Alessandro didn't even look at them. He walked past them as if they were made of air, stepping onto the teak deck until he was standing three feet from Camillo.

"You took six months of my life, Camillo," Alessandro whispered, his voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the sound of the diesel engines. "You made my wife sleep in a room without heat. You made her kneel in the mud and cry over an empty box."

Camillo fell to his knees on the wet deck, grabbing the hem of Alessandro’s wool coat.

"Please, Alessandro!" the old man sobbed, tears cutting through the grease on his face. "Take the boats! Take the warehouses! Take the Back Bay accounts! I'll leave the country! I'll go back to Sicily! You'll never see my face again!"

Alessandro looked down at the old man clutching his coat.

Slowly, deliberately, he reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a small, heavy object.

It was the burned gold watch—the one Matteo had handed to Emma six months ago. The sapphire face was cracked, the gold casing blackened by fire.

Alessandro dropped it onto the teak deck between Camillo’s hands.

"That's your price, Camillo," Alessandro said.

He turned his back on the old man and walked toward the gangway.

"Matteo," Alessandro said as he stepped back onto the concrete pier.