The six-year-old son of my housekeeper found me crying in a wheelchair behind my mansion, a loaded pistol locked inside the desk twenty feet away and half of Chicago terrified to speak my name. “Why are you crying, Mr. Caldwell?” he asked, touching my useless knee, unaware that the blind man in front of him was Ethan Caldwell, the most feared mafia boss in the Midwest, and that within minutes, I would offer a child everything I owned for something no amount of blood or money had ever been able to buy.

Our convoy of four black Cadillac Escalades rolled off the unpaved access road without their headlights, guided entirely by night-vision-equipped scouts in the lead vehicle. Inside the third vehicle, I sat in total darkness, my hand resting on the pistol in my lap, listening to the muffled rumble of the engine beneath our tires.

"We're fifty yards out, boss," Frankie whispered from the front passenger seat, turning his head back. "Petrov’s men are already there. Three SUVs parked near the loading dock. Looks like six or seven guys, heavy armament. They've got portable floodlights set up around the perimeter."

"Good," I murmured. "Let them set the stage."

The cars came to a silent halt behind a rusted heap of shipping containers. The doors opened with soft, oiled clicks, and thirty of my most lethal enforcers spilled out into the mud, melting into the shadows like ghosts.

I didn't step out of the car immediately. I sat there in the backseat, closing my eyes—though it made no difference in the eternal blackness—and let my other senses take over. The whistling of the wind through the skeletal iron beams of the old depot; the distant crunch of gravel under boots; the sharp, metallic tang of ozone hanging in the damp air.

"Ethan," Dominic whispered, leaning into the rear door. "You need to stay in the vehicle. If a firefight breaks out—"

"Dominic," I interrupted quietly, "if I die tonight, it will be with a gun in my hand, not sitting in a padded chair waiting for an assassin to find my mansion."

I pushed the heavy door open and swung my legs out, my boots hitting the wet gravel. Frankie was instantly there, his strong hand gripping my elbow to steady my balance as I stood up.

"Lead me to the east foundation wall," I instructed.

"Boss, that’s right where Petrov’s crew is clustered," Frankie protested.

"Do it, Frankie."

With Frankie guiding my steps and two armed enforcers flanking our rear, we moved silently through the labyrinth of rusted boxcars and overgrown weeds.

As we drew closer, Viktor Petrov’s booming, arrogant laughter echoed across the concrete courtyard, bouncing off the brick walls of the half-demolished depot.

"—I’m telling you, the blind cripple isn't coming!" Petrov shouted in his thick Russian accent. "The old man is probably sitting in his mansion right now, crying into his whiskey because he realizes his empire belongs to us!"

A chorus of chuckles rippled through the half-dozen Russian mercenaries clustered around a portable generator-powered floodlight. In the center of the concrete floor, two of Petrov’s thugs were using a heavy sledgehammer to bash open a recessed steel vault embedded in the foundation wall.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The sparks flew into the air like fireflies.

"Almost through the latch, boss!" one of the thugs yelled.

I stopped fifty feet away, standing tall in the shadows behind a stack of rotting wooden pallets. My grip on the Beretta tightened until my knuckles turned white.

"Viktor," I called out.

The single word cut through the night air like a guillotine.

The sledgehammer stopped mid-swing. The laughter died instantly. The six Russian mercenaries froze, whipping their assault rifles around, scanning the darkness with wild, frantic eyes.

Petrov stepped forward into the harsh glare of the floodlight, squinting into the shadows. He was a mountain of a man, wearing a heavy leather jacket, a gold chain gleaming around his thick neck.

"Who's there?" Petrov roared, raising his pistol. "Show yourself!"

"You've been looking for me for eighteen months, Viktor," I said, stepping slowly out from behind the pallets, my dark sunglasses hiding my sightless eyes, my posture rigid and commanding. "And you didn't even have the decency to bring flowers."

Petrov’s eyes widened in genuine shock. He stared at me—at the man everyone whispered was helpless, broken, and finished. Then a cruel, mocking grin spread across his scarred face.

"Ethan Caldwell," Petrov sneered, lowering his pistol slightly as he laughed. "Look at you. You can't even stand without someone holding your arm. You think you can walk into my operation and—"

"I don't need to walk to bury you, Viktor," I interrupted smoothly.

I raised my right arm. With the precision of a man who had spent decades mastering firearms in the dark, I sighted down the barrel entirely by sound and spatial memory, locking onto the center of Petrov's chest.

Bang.

The gunshot roared through the desolate rail yard, shattering the glass of the overhead windows.

Petrov stumbled backward, a dark red blossom blooming across the front of his leather jacket, and crashed hard onto the concrete floor.