Mateo was groaning on the floor, spit and blood leaking from the corner of his broken mouth, when I pulled his phone from his coat pocket.

It was unlocked.

The last text message, sent three minutes ago from a contact labeled *D*, read: *Take the girl to the boathouse on Pier 42. Put the mother in the sedan. If Alejandro leaves the house, call the gate.*

I picked up the Colt from the floor, checked the cylinder—six hollow points, brass cases bright under the kitchen lights—and shoved it into my belt.

"Get up," I whispered.

Mateo pulled himself up onto his elbows, his eyes wide and milky with shock. "Alejandro... please. Dante said you were going to turn the books over to the feds anyway. He said Carlo had already made a proffer."

"Carlo is a coward," I said, leaning down until my face was six inches from his. "He’d give them the warehouses, the trucks, and the loansharking routes in Brooklyn to save himself three years in Otisville. But Carlo doesn't know about Pier 42. Only Dante knows about Pier 42. Because that's where the chemicals came in from Antwerp."

I tied Mateo to the heavy cast-iron radiator behind the pantry using three zip-ties from the tool drawer, stuffed a dish towel into his mouth, and took the keys to his unmarked Ford sedan from the counter.

Before I left the kitchen, I opened the utility closet and took out the twelve-gauge Remington my father had kept behind the broom rack for thirty years. I loaded four rounds of deer slug into the tube, racked the slide with a heavy, metallic clatter, and pushed through the storm door into the rain.

The estate gates were wide open.

The two guards stationed in the stone booth—hired men Dante had brought in from Philadelphia six months ago—were staring through the reinforced glass at a black town car idling at the edge of the driveway.

They didn't look at Mateo’s Ford as I blew past them, turning hard onto the river road, tires throwing up rooster tails of brown river water as I accelerated toward the industrial docks.