Though Marcus Vance was locked forty feet beneath the earth in a Brooklyn basement, the poison he had injected into the city had not finished circulating.

At midnight, Dominic sat in his library with a glass of neat whiskey. Grace was upstairs; she had stayed late to read the girls *Where the Wild Things Are* three times until they fell asleep in the same bed, their breathing finally soft and synchronized.

A soft knock came at the door. Salvatore Gangi stepped inside, his leather jacket damp with rain.

"Dominic," Sal said tightly. "We have a problem."

Dominic didn't look up from the fire. "Marcus talked?"

"No," Sal said. "Marcus had a dead-man's protocol. He had an agreement with the Moretti family in New Jersey. If Marcus missed his daily encrypted check-in at eleven o'clock tonight, a bounty was triggered on this house. Two million dollars in bearer bonds, deposited in Zurich."

Dominic set his glass down. "How many?"

"Four cars left a staging garage in Newark twenty minutes ago," Sal replied. "They're coming across the Throgs Neck Bridge right now. Heavily armed. They know Marcus is burned; they’re coming to clean out the house, take the ledgers, and wipe the board clean so Moretti can claim the docks by tomorrow morning."

Dominic stood up. The grief and vulnerability of the afternoon receded, replaced by the lethal, calculating clarity of a sovereign defending his soil.

"Where are the girls?"

"In the nursery with Grace. My men have the perimeter, but if they come with automatic weapons and thermal gear, this house will become a shooting gallery."

"We don't defend the house," Dominic said quietly. He walked over to the gun cabinet concealed within the walnut paneling, entered a six-digit code, and pulled out two tactical Benelli shotguns and three magazines for his Kimber. "We funnel them into the estate drive. Sal, kill the estate generators. Turn this whole property black."

"Dominic, the girls will be terrified—"

"No," Dominic said, his jaw setting hard. "The dark is where I keep them safe. Go."

Dominic climbed the grand staircase two steps at a time. The mansion plunged into sudden, absolute darkness as the auxiliary breakers tripped downstairs.

He pushed open the nursery door.

Grace was already standing in the center of the room, holding an antique brass candlestick. Her eyes were wide, but she had Nora secured in one arm and Sophie’s hand tucked firmly in hers. Olivia stood beside her, holding a heavy bronze bookend like a club.

"The lights went out," Grace whispered. "I heard a vehicle slow down on the road."

"Blow out the candle, Grace," Dominic said gently.

She puffed the flame out instantly. The room fell into the soft gray glow of the rain-streaked window.

Dominic walked over to the floor-to-ceiling closet at the rear of the nursery. He pressed the false hinge on the left moulding. The entire back wall swung inward, revealing a steel-reinforced panic room installed during the Prohibition era, complete with independent oxygen scrubbing, water filtration, and satellite monitors.

"Inside," Dominic told them.

Grace ushered the three girls through the narrow threshold. Dominic stepped to the doorway, kneeling down before Olivia.

"Olivia," he said. "Listen to me carefully. You are the oldest. You keep your sisters quiet. No singing tonight. You stay with Grace. Do you understand?"

"Daddy," Olivia whispered, her hand reaching out to touch the cold steel of the shotgun slung over his shoulder. "Are the bad men outside?"

"They are," Dominic said honestly. "And they're going to learn what happens when they come to this house."

Grace looked at him from inside the illuminated safety of the bunker. "Come back to this door, Dominic. Don't leave them with only me."

Dominic looked at her for a long second. In her eyes, he didn't see the terror of a victim; he saw the fierce, maternal defiance of a woman who had already lost too much to this world.

"I will," he said.

He pulled the heavy bank-vault door shut. The pneumatic bolts engaged with a heavy, final *thunk*.

***