He signed the order to destroy her charity, only to realize the little girl he just saved in the rain was the director's daughter.

Winter arrived in Newark with a vengeance by the end of November. Snow fell heavily across the city, blanketing the brick row houses and turning the harbor into a landscape of white and grey.

At St. Jude’s on Third Street, the bright yellow hall was filled with the smell of pine leaves and cinnamon as the children prepared for the annual winter pageant.

Hannah sat at her desk upstairs, checking the safety logs, when her phone buzzed on the blotter.

It was an unknown number.

She picked it up. "St. Jude’s, this is Hannah."

"Hello, Hannah," a wet, raspy voice came through the speaker.

Hannah’s blood turned to liquid ice. The voice was instantly recognizable—slurred, shaking, and filled with the nervous panic she had spent five years trying to forget.

"Michael?" she whispered, her hand tightening around the phone.

"Yeah," Michael Vance said from three thousand miles away. "Yeah, it’s me. Don't hang up, Hannah. Please don't hang up."

"You’re... you’re alive?" Hannah stammered, standing up from her desk, her knees trembling. "Frankie said... everyone said you vanished."

"Listen to me!" Michael panicked, his breath rattling into the receiver. "I’m in Miami. But Donnie Moretti found me two days ago! He’s out of his mind, Hannah! His father stripped him of everything—his money, his crew, his territory in Jersey. He blames you! He blames you and Caruso!"

Hannah backed up until her spine hit the office wall. "What are you talking about?"

"Donnie left Florida yesterday!" Michael yelled over the sound of wind on his end of the line. "He took two guys from the old Atlantic City crew! He’s coming back to Newark, Hannah! He thinks if he hurts you or the kid, he can force Matteo Caruso into a sit-down to get his territory back! You have to get out of the city! You have to—"

The call abruptly disconnected with a loud burst of static.

Hannah dropped the phone onto the carpet. Her vision blurred with sheer terror.

She ran out of her office, down the wooden stairs, and into the courtyard where the children were playing in the snow.

"Willa!" Hannah screamed, her voice cracking over the sound of laughing kids. "Willa!"

Sister Margaret looked up in surprise from the bench. "Hannah, what’s wrong?"

Willa ran over from the snow castle she was building, her red woolen mittens covered in white powder. "Mom?"

Hannah grabbed Willa, lifting her small body into her arms and holding her so tight the little girl gasped.

"Sister, take the children inside," Hannah said, her face pale as death, her eyes wide with terror. "Lock the front gates. Lock every door in this building right now!"

Before Sister Margaret could ask a question, the heavy iron gates at the front of Third Street rattled.

Standing in the falling snow outside the fence was a dark sedan with blacked-out windows. The driver’s side door opened, and a man stepped out into the white street.

It was Donnie Moretti Jr.

His face was thin, gaunt, and bruised, his eyes bloodshot and wide with manic desperation. In his right hand, partially hidden beneath his dark coat, was the heavy shape of an automatic firearm.