I hid a shattered forearm beneath my silk opera glove at a press shoot, knowing if my mob boss husband knew I took a hit meant for him, he'd burn the city to ashes.

The terrace air was freezing, saturated with the smell of wet limestone and damp boxwood hedges.

Salvatore Falco walked to the edge of the stone balustrade, pulling a silver cigar case from his pocket. Leo Navarro hung back near the heavy double glass doors, his left hand casually sliding toward the interior pocket of his tuxedo, where a encrypted tactical radio was synced to his strike team.

Dominic stood in the center of the terrace, his hands clasped behind his back, watching his cousin with the terrifying stillness of a panther waiting in tall grass.

“Well, Dominic?” Falco said, striking a long wooden match against the stone. “What does your cousin want to propose that couldn't be said in the Grand Meridian?”

Leo checked his watch. 10:29 PM.

His fingers pressed the transmit button inside his coat three times. The signal.

He waited for the sound of automatic gunfire from the courtyard below. He waited for the screams of the outer guards. He waited for the red laser dot of his private sniper to illuminate the center of Dominic’s left shoulder blade.

Nothing happened.

The gardens remained dead, silent, shrouded in thick white fog.

Leo frowned, pressing the button again, harder this time. “Static… what the hell?”

“Looking for your men, Leo?” Dominic asked quietly.

The voice was so utterly devoid of emotion that both Leo and Salvatore Falco turned to stare at him.

Leo forced a confused, nervous chuckle. “Dominic? What are you talking about?”

“Your four shooters in the catering alley are currently in the back of two unmarked vans heading toward the industrial incinerators in Queens,” Dominic said, taking a single, measured step forward. “And your sniper on the roof of the modern art wing was disarmed twenty minutes ago. He gave up your bank codes in about ninety seconds. You got sloppy with your wire transfers, cousin.”

Leo’s face drained of all color, turning a sickening, ash-gray hue under the terrace lanterns. “Dominic… you’re paranoid. You’ve lost your mind. What is this?”

Salvatore Falco instantly stepped back toward the balustrade, his bodyguards drawing suppressed semi-automatics from their jackets, their barrels instantly leveling at Leo’s chest.

“What is the meaning of this, Carretti?” Falco demanded, his voice trembling with ancient rage.

Dominic didn't look at Falco. His eyes remained locked on his cousin.

“Tuesday night at the Grand Meridian,” Dominic said, each syllable ringing like an iron bell in the freezing air. “A hitman ambushed Clara and me with an iron pipe. He wore a Falco brand on his forearm. The tattoo was three days old. The hitman was paid five thousand dollars by an offshore account registered to Navarro Logistics.”

Falco let out an explosive, furious curse in Italian. “You treacherous bastard! You tried to frame my family to trigger a war!”

“Shut up, old man!” Leo suddenly screamed, all pretense of polish and composure violently shattering. He whipped a silver snub-nosed revolver from his inner pocket, leveling it wildly between Dominic and Falco. “Shut up! Dominic was ruining us! For three years, he’s been giving away our leverage to this dinosaur! We could have owned the entire eastern seaboard! All we needed was a spark!”

“And Clara was the fuel?” Dominic asked, his voice dropping into a register of pure, lethal venom.

“Clara wasn't supposed to get hurt!” Leo yelled, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and wild with the cornered madness of a trapped beast. “She was supposed to stay behind you! But the stupid bitch jumped! She broke her own arm playing hero! And then she lied to you! She hid it from you, Dominic! Even she knew you were too weak to avenge her!”

The heavy glass doors of the terrace suddenly clicked open.

Clara stepped out into the freezing mist, her midnight-blue velvet gown trailing behind her, her eyes blazing with an unholy, incandescent fury.

Leo instinctively spun the revolver toward her. “Stay back, Clara!”

“You pathetic coward,” Clara said, her voice cutting through the wind like a diamond blade.

She reached up with her right hand, catching the broad velvet sleeve of her gown. With a single, violent motion, she pushed the fabric up to her elbow, revealing the dark navy fiberglass cast wrapped around her wrist.

“I didn't hide this from Dominic because I thought he was weak, Leo,” she said, stepping forward onto the wet stone, completely ignoring the gun pointed at her chest. “I hid it because I knew he would kill whoever did it. And I wanted to look you in the eyes when you realized that your entire bloody empire was destroyed by a woman with a broken arm.”

Leo’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I’ll end you—”

He never finished the sentence.

Dominic moved with explosive, inhuman speed. He closed the four-yard distance in a blur, his left hand clamping down over the cylinder of Leo’s revolver, jamming the mechanism before the hammer could fall. With his right hand, Dominic struck—an open-palm thrust directly into Leo’s throat that collapsed his windpipe with a sickening crunch.

Leo dropped the gun, staggering backward against the stone balustrade, clutching his throat, his eyes bulging in terror.

Dominic didn't draw a weapon. He stepped into his cousin’s space, grabbed Leo by the lapels of his custom tuxedo, and hoisted him off his feet, bending his spine backward over the sixty-foot drop to the museum courtyard below.

“Dominic… please…” Leo choked out, clawing desperately at Dominic’s iron wrists. “We’re… blood…”

Dominic leaned in, his face inches from his cousin’s terrified eyes.

“Clara is my blood,” Dominic whispered.

Dominic released his grip.

Leo Navarro screamed as he vanished into the dark, swirling fog below.

A heavy, sickening thud echoed up from the stone courtyard.