Part 2: Hours before proposing to another woman, a mob boss walked into a restaurant restroom and found four six-year-old boys who shared his exact face.

The first man didn't even have time to raise his weapon.

Two rounds from my Sig punched through his chest, dropping him like a sack of wet cement onto the sidewalk. The loud crack of unsuppressed gunfire shattered the quiet Dorchester night, echoing off the wooden tenements like thunderclaps.

The remaining seven men scattered behind their vehicles, opening fire. Rounds chewed through the wooden porch railings, sending splinters of rotted pine flying into my face. One bullet grazed my shoulder, tearing through the silk of my shirt and biting into the flesh, hot and sharp.

I didn't feel it. Adrenaline surged through my veins, cold and precise.

Marcus appeared from the alleyway, his heavy trench coat flaring as he unleashed a deafening burst from a Benelli shotgun. The rear window of the lead Charger disintegrated in a shower of crystallized safety glass. One of the gunmen shrieked, collapsing into the gutter.

"Flank right!" an operative screamed over the downpour. "It’s Moretti himself! Take him down!"

I vaulted over the porch railing, landing heavily in the wet mud of the tiny front yard. I closed the distance before they could reorient their barrels.

I grabbed the nearest shooter by his tactical vest, slamming him against the hood of the Charger with enough force to dent the metal. His gun clattered to the ground. Before he could draw his sidearm, I drove the butt of my Sig into his jaw, fracturing bone, and tossed him aside into the dark.

Three down.

The remaining four men realized the trap was failing. One of them, a man with a heavy scar across his cheek whom I recognized as Harrington’s personal bodyguard, scrambled toward the rear of the second vehicle, pulling a satellite phone from his pocket.

"Senator! The boss is here—he’s—"

I fired through the driver’s side window. The glass shattered, and the bullet found Harrington’s man right through the collarbone. He dropped the phone, screaming, clutching his shoulder as he fell into the mud.

The last two gunmen threw their weapons onto the asphalt, raising their hands in sheer panic.

"We were just hired guns, Moretti!" one of them pleaded, his teeth chattering in terror. "We didn't know it was you! Harrington told us it was a debt collection!"

"You pointed a weapon at my family," I said, my voice dead, flat, and final.

I didn't pull the trigger. Death was too easy.

"Marcus," I called out over my shoulder.

"Boss?" Marcus emerged from the shadows, his shotgun resting against his hip, breathing heavily.

"Strip them. Break their hands so they can never hold a gun again, and leave them on Harrington’s front lawn in Wellesley with a message."

"What's the message, Dom?"

"Tell him the alliance is broken. And tell him that tomorrow morning, I am coming for his empire."

I turned back toward the apartment building. The street was quiet now, save for the wailing of distant sirens in the direction of downtown. The neighbors were smart; in this part of Dorchester, when the guns went off, people locked their windows, turned off the lights, and minded their own business.

I looked up at the third-floor landing.

Clara was standing there in the rain, peering over the rail. The four boys were behind her, clutching her coat, their wide eyes reflecting the flashing brake lights of the abandoned Chargers.

She had seen it all. She had seen the monster I truly was.

My heart sank. I thought she would scream. I thought she would retreat back into the apartment and lock the door forever.

Instead, Clara walked down the wooden stairs, one step at a time, holding her sons’ hands. She stopped at the bottom of the porch, looking at the blood on my shirt, the smoking gun in my hand, and the dark fire in my eyes.

She didn't flinch.

"Are they dead?" she asked, her voice steady.

"Some of them," I said truthfully. "The rest won't ever bother you again."

She looked down at her boys. Mateo was staring at my torn, bloody shoulder with wide eyes, but he wasn't crying. None of them were. They were Morettis, through and through.

"Where are you taking us?" Clara asked quietly.