130.Snow hissed against the glass doors of Moretti Plaza when the child asked the question that stopped Dominic Moretti halfway across his own lobby.

Dominic didn't hesitate. Seven years of civilian corporate life peeled away in a fraction of a heartbeat, revealing the ruthless wartime commander beneath.

He lunged forward, grabbing Clara by the arm and pulling her flat against the kitchen floor just as a hail of automatic gunfire shattered the living room window.

Glass exploded inward like crystalline shrapnel. The floral curtains were shredded into fluttering ribbons. Plaster dust erupted from the walls in violent plumes, filling the small apartment with a choking, chalky fog. The clattering radiator took three rounds and began shrieking like a wounded animal, spewing high-pressure steam into the freezing draft.

“Lily!” Clara screamed, trying to crawl toward the bedroom.

“Stay down!” Dominic roared, his voice cutting through the thunder of gunshots.

He unbuttoned his suit jacket, drawing a customized matte-black Sig Sauer from his shoulder holster. He racked the slide with a smooth, practiced motion.

From the bedroom, a shrill, terrified wail pierced the noise. “Mommy!”

Dominic didn't wait. He stayed low, sliding across the linoleum, using the small kitchen counter as cover. Another burst of bullets chewed through the plaster above his head, raining grey debris down onto his shoulders.

He reached the bedroom doorway, kicking the door wide. Lily was sitting in the center of the bed, her hands clamped over her ears, screaming in blind terror as bullets punched through the thin drywall three feet above her head.

Dominic vaulted across the room, scooping the little girl off the mattress with one arm and rolling onto the floorboards between the bed and the interior brick wall.

“I’ve got you,” Dominic whispered fiercely into her hair, shielding her entire body with his own bulk. “I’ve got you, Lily. Close your eyes. Don't look at anything except Barnaby.”

The child buried her face into his neck, her tiny fingers digging into the collar of his shirt with desperate, white-knuckled strength.

Through the ruined front window, a dark figure swung over the fire escape railing, boot crashing through the remaining glass. The man wore a heavy tactical jacket and held a suppressed submachine gun, sweeping the barrel toward the kitchen floor where Clara was pinned behind the cabinets.

Dominic leaned out from the bedroom doorframe, raised his weapon, and squeezed the trigger twice.

The double-tap was deafening in the enclosed space.

The intruder collapsed backward through the broken sash, tumbling off the fire escape and plummeting four stories into the frozen alley below with a dull, wet thud.

Downstairs, the street erupted into full-scale war.

The heavy, rhythmic booms of Marco’s men returning fire with heavy-caliber sidearms rattled the window frames. Shouts in Italian and screams of panicked men echoed from the alleyway.

Dominic keyed the radio on his shoulder. “Marco! Status!”

*“Three down in the alley, boss! Two more retreating toward Nostrand! But the fire department’s been called—we have maybe three minutes before sirens flood the precinct!”*

“Bring the armored truck to the front stoop,” Dominic ordered coldly. “We’re coming down the interior stairs. Shoot anything that moves between the vestibule and the curb.”

Dominic stood up, Lily clutched securely against his left side. He kept his pistol raised in his right hand.

He marched into the ruined living room. Clara was coughing through the plaster dust, her face pale with shock, her hands bloody from crawling over shattered glass.

Dominic caught her by the waist with his free arm, hauling her to her feet in one powerful motion. “Can you run?”

She looked at the blood on the floor, at the smoking holes in her walls, and then at Lily clutched in Dominic’s arms. Her mother’s instinct overtook the terror.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Grab the shoebox,” Dominic ordered.

Clara snatched the taped Nine West box from the counter, clutching it against her chest like gold.

“Move!”

Dominic kicked the apartment door open.

The hallway was filled with smoke. The bare lightbulb had shattered, leaving only the strobing red and amber reflections of gunfire from the street below. Dominic moved first, descending the narrow stairs with terrifying speed, his gun clearing every landing before Clara’s foot touched the step.

At the second-floor landing, a man with a pump-action shotgun burst out of the communal bathroom.

Dominic didn't even break his stride. He fired once through the drywall, hitting the man center-mass before the shotgun could clear the doorframe. The gunman fell with a heavy groan, dropping the weapon onto the worn carpet.

They hit the ground floor.

The front entrance was splintered open. Marco stood on the threshold, a smoking semi-automatic pistol in each hand, his overcoat dusted with snow and gunpowder. Outside, the lead Escalade was idling violently on the sidewalk, its heavy steel bumper resting against the stoop.

“Clear!” Marco bellowed. “Get them in!”

Dominic shoved Clara through the armored door of the SUV first, then handed Lily in after her. He climbed in behind them, slamming the heavy reinforced door shut with a heavy, bank-vault thud.

The driver slammed the transmission into reverse, the tires screeching and smoking against the frozen asphalt as the SUV leaped backward, spinning 180 degrees before tearing down Crown Heights toward the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Inside the vehicle, the sudden silence was absolute.

Lily was trembling violently, her small chest hitching with silent, dry sobs. Clara pulled the girl into her lap, wrapping her arms around her, rocking back and forth against the leather seat.

“You’re safe, baby. You’re safe,” Clara whispered, her voice cracking over and over. “Mommy’s got you. Barnaby’s here.”

Dominic leaned forward, his pistol resting on his knee, his eyes locked on Marco in the front seat.

“Who were they?” Dominic’s voice was barely a whisper, but the air inside the armored truck plummeted ten degrees.

Marco wiped a smear of soot from his forehead. “Hayes hired contract hitters out of South Brooklyn. Russian muscle. When Hayes found out the girl had slipped away and took the letter, he panicked. He knew if you saw Clara’s name, he was dead. He tried to wipe out the whole block before you put the pieces together.”

Dominic looked down at the floor of the truck. There, resting beside his polished leather shoes, was Lily’s yellow rain boots—one covered in plaster dust, the other smeared with a drop of his own blood.

“Where is Hayes now?” Dominic asked.

“Silvio picked him up twenty minutes ago at JFK,” Marco replied quietly. “He was trying to board a charter flight to Miami. He’s currently in Queens. In the refrigeration basement at Terminal 4.”

Dominic reached over and gently took Lily’s small, cold hand in his own. The girl looked up at him through tear-streaked eyelashes.

“Lily,” Dominic said softly.

“Are the monsters following us?” she asked, her voice smaller than he had ever heard it.