Dominic Carver did not look at the captain, nor did he look at his relieved younger brother. His eyes remained fixed on the little girl whose small fingers were still stained with blue w

At eight o'clock the following morning, the sun rose over Boston harbor, casting a pale gray light across the city.

In a luxurious penthouse suite overlooking the southern docks, Don Antonio Moretti—a sixty-year-old crime lord with slicked-back silver hair and a sharp Italian suit—sat at his dining table, eating breakfast while reading the morning newspaper.

Sitting opposite him was his chief enforcer, a hulking man named Mario.

"Any news from the marina?" Moretti asked, cutting into a poached egg. "Did the Carver yacht go down?"

Mario looked uncomfortable, nervously adjusting his collar. "No, Don Antonio. There's nothing on the news. And Julian Vance isn't answering his phone."

Moretti frowned, setting his fork down with a loud clatter. "What do you mean he isn't answering? The bomb was scheduled to detonate at 5:15 PM yesterday!"

Before Mario could answer, the double reinforced doors of the penthouse burst off their hinges with a violent CRACK!

Heavy smoke and flashbang grenades detonated inside the foyer—BANG! BANG!—filling the penthouse with blinding light and deafening sound!

A dozen heavily armed Blackwood tactical operatives poured into the penthouse, systematic, lethal, and ruthless, disarming Moretti's bodyguards in less than twenty seconds!

Through the clearing smoke walked Dominic Carver.

He wore a tailored three-piece charcoal suit, his face cold as marble, a sleek silver-plated handgun resting comfortably in his right hand.

Moretti gasped, backing away from the table, his face turning bright red with shock and terror. "Carver?! How... how did you get in here?!"

Dominic walked slowly across the plush rug, stopping at the head of the dining table. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a wet, heavy slate-black box—the disarmed limpet mine—and slammed it onto Moretti's breakfast plate, shattering the fine china!

Moretti flinched violently, staring at the mine in sheer horror.

"Your explosive technician has bad taste in footwear, Antonio," Dominic said, his deep voice vibrating through the room. "And my brother is a terrible strategist."

Moretti swallowed hard, trying to regain his composure, though his hands were visibly shaking. "Dominic... listen to me. This was a business move! Nothing personal! In our world, territory expands by force—"

"You tried to murder my mother," Dominic interrupted, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "You put a bomb beneath a ship carrying innocent people. And worse... you put a target on a five-year-old child."

Moretti blinked, confused. "A child? What child?!"

Dominic leaned over the table, pressing the cold steel barrel of his handgun directly against Moretti's forehead.

"The child who saw through your pathetic trap," Dominic growled. "Antonio, as of this second, the Moretti syndicate ceases to exist in Boston. Your docks are mine. Your accounts are seized. And your men have five minutes to leave this state before my team hunts every single one of them down."

Moretti wept, pressing his hands together. "Please, Dominic! Don't kill me! I'll give you everything! All my territory!"

Dominic looked down at the pathetic old mobster with dark disgust.

"I am not going to kill you, Antonio," Dominic said coldly. "Killing you is too quick. I am handing you over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Along with thirty years of your syndicate's financial ledgers, which Grant Keller just downloaded from your server room downstairs."

Outside the penthouse, heavy police sirens began to wail, echoing up from the street below.