My name is Dominic Romano. In New York, men knew better than to make me repeat myself.

I didn't waste time weeping or panicking. In my world, emotion got you killed; cold, surgical violence kept you alive.

I brought Grace and Nora down to my private underground vault beneath the wine cellar—a reinforced panic room with six-inch steel doors, independent oxygen, and a separate satellite uplink. I handed Grace a spare Glock 19 from my armory wall.

"Can you shoot?" I asked her, loading fresh magazines into my tactical vest.

Grace took the weapon, her hands shaking slightly, but her grip was firm, her finger naturally resting along the frame. "My father was a Chicago police officer, Mr. Romano. I know how to pull a trigger."

I looked at her deeply for the first time. She wasn't just a timid housemaid from an agency. She was calm under fire, quick-thinking, and my daughters trusted her more than they trusted the army of private security guards I’d hired.

"If anyone tries to open this door who isn't me, empty the magazine through the view slot," I told her. Then I turned to Nora, kneeling down. "Nora, look at me."

Nora’s small eyes were red, but she nodded, holding onto Grace’s hand.

"I'm going to bring your sisters back," I promised her, kissing her forehead. "I promise you, sweetheart."

"Daddy," Nora whispered, grabbing my thumb. "The man who took them... he smells like sweet tobacco. Just like Uncle Julian."

My teeth ground together so hard my jaw exposed muscle. Julian. Isabelle’s younger brother. The man I had treated like a prince, given lucrative shipping territories to, and welcomed into my home every Sunday for dinner.

I locked the vault door, entered the lock sequence, and headed straight for the garage.

I bypassed my usual luxury sedans and climbed into a matte-black armored Dodge Charger. I fired up the supercharged V8 engine, smashed through the wooden estate gate, and tore onto the highway toward Long Island City, where Julian ran an elite private yacht club and warehouse dock.

While driving at a hundred miles an hour through the evening rain, I dialed my most ruthless enforcer, Lev—a former Spetsnaz operative who handled my off-the-books wetwork.

"Dominic," Lev answered on the second ring.

"Julian traded sides," I said, my voice dripping with acid. "He snatched Olivia and Sophie from the house. He's working with the Council."

Lev was silent for a fraction of a second. "The Council has been trying to break your hold on the Brooklyn docks for six months. If they have your daughters, they will force you to surrender your entire network before they kill you all."

"Where is Julian right now?"

"My contacts at the harbor say Julian's private yacht, The Siren, just booted up its radar. They're preparing to launch from Pier 14 in twenty minutes."

"Block the harbor exits," I ordered. "And Lev?"

"Boss?"

"Leave Julian alive for me. Everyone else dies."

Twenty minutes later, the Charger screeched to a halt behind the dark, rusting industrial warehouses of Pier 14. The rain was coming down in heavy sheets, blurring the yellow sodium lights of the docks.

I stepped out into the deluge, pulling a heavy suppressor onto the barrel of my weapon. Lev and four of my best soldiers emerged from the shadows like specters, fully kitted in tactical gear.

"They have eight guards on the dock and four on the vessel," Lev whispered, pointing toward a luxury eighty-foot yacht tied to the pier. "Julian is inside the main cabin."

"No flashbangs," I warned. "My girls are in there. Silent takedowns until we breach the deck."

We moved through the rain like shadows. Lev flanked the port side, taking out two perimeter guards with swift, silent knife strikes before they could raise an alarm. I moved up the boarding ramp, snapping the neck of a third guard who turned his back to light a cigarette.

We reached the main glass doors of the upper deck cabin. Through the tinted glass, I saw Julian standing near a wet bar, pouring a glass of scotch. He was wearing an expensive cashmeres sweater, looking entirely unbothered.

Sitting on the leather sofa across from him were Olivia and Sophie. They were crying silently, clutching each other, their small bodies trembling.

Standing next to Julian was a man in a tailored dark suit, smoking a thin cigar.

Don Carmine Viti—the head of the Viti family, the oldest and most powerful faction of the New York Council.

"You're a foolish girl, Olivia," I heard Julian's voice through the cracked deck door as he turned to my eldest daughter. "If you had just stayed quiet like your mother should have, none of this would be happening."