The library had not changed since Isabelle died. That was the cruelty of it. A man who could reshape the docks, buy judges, and silence district attorneys found himself utterly powerless against a roll-top walnut desk and two rows of poetry books.

I stared at the metal drive in Grace’s hand.

"How do you know about that compartment?" I asked, my voice dangerously low.

Grace didn't flinch. She laid the drive on the mahogany surface next to Isabelle’s photograph.

"Because my brother was Vincent’s accountant," Grace said. "Two years ago, he found out what was moving through those shipping containers under your name. Not contraband. Not gambling slips. Human cargo. Girls from Eastern Europe brought in through the dry docks while you were busy expanding your legitimate construction portfolio."

The room tilted.

For twenty years, I had drawn a line. Drugs? No. Protection? Yes, but local businesses only. Gambling? High stakes, strictly regulated. Human trafficking? That was the kind of filth I executed men for. That was the line that separated Dominic Romano from the animals who ran the Lower East Side berths in the nineties.

"Vincent told me he handled the logistics," I said, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. "I signed off on the manifests because I trusted him."

"You trusted him because he shared your grandfather’s name," Grace corrected. "Isabelle didn't trust him. She found a duplicate ledger in his Manhattan office the week before she died. She copied the files onto this drive and hid them here, intending to give them to you the night of her anniversary dinner."

I remembered that night.

I had been late. A union dispute in Queens had kept me until midnight. Isabelle had left the house early to pick up dessert from a bakery in Garden City.

The shooting had happened at 9:15 AM in a crowded parking lot.

Two men on a stolen motorcycle. A helmeted rider. Three shots through the driver’s side window.

The police called it a botched carjacking.

"It wasn't a random hit," I whispered.

"No," Grace said. "It was an audit."

Olivia scrambled down from the window seat, running across the Persian rug to bury her face in Grace’s skirt. Sophie and Nora followed, wrapping their arms around Grace’s legs.

I looked at my daughters—truly looked at them—and saw the horror they had been carrying alone in their silence for more than a year. They hadn't just watched their mother die; they had been in the back seat of the station wagon when the shots were fired.

They had seen the shooter’s face through the rear window.

They had seen Vincent’s signet ring on the hand gripping the pistol.

And when Vincent came to the house the next day—bringing condolences, holding Nora in his arms, whispering that Uncle Vinnie would always take care of them—they hadn't spoken because Vincent had looked down at them with cold, dead eyes and told them that if they made a single sound about the ring, their father would be the next one to die.