The rhythmic tink-tink-tink of metal striking white ceramic was the loudest sound in the vast, shadowed dining room.

Vincent did not take the service elevator.

He descended the iron spiral staircase at the back of the gallery, his boots striking the steel treads with a rhythmic, measured cadence that sounded like the ticking of a doomsday clock.

I followed two steps behind him, my hands steady now, the adrenaline that had kept me alive for six hours settling into a cold, diamond-sharp clarity.

When Vincent reached the concrete floor of the gallery, the thirty capos of the Chicago underworld parted before him like water before the prow of an icebreaker. Men who had killed federal witnesses, men who ran multi-million-dollar smuggling rings along the St. Lawrence Seaway, lowered their heads as he passed, their hands held flat against their trousers in absolute, terrified submission.

Julian Vance was still on his knees.

He had wet himself; the dark stain spread across his bespoke trousers as he clawed at the polished leather of Vincent’s boots, weeping with a sound that didn't resemble anything human.

"Vincent... please... we were boys together on Taylor Street... your father... your father loved me like a son—"

Vincent didn't draw his gun.

He reached down with his massive, calloused right hand, wrapped his fingers into the collar of Julian’s four-thousand-dollar vicuña coat, and lifted the hundred-and-ninety-pound man off the floor with one arm until Julian’s toes dangled six inches above the concrete.

"My father died in that car, Julian," Vincent said, his voice so quiet, so intimate, that only the front row of capos could hear it over the ventilation fans. "You set the timer. You put the phosphorus in the fuel tank. And then you stood at his gravesite and held my mother's hand while the dirt fell on his box."

Julian’s eyes rolled back in his head, his face turning an ugly, purplish black as Vincent’s grip closed off his jugular vein. "I... I had to... the five families... they wanted... the ports..."

"The ports belong to the Morettis," Vincent whispered into his ear. "And the debt is due tonight."

Vincent did not throw him against the wall. He did not execute him with a bullet to the skull. That would have been too quick, too clean for fourteen years of manufactured agony.

He dropped Julian onto the table in front of Don Carlo like a sack of butchered meat, looked across at Marco, and gave a single, microscopic nod.

"Take him to the dry docks in Calumet," Vincent commanded. "Strip the company accounts. Liquidate the Vance biomedical assets. And when the sun comes up over the lake... make sure he is wearing his walking shoes."

Marco didn't ask questions. He and two other enforcers hauled Julian off the table by his elbows, dragging him backward through the service doors, his heels screeching against the concrete until the heavy steel hatch slammed shut behind them.

The gallery went tomb-silent again.

Vincent turned slowly, his gaze sweeping over the remaining six families seated around the U-shaped table.

"The North Side shipping lines remain under Moretti control," Vincent stated, his voice ringing off the concrete walls with absolute, sovereign authority. "The union contracts in Gary will be audited by Friday. If any man in this room has an objection to my stewardship... speak now."

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

Don Carlo Lucchese slowly smiled, his ancient face crinkling into hundreds of leathery folds, and raised his crystal glass of water in a silent, solitary toast.

"Long live the Don," the old man murmured.

"Long live the Don," the thirty capos echoed in unison, their voices thundering through the underground vault.

Vincent didn't look at them.

He turned his back on the Commission, crossed the floor to where I stood beside the iron staircase, and took my cold hand in his. His grip was warm, solid, completely devoid of the fever that had racked his frame hours earlier.

"Let's go home, Emily," he said, using his voice for only the second time in fourteen years.

"There's one more debt, Vincent," I said softly, looking up into his dark, carved face.

He paused, his brow furrowing slightly. "Who?"

"My brother," I said. "And my father."

Vincent looked at my face—at the small, pale scar near my lip where Tyler’s ring had caught me three days ago, at the bruised wrist where my father had twisted my arm to force me into the black sedan.

A slow, terrifying shadow crossed Vincent Moretti’s eyes.

"Marco," Vincent called out without looking over his shoulder.