The silence that fell over the kitchen was absolute, heaviest and far more dangerous than the silence that had haunted the halls of my Long Island estate for the past fourteen months.

I stepped out of the nursery, sliding the heavy oak door shut behind me, and locked it from the outside with the master key.

The house was dark, illuminated only by the faint gray dawn filtering through the high arched windows of the grand staircase.

Below, in the foyer, heavy boot steps crunched over shattered glass.

"Clear the ground floor!" a harsh voice with a thick Brooklyn accent ordered from the hallway. "Dominic is alone! Marco said the guards are locked up! Find him and put five rounds in his head!"

I crouched behind the thick marble balustrade at the top of the stairs, rested the barrel of my tactical rifle between two carved pillars, and took a deep, slow breath.

There were four men moving through the foyer below, wearing dark tactical coats, carrying suppressed submachine guns.

They moved with discipline, but they were arrogant. They thought they were hunting an aging mob boss trapped in a mansion with three helpless children.

They didn't know they were dealing with a father who had just heard his daughters speak his name for the first time in over a year.

I pulled the trigger.

TAT-TAT-TAT!

The burst of 5.56mm rounds tore through the lead hitman's chest, dropping him instantly onto the marble floor before he could even raise his weapon.

The remaining three men dived behind the antique mahogany tables and stone pillars, opening fire upward.

TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK!

Plaster and marble dust exploded around me in a blinding white cloud as automatic fire chewed through the balustrade.

I didn't stay in one spot. I rolled backward onto the carpeted hallway, moved twenty feet to the left behind a massive bronze statue of an eagle, and rose up to fire another concentrated burst down into the dining room.

A second hitman screamed as my rounds found his shoulder and neck, collapsing backward through the glass dining table.

"He's on the east balcony!" a voice shouted from below. "Flank him from the back stairs!"

I pulled a tactical flashbang grenade from my vest, pulled the ring with my teeth, and tossed it down into the center of the foyer.

BANG-FLASH!

A blinding white light and a deafening, 130-decibel shockwave erupted through the enclosed space.

Before the smoke could clear, I moved over the balcony rail, dropping ten feet straight down onto the marble floor, landing in a low roll. I came up firing, catching the third hitman as he stumbled blind and distracted out from behind a pillar, taking him down with two precise shots to the center mass.

The fourth man ran for the front door, realizing the hunting party had become the prey. I tracked his back through my iron sights and pulled the trigger once. He crumpled onto the front steps, his weapon clattering into the snow outside.

Silence fell over the foyer, heavy, hot, and smelling of burnt gunpowder and copper.

I reloaded my rifle with a fresh thirty-round magazine, my heart beating with a calm, terrifying precision.

Four down.

I walked briskly toward the back of the house, my ears tuned to every creak of the floorboards.

As I approached the entrance to the basement kitchen, a sudden, heavy blow struck me from behind the pantry door.

A heavy iron bar slammed across my rifle, tearing the weapon out of my hands and sending it spinning across the tile floor.

I stumbled sideways, my shoulder crashing into the commercial refrigerator.

Standing in the kitchen doorway was Leo Moretti—the sixty-year-old underboss of the Moretti crime family. He was a massive, bear-like man with a scarred face, holding a heavy .45 caliber pistol pointed directly at my chest.

Behind him stood two more armed soldiers.

"End of the line, Dominic," Leo sneered, his yellowed teeth flashing in the dim light. "You fought well for an old man, but Marco's deal is done. The Romano family ends today."

I stood up slowly, wiping a line of blood from my lip, leaning my back against the counter.

I didn't look at his gun. I looked into his eyes.

"You killed Isabelle," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion.

Leo smirked, taking a step closer, raising his weapon to line up with my forehead. "She was a foolish woman who put her nose into business that didn't concern her. And now you're going to join her in the dirt."

"You forgot one thing, Leo," I said softly.

"What's that?" Leo sneered.

"You brought eight men to my house," I whispered. "I brought forty."

Before Leo could process the words, the massive reinforced glass windows of the kitchen exploded inward.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A tactical assault team dressed in midnight-black uniforms, bearing the insignia of the Syndicate's high-level enforcement division, poured into the kitchen through the broken windows and rear doors.

I had triggered the secondary emergency beacon on my desk forty minutes ago—a beacon that summoned my most elite loyalists from across Long Island directly to my home.

TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

The kitchen erupted into gunfire.

Leo's two guards were cut down in less than two seconds. Leo screamed, dropping his weapon like a round caught him in the knee, knocking him to the floor.

My loyal captain, Frank, stepped through the smoke, holding a smoking assault rifle. He looked at me, then looked at Leo writing on the floor.

"Boss," Frank said, raising his hand in a sharp salute. "The perimeter is clear. We took out their vehicles down the road. The estate is secure."

I walked over to where Leo Moretti lay bleeding on the tile floor. I picked up his fallen .45 pistol from the ground, checked the magazine, and stood over him.

"Dominic... wait!" Leo gasped, clutching his shattered knees, his face pale with terror. "We can talk! The Commission... we can settle this!"