The sound of rubber soles squeaking against polished linoleum was the only constant rhythm in the private wing of St. Jude's Hospital.

The peace they found that night was short-lived.

Within forty-eight hours of Clara's return to the estate, the Commission—the governing body of the five crime families of New York—called an emergency summit at a neutral estate in Westchester.

The war with the Russo family had increased trade across three ports, brought unprecedented FBI scrutiny to every union in the tri-state area, and cost the remaining families tens of millions of dollars in frozen assets. They didn't care who had started the war; they only care that Dante Marino ended it with a sledgehammer instead of a contract.

Dante stood at the head of a massive mahogany conference table. Surrounding him were four elderly men in tailored suits, their faces like carved granite, flanked by their respective underbosses and lieutenants.

Don Carmine Lucchese, the eighty-year-old chairman of the Commission, tapped his gold signet ring against his water glass.

"You've gone too far, Dante," Lucchese said, his voice like dry leaves dragging across pavement. "Staten Island is burning. The feds are putting wiretaps on our garbage contracts. And all because of a girl who isn't even bloody."

Dante leaned his palms on the table, bending down until he was at eye-level with the oldest boss in the city.

"That girl saved the life of Rosa Marino," Dante said, his tone dropping into an icy register that made the lieutenants behind Lucchese shift their weight nervously. "And the Russo family broke the law. They put a sacred laser sight on my mother's chest. If I hadn't wiped them out, every single one of you would be wondering if your wives and daughters were next."

"We understand revenge, Dante," Lucchese replied coldly. "What we do not understand is vulnerability. You've brought this therapist into your house. You're moving her into Oyster Bay. You're making her your weakness."

"She isn't my weakness," Dante said smoothly, pulling a thick folder from his coat pocket and tossing it onto the table. "She's my reason for taking control of the entire port authority by Friday."

Lucchese opened the folder. Inside were signed deeds, dock unions' voting pledges, and international shipping concessions—an economic monopoly over the Brooklyn waterfront that the Commission had been trying to secure for twenty years.

"How did you get this?" Lucchese asked, his eyebrows rising in genuine surprise.

"I bought it with the money I took from the Russo family's corpse," Dante said, stepping back from the table and buttoning his jacket. "Here is my proposition: I take over the Russo territory entirely. I give the Commission forty percent of the port revenues. In exchange, the four families sign a binding decree."

"What decree?" Lucchese asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Clara Hughes and Rosa Marino are declared untouchable ," Dante said, his eyes scanning every face in the room like a hawk looking for prey. "If a single member of any family speaks her name, looks at her house, or crosses her path with bad intentions, I won't go to the Commission for a vote. I will destroy that family down to its third generation. Do we have an agreement?"