Three hundred guests watched the fiancée of New York's most feared mafia boss swing her jeweled heel toward my leg, trying to send me crashing into a tower of champagne glasses

The rage that surged through me was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It wasn't the fiery anger that makes a person scream; it was a profound, arctic stillness that crystallized every nerve in my body.

Alexander stared at the blank screen, his jaw clenched so hard a vein bulged on his temple. He slammed his fist into the steel door, denting the metal.

"Marcus!" Alexander roared into his radio. "Report! Status on the penthouse!"

Static crackled over the frequency. Then, a weak, groaning voice answered.

"Boss... they used smoke grenades through the HVAC vents... knocked out the security team... Dr. Chen is down... they took the boy. They took Mateo."

Alexander turned to me, his dark eyes filled with a rare, agonizing guilt. "Sophia... I am so sorry. I promised you—"

"Save it," I interrupted, my voice flat, devoid of emotion. "Guilt won't bring my brother back. Where would Victor take him?"

Alexander swallowed, nodding once as he reined in his emotions. "Victor owns three private docks in Brooklyn. But only one has deep-water clearance and private shipping containers registered under his shell companies. Pier 42."

"Then that's where we're going."

"It's a fortress, Sophia," Alexander warned, reloading his weapon with lethal efficiency. "He’ll have at least thirty heavily armed mercenaries waiting for us. It’s an execution ground."

"He has thirty men," I said, reaching behind my back to draw the twin rattan sticks Alexander had brought me, sliding them into concealed sheaths along my spine. "I only need my hands."

Ten minutes later, we broke through the museum’s service gate and commandeered a high-performance sports car from the parking garage. Alexander drove like a man possessed, weaving through midnight traffic across the Manhattan Bridge toward the industrial wastelands of the Brooklyn waterfront.

Rain began to fall in heavy, blinding sheets. The sky rumbled with distant thunder.

"If you go in there, Sophia, there is no coming back to your old life," Alexander said quietly as the windshield wipers slapped violently against the glass. "Once you cross this line, the underworld will know who you are. You will never just be Miguel Reyes’s quiet daughter again."

"My father died hiding who he was because he wanted us to live normal lives," I replied, staring out at the dark waters of the East River. "Look where that got him. Dead at forty-eight, and his children hunted like animals. If being quiet means watching my brother die, then I will make this city burn."

Alexander looked at me, a profound respect softening the hard edges of his face. He reached out and covered my hand with his.

"Then we burn it together."

The car skidded to a halt two blocks from Pier 42.

The pier was a maze of rusted shipping containers, towering cranes, and halogen floodlights that buzzed against the rain. Armed guards patrolled the chain-link fences with assault rifles and German Shepherds.

In the center of the pier sat an open-ended cargo warehouse. Parked inside was Victor Lane’s black limousine.