A seven-year-old boy stopped me outside school and asked me to walk him home because “nobody believes me.” He had no idea I was Dante Moretti—known in certain circles as “The Wolf,” the man who controlled half the city’s underground empire—but when he opened his front door, I recognized something inside that house connected to a betrayal my organization had been hunting for years.

The central processing tower of the grain facility was an eight-story cavern of rusted steel walkways, dangling chains, and massive iron hoppers hanging over a fifty-foot drop.

I carried Owen through the secondary catwalks, keeping him behind my body as the sound of Vincent’s gunbattle raged on the lower levels.

Suddenly, a heavy spotlight snapped on from the upper gantry, blinding me with a harsh, white glare.

"End of the line, Dante!" Marco’s voice boomed down from the top platform.

I adjusted my position, pulling Owen behind a thick steel beam. I looked up through the glare. Marco stood on the high gantry forty feet above us, holding a heavy detonator switch in his right hand. Two mercenaries stood beside him with automatic rifles.

"You should have stayed retired in your mansion, Dante," Marco yelled down, his voice laced with manic desperation. "You built this city, but you forgot how to keep it! Arthur and I spent six years setting up this transition! The Russians offered us fifty percent of the entire Midwest shipping corridor!"

"You sold your brotherhood for thirty pieces of silver, Marco," I called back, my voice calm, steady, echoing off the steel walls like thunder. "How does it feel to know you're just a foot soldier for Brooklyn?"

"I’m the boss now!" Marco roared, raising the detonator. "I have the keys! I have the ledger! And in thirty seconds, this whole structure goes into the river with you and the kid inside it!"

Before Marco could press the red trigger on the console, a sharp, suppressed gunshot cracked from the dark shadows behind him.

The mercenary standing on Marco’s left slumped over the railing, falling forty feet onto the concrete floor below.

Marco spun around in shock.

Stepping out of the darkness of the top crane platform was Vincent Caruso. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his suit coat torn, but his eyes were fixed on Marco with pure, lethal focus.

"You forgot one detail, Marco," Vincent said quietly as he stepped closer.

"Caruso..." Marco stammered, backing toward the edge of the catwalk. "You... you were supposed to be dead at the gate!"

"I don't die easily," Vincent replied. "And you left your silver lighter on my sister’s table."

Marco panicked, raising his pistol toward Vincent’s chest.

Vincent didn't flinch. He fired three rapid shots. The first struck Marco’s wrist, sending the detonator flying off the catwalk into the darkness below. The second hit Marco’s shoulder, dropping him to his knees.

Marco clutched his bleeding arm, staring up at Vincent in sheer terror. "Vincent... wait! We can share the cut! I have forty million in a Zurich account under your name—"

"I don't want your money, Marco," Vincent said, standing over him. "I want my name back."

Vincent looked down at me on the lower platform, nodding once.