I Went Back to the Mafia Boss—Then Saw the Unthinkable in His Car

The interior of the car was softly illuminated by the faint ambient glow of the dashboard lights.

Vincent was sitting in the corner of the leather seat. His coat was open. His white dress shirt was stained with dark, wet crimson across his abdomen. A blood-soaked handkerchief was pressed tightly against his side, his fingers white from the strain of holding it.

In his lap lay a heavy black automatic pistol.

And sitting on the leather seat between them was a small, velvet-lined mahogany box—open. Inside lay a set of forged passports, three encrypted hard drives, and a heavily worn silver pocket watch that Nina recognized as his father's.

"Vincent!" Nina gasped, her hands immediately flying to his injury. "My God, you're shot!"

"Keep your voice down, Nina," Vincent whispered, his voice weak but steady. He reached out and gently caught her wrist. "The driver... Viktor is up front. He's hit in the arm, but he's okay."

Nina looked toward the front seat. Viktor turned around, his face pale, a crude bandage wrapped tightly around his left shoulder, holding the steering wheel with his right hand.

"Miss Carver," Viktor said quietly. "We were ambushed at the warehouse in Jersey. Dante."

"Dante?" Nina felt the blood drain from her face. "His own nephew?"

"He bought three of my capos," Vincent rasped, wincing as he shifted his weight. "He leaked the manifests to the marshals to create a crisis, then set up a peace meeting in Jersey to finish me off. Viktor got me out... but Dante's men are sweeping the city right now."

Nina looked at the blood spreading across Vincent’s shirt, then at the velvet box with the passports, and finally into his gray eyes.

The unthinkable wasn't just that Vincent had been betrayed and shot.

The unthinkable was that Vincent Valenti—the most powerful man in New York, the king of the underground, the man who seemed invincible—was sitting in a running car in Queens, bleeding out, with nowhere left to run.

"We have to go to a hospital!" Nina cried out, her hands covered in his blood as she pressed down on the wound.

"No hospitals," Viktor said from the front seat. "Dante has eyes at Mount Sinai, Bellevue, and Presbyterian. The moment Don Vincent’s name hits an emergency room register, Dante's hitmen will be there in ten minutes."

"Then where are we going?!" Nina demanded, tears streaming down her face.

"I am taking him to a safe house in upstate New York," Viktor said. "Far away from the city. But we need to get past the bridge checkpoints before Dante's men lock down the boroughs."

Vincent looked up at Nina, his hand trembling as he reached up to brush a wet tear from her cheek.

"I didn't mean for you to see this, Nina," Vincent whispered, his voice failing him. "I just... I wanted to see you one last time before I left. I wanted to know you were safe."

"You idiot," Nina sobbed, leaning forward and pressing her forehead against his, holding his wounded side with all her strength. "You absolute idiot. You think I'm going to let you drive off into the night to die in some cold house upstate?"

She looked up at Viktor in the rearview mirror, her eyes blazing with sudden, fierce authority.

"Drive to my brother's apartment," Nina commanded. "Leo is an ER surgical nurse at Mount Sinai. He has medical supplies, antibiotics, and surgical tools in his apartment. He can patch him up without filing a police report."

Viktor hesitated for a split second, looking at his dying boss.