New York’s most feared crime boss slipped a gold ring onto my swollen finger and told my unconscious body, “Anybody who comes for you comes through me.”

"Boss! Dominic! Tessa!"

Enzo's voice drifted through the cracks in the collapsed concrete, muffled but desperate.

"ENZO!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, my voice cracking with desperation. "HERE! WE'RE HERE! DOMINIC IS HIT! HE’S BLEEDING OUT!"

The pounding redoubled with frantic intensity. Within two minutes, a hydraulic spreader forced a gap between two shattered slabs of concrete. Flashlights cut through the dust, followed by Enzo and three heavily armed Rossi soldiers, their faces streaked with soot and sweat.

"Jesus Christ," Enzo cursed, dropping to his knees beside Dominic’s limp body. He jammed a combat gauze pack into Dominic's side, barking over his shoulder, "MEDIC! GET THE STRETCHER DOWN HERE NOW! SECURE THE PERIMETER!"

Two combat medics rushed through the gap, immediately setting to work with intravenous lines, pressure dressings, and a portable defibrillator.

Enzo turned to me, his hands shaking as he took in the carnage around the room. He saw Falcone's dead body, the slaughtered contractors, and the blood covering me from head to toe.

"Tessa... what happened? Who were those shooters? They weren't Falcone's men."

"It was Helena," I said. My voice wasn't shaking anymore. The panic had burned away, leaving a terrifying, glacial clarity in its wake. "Falcone was just the pawn she used to get the location of the cipher. The contractors were hers. She took the master sequence files through that maintenance tunnel."

"Where does that tunnel lead?" Enzo demanded, looking toward the sealed bulkhead.

"The cove," I said, remembering what Falcone had said earlier. "The gunboats. She's heading out to sea. Probably to an offshore yacht or a private vessel waiting in international waters."

One of the medics looked up, his face grim. "He's in hemorrhagic shock, Enzo. Blood pressure is 60 over 40 and dropping. If we don't get him into a sterile operating room within twenty minutes, his organs are going to fail. We have to fly him to the private surgical suite at our Long Island compound immediately."

Enzo swallowed hard, looking at Dominic's pale, motionless face. "Understood. Move him!"

The medics lifted Dominic onto the tactical stretcher, rushing him through the narrow gap in the rubble toward the surface.

Enzo moved to follow, but I caught him by the tactical vest, yanking him back with a strength that surprised both of us.

"Enzo. Look at me."

The hardened lieutenant stopped, staring into my eyes. For the first time, he didn't see Marcus Vance's sheltered daughter. He saw the woman who had stood beside Dominic Rossi in the mouth of hell and walked out alive.

"What is the status of the Five Families?" I demanded.

Enzo hesitated. "Boss... Tessa... you don't need to worry about that right now."

"Tell me, Enzo!" I snapped, the authority in my voice cutting like a razor. "Dominic is down. If word gets out that he's in critical condition, what happens?"

Enzo’s jaw tightened. "The Lucchese and Gambino crews are already moving their soldiers toward our territory in Queens and Brooklyn. They got word of the explosion at the manor. They think Dominic is dead. They've called an emergency meeting of the Commission at a private club in Midtown for two in the morning. If Dominic isn't there to answer the roll call, they will vote to carve up the Rossi empire before dawn."

I looked down at my hands. They were covered in Dominic's blood.

I looked at the gold ring on my finger.

*If they think they can use her to dismantle you, they need to see that you and I stand together.*

"Dominic isn't going to that meeting," I said coldly. "I am."

Enzo stared at me as if I had lost my mind. "Are you insane?! You can't walk into the Commission! They are four of the most ruthless crime bosses in North America! They will slaughter you and toss you into the East River!"

"They won't touch me," I said, stepping closer to him, my voice dropping into a lethal, steady whisper. "Because I'm going to walk into that room with Dominic's signet ring, Dominic's personal guard, and the severed head of Roberto Falcone's top lieutenant. Dominic told me that in New York, strength is the only law."

I wiped the blood from my jaw with the sleeve of my coat.

"Enzo, you swore an oath to Dominic. Did that oath extend to his wife?"

Enzo stared at me, his chest heaving, the conflict warring behind his eyes. He looked at the blood on the floor, then at the ring on my hand, and finally at the absolute, terrifying resolve in my eyes.

Slowly, the veteran soldier lowered his head, pressing his fist against his chest.