I came home early and nearly fired the young maid I found sitting on my kitchen floor, making my three daughters laugh for the first time since their mother was murdered. But before I could throw her out, my eldest daughter grabbed my coat, looked me straight in the eyes, and spoke her first words in fourteen months: “Daddy killed Mommy.”

The interrogation room beneath the wine cellar was a box of reinforced concrete, lighted by a single bulb swinging from a cord attached to the ceiling. Water dripped rhythmically from a pipe in the corner, hitting the drain with a hollow tink... tink... tink.

Hector Mendoza was strapped to a heavy oak chair in the center of the room. His face was bloody from the warehouse fight, his long leather coat removed, his shirt torn at the shoulders.

I stood in the shadow near the door, watching him. Cassian stood beside me, holding a black leather case containing surgical scalpels, tourniquets, and industrial nerve stimulants.

Hector looked up as I stepped into the light. He spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the floor and grinned—a dark, maniacal smile.

“You’re late, Russo,” Hector croaked. “Did you like my firework show?”

I pulled a metal folding chair up, set it three feet in front of him, and sat down. I laid my hand flat on my knee, looking at him with absolute stillness.

“Where is Clara Vance?” I asked softly.

“She’s in a place where you’ll never find her,” Hector sneered. “By now, my boys have her tied to a post in an abandoned meatpacking plant in Jersey. Do you know what we do to soft little girls who work for men like you, Russo?”

I didn't lose my temper. I didn't yell. I simply raised my hand and signaled to Cassian.

Cassian stepped forward, pulled a silver syringe from the leather case, tapped the side to clear the air bubbles, and drove the needle directly into the nerve cluster on Hector’s neck.

Hector’s eyes bulged instantly. His chest heaved as a violent surge of synthetic adrenaline flooded his bloodstream, amplifying every nerve ending in his body by a factor of ten. A light brush of a feather against his skin would feel like a hot iron.

“Where is she, Hector?” I asked again, my voice smooth and level.

“Go to hell!” Hector screamed, his body thrashing against the heavy leather straps. “You killed my brother! You destroyed my family! I took your wife, and now I’m taking the only woman who can fix your broken children!”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

“You’re lying, Hector,” I said quietly.

Hector paused, his gasping breath hitching in his throat. “What?”

“You didn't kidnap Clara to hurt her,” I said, analyzing his bloodshot eyes, watching the sweat pour down his scarred face. “You kidnapped her because you needed her alive. You needed her to unlock something.”

Hector swallowed hard, his jaw clenching as he tried to hide the sudden flicker of panic in his gaze.

“You don't know anything—”

“I know everything,” I interrupted. “You didn't set up that radio relay on my fence line to scare my daughter. You set it up to send a coded signal to someone inside my house. But you didn't have a traitor among my guards, did you?”

Hector remained silent, his chest heaving violently.

“The walkie-talkie,” I continued, the pieces falling together in my mind with terrifying clarity. “The toy wasn't brought into the house by a spy. Mia found it in the playroom. But who put it in the house six months ago? Who brought a set of encrypted long-range radio toys into my home under the guise of a Christmas present?”

Hector’s skin turned from red to an ashen, ghostly white.

I stood up slowly, stepping right up to his chair, staring down into his dying eyes.

“Gabriel,” I whispered.

Hector’s breath hitched. A single tear of terror mixed with blood slipped down his scarred cheek.

“Gabriel run your intelligence network,” I said, my voice dropping into a register of terrifying realization. “He was the one who reported that your splinter groups were liquidated three months ago. He was the one who signed off on the shipping manifests at Pier 42 using Viktor’s administrative bypass codes. He brought you into New York to kill Isabella fourteen months ago, didn't he?”

Hector let out a broken, shuddering laugh.

“You... you took so long to see it, Russo,” Hector rasped, his voice trembling under the effect of the nerve stimulant. “Gabriel... Gabriel didn't want your money. He wanted your territory. He knew that if Isabella died, you would go mad with grief and burn the cartel to the ground, leaving the five boroughs open for him to take over!”

“And Clara?” I barked, grabbing Hector by his throat, squeezing until his face turned purple. “Why did Gabriel take Clara?”

“Because... because Clara’s father... was Gabriel’s old partner!” Hector gasped out, struggling for air. “She... she has the ledger! The off-shore encryption keys to Gabriel’s private accounts! Gabriel thought she was just a maid... until he saw her in your house! He realized she came here to find proof of who killed her father!”

I let go of his throat. Hector slumped forward, coughing violently, gasping for air.

I stood in the dim light of the basement, my mind burning with a white-hot, absolute rage.

Gabriel—the man who had sat at my war table for ten years, the man who had attended Isabella’s funeral and held my crying daughters—was the architect of my entire nightmare.

I turned to Cassian.

“Where is Gabriel right now?”

Cassian pulled his tablet, his hands shaking as he checked the live GPS tracking on Gabriel’s vehicle.

“His car is moving south on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway,” Cassian reported, his eyes wide with horror. “Heading toward the abandoned naval shipyard in Red Hook.”

I reached into my coat, pulled my Sig Sauer, racked the slide, and put a single, clean bullet through Hector Mendoza’s forehead.