The maid’s toddler said a man with your face followed me, and the mafia boss realized his family had buried a living brother

The sea was rough, high waves slamming against the hull of the Black Falcon as the forty-foot high-speed boat cut through the dense fog toward Block Island.

Vincent stood at the helm, his knuckles white against the wheel, his eyes fixed on the radar screen. Beside him, Evan sat in the navigator's seat, holding a tactical shotgun across his knees.

"You like her," Evan said suddenly over the roar of the twin engines.

Vincent didn't look away from the water. "Who?"

"Savannah," Evan said, a faint smile touching his lips. "I watched the way you looked at her in the clinic. You don't look at employees like that, Vincent."

"She's a good woman," Vincent said flatly. "She's had a hard life, and she's doing everything she can to take care of her daughter."

"She looks at you the same way," Evan noted. "Four years ago, you didn't let anyone get close to you. You were too busy building an empire."

"After you died, the empire didn't mean anything," Vincent said quietly, his voice carrying a raw, painful truth across the engine noise. "I spent four years believing I failed you. I sat in that massive house every night, surrounded by millions of dollars, feeling like a ghost."

Evan looked down at his blood-stained hands, guilt darkening his features. "I'm sorry, Vin. I thought I was keeping you safe."

"Don't apologize," Vincent said, turning his head to look at his brother. "Just help me finish this tonight so we can go home."

Ten minutes later, the dark outline of the Block Island bluffs emerged from the fog.

The old lightkeeper's cottage sat on a narrow stone cliff overlooking the crashing waves of the Atlantic. The windows were dark, but on the gravel path below the cliff, a single black SUV sat idling, its headlights cutting through the mist.

"Vance is already inside," Evan warned, racking the slide of his shotgun.

Vincent brought the boat into a hidden cove beneath the bluffs, cutting the engines. The two brothers stepped out onto the slick, wet rocks, moving silently up the narrow stone staircase carved into the cliff face.

At the top of the bluff, the front door of the old cottage hung open, its lock shattered by a heavy crowbar.

Vincent raised his pistol, stepping through the threshold first, his boots making no sound against the worn floorboards. Evan followed right behind him, covering his rear.

Inside, the cottage was ransacked. Furniture was overturned, paintings ripped from the walls, and floorboards pried open near the cold stone fireplace.

Standing near the center of the room, holding a heavy iron crowbar and a lit flashlight, was Richard Vance.

He was sixty-two years old, silver-haired, impeccably dressed in a tailored wool coat, his face pale with exertion. Sitting on the floor before him was a small, rusted steel vault with a complex double-key rotary lock.

Vance turned around at the sound of footsteps, his flashlight beam swinging wildly until it illuminated the two men standing in the doorway.

When the light caught Evan's face, Vance gasped, dropping the flashlight onto the floorboards.