"They beat my housekeeper nearly unconscious because she wore my family crest, then left her bleeding in the rain as a warning to me. But the men who attacked Emma Carter made one fatal mistake: they thought hurting someone under my protection would frighten me.

CRACK.

The heavy oak door splintered around its hinges under the massive impact of the ram.

CRACK.

On the second strike, the frame gave way entirely, collapsing inward with a shower of wood splinters and plaster dust.

I stepped through the ruin of the doorway, holding my silver 1911 pistol pointed down at the floor.

Lev Sokolo was backed against his heavy mahogany desk, holding a chrome revolver with trembling hands. He was thirty-five years old, thick-necked, with a shaved head and sweat pouring down his face like grease.

“Don't move!” Sokolo screamed, pointing his gun at my chest. “I swear to God, Castellano, I’ll blow a hole in your heart!”

I didn't stop walking. I didn't flinch. I kept stepping toward him, my tall frame casting a massive, terrifying shadow across his desk.

“You have six bullets in that revolver, Lev,” I said calmly, stopping three feet from the barrel of his weapon. “My men behind me have three hundred rounds. If you fire that weapon, you will not live long enough to hear the shell casing hit the rug.”

Sokolo’s eyes darted frantically past my shoulder to Marco and three soldiers standing in the doorway, their assault rifles aimed directly at his forehead.

His hands shook so violently that the barrel of his revolver rattled against his gold watch.

“You’re crazy...” Sokolo whimpered, his bravado evaporating entirely. “You brought a strike team into Brooklyn over a fucking maid?!”

My left hand moved like a striking copperhead snake.

I grabbed the barrel of his revolver, twisting it upward with brutal leverage. Bone cracked in Sokolo’s wrist as the gun was torn from his grip. Before he could scream, I drove the butt of my heavy pistol straight into his nose.

Cartilage shattered. Blood exploded from his face as he stumbled backward, crashing over his executive leather chair and hitting the hardwood floor with a heavy thud.

I stepped over his desk, standing directly above him as he clutched his broken nose, weeping in pain.

I placed the polished leather heel of my boot directly on his right wrist—right over the coiled black cobra tattoo that Emma had described.

Then I slowly leaned my body weight forward.

“AHHHH! STOP! STOP! MY HAND!” Sokolo shrieked, his fingers clawing uselessly at the rug as I crushed the delicate bones of his wrist beneath my heel.

“Four blocks from my house,” I whispered, leaning down so my face was inches from his bloody, tear-stained eyes. “You backed a twenty-four-year-old woman against a brick wall. You broke her ribs. You split her forehead. And you told her to bring me a message.”

Sokolo gasped for air, his face turning purple with agony. “It was Kolov! Kolov gave the order! He said... he said to mark someone from your house to test your reaction!”

“Kolov is in Miami,” I said coldly, pressing down harder with my heel until a sharp SNAP echoed through the quiet office.

Sokolo let out a high-pitched scream that ended in a desperate, ragged sob.

“I am answering the message, Lev,” I murmured, lifting my foot from his crushed wrist.

I reached down, grabbed him by the collar of his blood-stained shirt, and dragged his massive two-hundred-and-forty-pound frame across the floor like a sack of garbage.

“Where are you taking me?!” Sokolo wept, his hands hovering uselessly over his broken wrist. “Please, Castellano! I have money! Take the vault! There’s two hundred thousand in the safe!”

I didn't answer him. I dragged him through the broken office door, through the quiet gambling hall where fifty patrons watched in utter terror, and out into the rainy alleyway where our black SUV was waiting.

Marco opened the rear side door.

I threw Sokolo onto the rubber floor mat of the SUV like a butcher throwing meat onto a counter.

“Clean the basement,” I instructed Marco as I pulled a linen handkerchief from my pocket and wiped a smudge of red blood from my fingers. “Burn their ledger books. Leave the money on the tables for the patrons to steal. I want the police and the press to know this was not a robbery.”

Marco noddedgrimly. “And what about Sokolo?”