THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME HIDE MY SWOLLEN FINGERS UNDER MY APRON WHILE SERVING HIS VEAL—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE CAUGHT THEM IN THE ICE CHEST LATCH,” BEFORE HE COULD EVEN SPEAK.

Fifty feet below the mansion, the Long Island shoreline carved a deep, natural cavern into the bluff—a hidden sea cave that Dante’s family had used for bootlegging during Prohibition, now reinforced with concrete bulkheads, hydraulic boat lifts, and industrial winches.

A fifty-foot black tactical launch sat idling in the slipway, its twin diesel engines rumbling in low, muffled vibrations against the rock walls.

Standing on the floating dock was Marco, holding an assault rifle, flanked by two of Dante’s most trusted lieutenants.

Beside them, kneeling on the cold wooden planks with his hands zip-tied behind his back, was Julian Vance—the data specialist who had been in the server room with Giselle.

Vance was sobbing, his glasses missing, his expensive wool coat drenched in black bilge water.

“Dante!” Vance shrieked the moment he saw our silhouettes emerge from the stone tunnel. “Dante, please! I was just a contractor! She paid me eighty thousand dollars to run the degausser! I didn't know about the harbor contract! I swear to God, I didn't know!”

Dante walked onto the floating dock, not letting go of my hand until he guided me into the sheltered passenger cabin of the launch.

He sat me down on the cushioned bench, pulled a dark wool blanket over my shoulders, and turned back to the dock.

He walked over to Vance and stopped three inches from the kneeling technician.

“Where is Giselle’s father, Julian?”

“The yacht!” Vance stammered, his teeth chattering violently. “The Crowned Lady! It’s anchored two miles offshore, just past the lighthouse outside the territorial boundary line! They have thirty armed men on board! They’re waiting for the radio signal from the house to launch the auxiliary skiffs!”

Dante looked down at the technician’s face.

“Did you wipe the drive, Vance?”

“No! No, I didn't finish!” Vance wept, pressing his forehead against Dante’s leather shoes. “The girl came in! Maya opened the door! Giselle slammed the vault shut and dropped the magnet! The drive was corrupted, but the secondary partition on the solid-state cache is still intact! The video can be recovered!”

Dante looked at Marco.

“Is the drive secured?”

“In the waterproof Pelican case in the wheelhouse, boss,” Marco answered. “And our IT unit in Manhattan already has a mirrored image running through the decryption pipeline.”

Dante turned back to Vance.

“Put him in the forward bilge,” Dante ordered casually. “If the boat takes water, let him swim.”

Two guards hauled the screaming technician across the deck and shoved him down the hatch.

Dante stepped back into the passenger cabin. He pulled off his wet tuxedo jacket, tossing it onto the table, and sat on the bench opposite me.

His shirt was smeared with black soot, and a thin graze across his left forearm was bleeding sluggishly through the white silk.

“You’re hit,” I whispered, pointing with my uninjured hand.

Dante looked down at his arm as if he had just noticed a speck of lint.

“A splinter from the doorframe. Nothing more.”

He looked at my cast.

“How is the hand?”

“It throbs,” I answered honestly. “Like someone is driving a nail into my wrist.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small amber prescription bottle, and shook two white tablets into his palm. He handed them to me along with a bottle of mineral water from the console.

“Take them.”

I swallowed the pills, washing them down with cold water.

“Mr. Caruso... what happens now? Giselle’s father has thirty men on that yacht.”

Dante leaned back against the leather bench. The dim red tactical lights of the cabin carved harsh, predatory hollows into his face.

“Julian Delacroix thinks he is attending an engagement celebration,” Dante said softly. “He thinks his daughter has neutralized my security footage and that his mercenaries have secured my estate.”

He reached out, his warm, scarred fingers gently brushing a loose strand of hair from my cheek.

“He doesn't know that my gunboats left the Brooklyn Navy Yard forty minutes ago. By the time we reach the lighthouse, the Crowned Lady will have six torpedo boats sitting on her perimeter.”