after his baby daughter mysteriously began sleeping peacefully for the first time since her mother died, a grieving mafia boss secretly installed a camera in her nursery to discover what was happening every night.

While peace bloomed inside the Vance mansion, the darkness of the underworld was gathering outside its gates.

Two weeks after the dock confrontation, Marco Valenti sat in a dark private room at the Back Bay Gentlemen’s Club. He was nursing a bruised pride and a broken reputation, surrounded by three of his senior captains.

Sitting across from him was a man in an expensive Italian suit—Julian Vance, Lucian’s estranged cousin. Julian was a greedy, bitter man who had been passed over for leadership of the Vance organization five years ago.

"Lucian has completely lost his mind," Julian sneered, swirling his whiskey glass. "He moved a maid and her three-year-old bastard into the family suite. He spends his afternoons playing with toy puppies in the garden instead of running the family."

Valenti leaned forward, his gold tooth flashing under the low lights. "A maid’s child? Lucian Vance is softening over a kid?"

"He treats her like his own daughter," Julian laughed bitterly. "The whole estate is talking about it. The ruthless king of Boston is buying stuffed rabbits and drinking juice boxes."

Valenti’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure, malicious malice. "A man who loves something is a man who can be broken, Julian."

"What are you thinking?" Julian asked, his interest piqued.

"Lucian’s estate is a fortress," Valenti said, laying his large, hairy hands flat on the table. "We can't breach the perimeter without a hundred men. But tomorrow is the anniversary of his wife’s death. Lucian visits the cemetery in Brookline every year at sunset. Alone."

Julian smiled, a wicked, cold expression. "And he leaves the estate's rear gate open for his personal motorcade."

"No," Valenti corrected, a sickening grin spreading across his face. "He doesn't take the kid to the cemetery. He leaves the little girl at home with her mother and a light security detail."

Valenti tapped his heavy gold ring against the table. "We don't attack Lucian at the cemetery. We breach the West Gate while he’s gone. We take the maid's kid. And then Lucian hands over the entire harbor, or he watches his precious new little daughter die on live video."