In front of seventy employees, my mafia boss's jealous fiancée grabbed my hair and cut off the braid I'd grown for years to honor my dead grandmother.

The retaliation came faster than even Adrian’s network anticipated.

At 3:14 AM, the city skyline across the East River erupted in a violent pillar of orange flame.

I stood beside Adrian on the penthouse balcony as the concussive thump rattled the reinforced glass panes. The Cole family's primary distribution depot in Queens—a hub that processed sixty percent of the legitimate pharmaceutical freight masking Adrian’s secondary enterprises—was reduced to twisted rebar and ash.

Adrian didn’t flinch, but his phone buzzed in his hand. It wasn't Marcus. It was an unlisted satellite frequency.

Adrian tapped the speaker. "Speak."

A low, melodic chuckle slithered through the speaker, accompanied by the distinct crackle of burning timbers and the agonized groans of wounded men.

"Hello, little brother," a voice purred. It sounded like Adrian’s, but warped—stripped of all restraint, drenched in theatrical malice. "Did you miss me? Naples was so terribly humid, but New York... ah, New York smells like fresh gasoline."

Adrian’s thumb tightened against the titanium frame. "You burned a warehouse full of civilian drivers, Julian. You haven't evolved past a street arsonist."

"Those weren't drivers, brother. Those were witnesses," Julian drawled. "And don't flatter yourself. That wasn't a tactical maneuver. That was a calling card. But I must confess, I didn't call to hear your self-righteous scolding. Put the little maid on the line."

My breath hitched in my throat. Adrian stepped in front of me instinctively, his body shielding me from the open air. "You touch a single hair on her head and I will skin you in the public square."

"Too late, Adrian," Julian laughed softly. "I hear someone already gave her a haircut. Such a shame. A girl from the gutter playing Queen of the Cole syndicate? When my men breached your depot, we found the wire logs. She blocked my Swiss deposit. Very clever. Very bold."

Julian’s tone shifted, dropping into an intimate, venomous whisper directed straight at me.

"Listen to me closely, little Elena. My brother thinks he saved you from a broom closet. But all he did was move you to the top of my butcher’s block. I left a gift for you at your grandmother's memorial garden in Brooklyn. Go see what happens to things you love when you interfere with grown men."

*Click.*

The line went dead.

"Marcus!" Adrian roared, turning toward the interior. "Mobilize the armored convoy! Now!"

"Adrian, wait—" I gasped, horror seizing my chest. My grandmother. Her ashes were interred in the quiet cemetery off Prospect Park. "He couldn't have..."

"He could," Adrian snarled, grabbing two customized SIG Sauer pistols from the concealed wall armory and strapping them beneath his coat. "Julian doesn't make empty threats. He desecrates. He breaks spirits before he takes lives."

Forty minutes later, under a heavy downpour that slicked the asphalt of Brooklyn, four black SUVs skidded to a halt outside the wrought-iron gates of St. Jude’s Cemetery. Adrian’s security detail swept the perimeter with thermal scopes, sweeping flashlights through the weeping willow trees.

"Clear," the point man signaled.

Adrian took my hand, his grip crushing, pulling me along the stone path toward the humble granite niche where my grandmother’s urn rested.

When the beam of Adrian’s flashlight hit the wall, my knees buckled.

The marble niche had been smashed open with a sledgehammer. The brass urn lay dented on the muddy grass, emptied. In its place, pinned to the shattered stone with an eight-inch combat knife, was a long, braided lock of silver hair—identical to the braid Bianca had severed from my scalp weeks ago.

Scrawled in fresh blood across the white marble were four words: