PROLOGUE
RAFE
The warehouse air hung thick with salt and secrets.
It clung to everything—the walls, the floor, the back of my throat. Rust, oil, and old blood lingered beneath it, a scent so familiar it barely registered anymore.
I checked my watch: 3:27 AM. Right on schedule.
Overhead, a light creaked on its chain, swaying gently, casting long, shifting shadows against the corrugated metal.
It was quiet the way only warehouses are at night, hollow, vast, and tense with things unsaid.
My footsteps echoed sharp against the concrete, each step deliberate, like punctuation in the silence. The sound bounced back at me, circling, amplifying the weight of what I was about to do.
At the center of the room, beneath that swaying light, Giovanni Abate sat slumped in a chair.
He looked smaller than I remembered. Older.
Time hadn’t been kind to him, but tonight had been worse. His once-pristine suit, a symbol of his vanity, was wrinkled and stained, clinging to him like regret. His salt-and-pepper hair was matted with sweat, strands plastered to his forehead.
His left eye was swollen shut, a deep purple bloom spreading across his cheek. Marco’s handiwork. Efficient, as always.
I stood a few feet away, letting the silence stretch between us like a blade.
Giovanni’s chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. The faint whistle through his nose cut through the stillness.
He didn’t see me at first. Head low. Shoulders slumped. A man already half-dead.
“You know why you’re here,” I said.
Not a question.
His head jerked up, blinking through the haze. His one good eye locked on mine—bloodshot, glassy. The look of a man with no moves left.
“Rafe,” he rasped. “Please. This is a mistake.”
I didn’t answer.
Instead, I shrugged off my jacket and folded it neatly, setting it on a nearby crate. The room was cold, but I didn’t feel it.
The Beretta pressed at my spine as I rolled up my sleeves, each movement slow. Intentional.
Order, even in chaos.
That’s what separates us from animals.
Giovanni’s gaze tracked my hands. His breathing quickened.
He knew. He’d known the moment they dragged him in. Maybe before that.
“You’ve been working with the Irish,” I said, voice level. “Helping them move product through our ports. Undercutting shipments. Feeding them intel.”
His head dropped. Shoulders sagged. The weight of it crashing down.
“I didn’t?—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
