Clara Evans was still bleeding when Dominic Rossi married her.

At 11:00 p.m., the rain over Montauk Point was thick enough to swallow the light from the historic lighthouse.

The waves of the Atlantic crashed furiously against the sharp, black rocks at the edge of the abandoned commercial fishing pier. At the end of the pier, a thirty-foot wooden trawler lay idling in the dark water, its diesel engine blowing heavy clouds of grey exhaust into the freezing night air.

Inside a rusted bait shed near the foot of the pier, Victor Costa sat on an overturned wooden crate, clutching a leather briefcase containing three million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds. His face was gaunt, his eyes bloodshot, his expensive designer coat stained with mud.

Two mercenaries stood near the shed's doorway, holding automatic weapons, their eyes scanning the dark, rain-soaked parking lot.

"Is the captain ready?" Victor growled, his voice raspy with terror. "We were supposed to leave twenty minutes ago!"

"He’s checking the tide, Boss," one of the mercenaries replied, wiping rain from his eyes. "Five more minutes—"

Thud.

The mercenary stopped mid-sentence. He slowly dropped to his knees, a long, black carbon-fiber arrow buried deep in the center of his chest.

"SNIPER!" the second mercenary screamed, raising his rifle.

BANG!

A heavy .45-caliber bullet blew through the shed's wooden wall, striking the second mercenary in the temple. He collapsed sideways, his weapon clattering across the wet floorboards.

Victor shrieked in terror, dropping his briefcase, scrambling backward toward the back window of the shed.

The heavy wooden door of the bait shed was kicked off its hinges with a resounding CRACK.

Dominic Rossi walked into the shed.

He wore a dark leather trench coat, rain dripping from the brim of his black hat. Behind him stood Enzo and four Rossi enforcers, their weapons drawn, locking down every exit from the pier.

Victor cowered against the wall, reaching into his coat for a small snub-nosed revolver.

"Don't do it, Victor," Dominic said softly, his voice barely louder than the sound of the ocean waves crashing outside.

Victor’s hand froze inside his coat. He looked up at Dominic, his face contorted in a pathetic mixture of rage and terror.

"You think you've won, Rossi?" Victor spat, blood trickling from his lip. "You think taking out my family makes you king of New York? The federal task force is already at your estate! Marcus Vance knows about Arthur's girl! By tomorrow morning, your fake marriage will be splashed across every newspaper in the country, and you'll be spending the rest of your life in a federal penitentiary for kidnapping!"

Dominic slowly pulled off his wet leather gloves, tossing them onto the wooden table in the center of the room.

"Agent Marcus Vance is currently sitting in an interrogation room at the 1st Precinct," Dominic said smoothly.

Victor blinked, stunned. "What?"

"Two hours ago, my legal team presented the United States Attorney with three hours of recorded wiretaps proving that Marcus Vance accepted two million dollars in bribes from your family over the last three years to ignore your human trafficking ring in Brooklyn," Dominic explained, taking a single step toward Victor. "Agent Vance isn't investigating me, Victor. He’s currently being booked for federal corruption."

Victor’s face drained of every last drop of color. The final card he had held—the federal hammer he had hoped would smash the Rossi family—had been turned into dust before he could even play it.

"Dominic... please," Victor whimpered, dropping his gun onto the floor and raising his hands in surrender. "We can make a deal! Take the money in the briefcase! Take my docks in Staten Island! Just let me take the boat! I'll never come back to New York!"

Dominic stopped directly above the cowering crime boss. He looked down at Victor with a cold, absolute detachment that held no anger, no hatred, and no mercy.

"You sent a hitman into a hotel ballroom, Victor," Dominic said quietly. "You put seven bullets into a girl who had never done harm to a living soul in her life. You made my wife bleed."

"She was just a waitress!" Victor screamed. "She was a nobody!"

Dominic pulled his Colt .45 from his holster.

"She is a Rossi," Dominic corrected softly. "And in New York, that means she owns everything."

BANG.

The gun blast echoed across the dark waters of Montauk Point, swallowed instantly by the roaring storm.