Three gold coins lay on the marble table when I told my maid’s three-year-old daughter she could have any three wishes she wanted. Ellie ignored every toy around her and asked only one question: “Why does Mommy have to say sorry when she didn’t do it?” The moment she said it, I stopped looking at the child and looked at my brother Dante.

The grand foyer of the Moretti estate was bathed in the cold, white sunlight streaming through the two-story glass transom above the front doors.

I pushed the heavy oak front doors open and stepped inside.

The house was dead quiet.

The smell of rich coffee and fresh beeswax was gone, replaced by the faint, sharp stench of stale cigarette smoke and copper—the iron scent of Dante's blood that had dried on the marble floor of the dining room overnight.

Standing near the base of the grand mahogany staircase were two men I recognized—Paulie "The Nose" Rizzio and his younger brother Frankie. They were enforcers for the Newark local, heavy-set men in expensive leather jackets, their hands tucked deep into their pockets where the bulges of heavy handguns were clearly visible.

They looked at me as I walked into the hall, their expressions tense, their boots shifting on the polished floor.

"Vince," Paulie said, taking a half-step forward. "You shouldn't be here, man. Dante said—"

"Where is he, Paulie?" I asked, my heavy coat unbuttoned, my arms hanging loosely at my sides.

"He's upstairs in the library with the lawyers," Paulie said, swallowing hard. He had known me for twenty years; he had seen me handle trouble on the docks before I retired. He wasn't eager to see what happened next. "Look, Vince... we don't want no trouble with you. Dante showed us the paperwork. He's got the power of attorney. He's the boss of the firm now."

"A piece of paper doesn't make a man a boss, Paulie," I said, walking right past him toward the stairs.

Paulie reached out a hand to touch my shoulder. "Vince, wait—"

I turned with lightning speed, my left hand catching his wrist, twisting it outward until his joints popped, while my right hand pulled the Sig Sauer P226 from my waistband and pressed the heavy steel barrel directly under his chin.

Frankie reached for his coat, but stopped instantly as the sharp click of my gun's hammer being cocked back rang through the quiet foyer.

"Don't do it, Frankie," I said softly, my eyes fixed on Paulie's sweating face. "You have three kids in Jersey City. Don't die in my hallway for a man who steals from his own blood."

Paulie's breath came fast and shallow, his eyes wide with absolute terror. "Frankie... don't! Don't touch it!"

Frankie slowly raised his hands, stepping back until his spine pressed against the mahogany wood paneling of the wall.

I lowered the gun from Paulie's chin, pulled his heavy snub-nosed revolver from his shoulder holster, and tossed it into the large decorative umbrella stand near the door. Then I reached into Frankie's coat, pulled out his weapon, and dropped it into the stand beside the first.

"Go back to Jersey," I told them flatly. "Tell the local that Dante is done."

Paulie didn't ask questions. He grabbed his brother by the arm, and the two of them sprinted out the front doors into the blinding white snow outside, slamming the heavy oak doors shut behind them.

I stood alone in the grand foyer.

I looked up the long, curved mahogany staircase toward the second-floor gallery.

From the end of the hall, near the double doors of the estate's private library, came the sound of a raised voice—Dante, shouting at someone on a telephone.

I uncocked the hammer of the Sig Sauer, slipped it back into my waistband, and walked slowly up the stairs.

Every step felt light. The heavy, suffocating weight that had rested on my chest for seven years—the grief that had turned me into a ghost living in a dark house—was completely gone.

I wasn't a mourning father hiding from the world anymore.