Chapter 1

"Sign it, Mom. Don't make me screw on a suppressor."

The Glock pressed hard against my forehead. The steel was ice cold.

Gideon stood in front of me. My eldest son. I spent twenty years raising him, and two months ago, I put him in the Boss's seat with my own hands.

I sat in the metal chair in the basement. I didn't flinch.

"The Black Siren got blown in half at the lake mouth at one-thirty this morning. Eighty million in guns, straight to the bottom." Gideon stared down at me. "The Five Families want blood. The High Commission gave us until dawn to hand over the rat."

"So you pinned the leak on the terminal I gave up two months ago?" I looked at him.

"Where else?" Silas sneered from the corner.

He scraped his switchblade against the floor tiles."He's the Boss now. The Calabria name can't have a Don who screws up on day one. You sat pretty for decades. Now it's your turn to take the fall."

A quiet sob broke the silence beside me.

Alessia dropped to her knees right beside me. The girl I taught to run our books. Her eyes were red, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Mom, please. Just sign it." Her voice shook, but every word cut like broken glass. "Five million is already in an offshore account. It's enough to buy a ranch in South America and live out your days. The Commission just needs a heavy name to take the blame. You take the exile, and Gideon keeps his seat. Can you really stand by and watch this family get ripped apart?"

My arm went numb where her nails dug in.

Twenty years.

I built this city's underworld on a trail of blood to hand it to them. I pulled three dying orphans out of the gutter and turned them into heirs nobody dared touch. I stepped down two months ago, and they couldn't wait to build my gallows.

"Five million," I said, looking right at Gideon. "That's what my head is worth to you?"

"Not enough?" Gideon tightened his finger on the trigger. The hammer clicked back. "Then take another way out. Commit suicide out of guilt. That way, we save the money."

I stared into his eyes. "Is this how you treat your mother?"

"You taught us yourself. A real boss never goes soft." No guilt in his eyes. Just a sick, hungry greed for that chair. He didn't even bother pretending to be my son anymore.

I closed my eyes for a beat. When I opened them, nothing was left.

"Give it to me," I said.

Alessia moved fast. She didn't even wipe her tears before shoving the exile papers across the table.

I uncapped the pen.

The second the nib touched the paper, the red alarm lights in the ceiling flared to life.

The heavy steel door hissed open. Our old butler burst into the room, face white as a sheet, clutching a tablet.

"Boss, we have a problem." The old man's voice trembled out of control. "Six black armored Suburbans just pulled up outside. The High Commission's lead enforcer is already in the main foyer."

Gideon frowned, but the gun stayed dead on my forehead. "Tell them we found the rat. She's signing the exile papers right now—"

The butler slammed the tablet onto the center of the metal table.

A red warrant glowed on the screen, surrounded by financial maps and transaction trails. Right at the top was a mugshot.

The butler looked past my shoulder. His eyes locked onto the corner, terror bleeding into his voice.

"The High Commission locked down the trail. The beacon that sold out the ship... it came from Silas's private frequency."