Chapter 1

Winter nights came early in New York. The river outside the Hudson Hotel was pitch-black, but the ballroom still blazed with light. Waiters pushed silver carts between the tables, their wheels rolling almost silently over the carpet.

Gianna picked up the place card with her name on it and set it down in front of me.

"Sit here." She signed the words slowly, as if she were afraid I'd miss them, then smiled and repeated them aloud. "You'll be closer to Mom."

I pushed the card back and caught her hand under the tablecloth.

"Together," I signed.

She understood, and her eyes crinkled as she smiled. When my family found me two years ago, plenty of people expected us to fight for our place in the family. Gianna had been part of the family for 26 years, but she was the first to learn sign language so she could communicate with me.

My mother, Sofia, slid a small plate over to me. It held a nut-free dessert. She didn't ask why I wasn't eating the prettier dessert everyone else had. My brother Nico had told her long ago that I was allergic to nuts.

In this family, my silence was never a mystery anyone had to solve. Someone always saved me a seat. Someone always remembered what I couldn't eat. Whenever someone told a joke, everyone waited until Gianna finished signing it before laughing.

When I first came home, I always sat with my back against a wall and checked to make sure the door wasn't locked. My mother had someone remove the old bolt on my bedroom door, the kind that could only be locked from the outside. She never asked me why. She simply said that anyone who lived here should be able to open their own door.

Later, Gianna tied a blue ribbon around the doorknob so I could find the handle in the dark. The ribbon was still there. I no longer needed to check the door every day, but I'd never asked anyone to take it off.

Tonight my father, Vittorio Moretti, was going to announce that our family was getting out of the illegal side of the port and casino businesses.

The invitations called it the Moretti Foundation Medical Center's annual fundraiser, but the briefcase my brother Matteo Moretti kept beside him held the trust documents.

The legitimate logistics company would continue operating. The businesses built on guns and threats would be handed over one by one.

I knew none of it was clean, and signing his name wouldn't wipe it clean. But at least my father was ready to start.

Lorenzo Moretti, my eldest brother and the underboss, stood at the entrance, his tie pulled tight around his neck. His eyes followed everyone who came through the door. Matteo sat at the lawyers' table, checking the page numbers one last time. Dante wore an earpiece and glanced up at the cameras near the ceiling every few minutes. Nico returned from the medical center's pop-up first-aid station and asked me, "Crowded in here. You doing okay?"

I shook my head. The truth was, whenever there was a crowd, the first thing I did was count the exits. Two doors on the left, one through the kitchen, windows that didn't open. Nico didn't push. He just set a glass of warm water in front of me.

Before my father went up on stage, he looked back at us. His gaze lingered on me for less time than on anyone else, as if even one extra second might make me think he was about to ask about my past again. I raised a hand and signed, "All good." He let out a breath.

He'd asked if I wanted to come tonight. I'd signed yes, but he'd still asked Gianna to double-check with me, then saved me the seat closest to an exit. My father had the power to decide other people's futures, yet he still awkwardly waited for my approval over the smallest things. I thought I understood at least a little of what it would cost him to sign everything away tonight.

The Moretti family's advisor leaned in and murmured something in his ear. All I caught was "Sicily" and "the port." My father's answer was perfectly clear. "If they have something to say, they can come to my office tomorrow. Tonight, I sign first."

The pen on stage hadn't touched the paper yet when the ballroom doors swung open.

Representatives from the eight families filed in one after another. Some brought bodyguards, others brought only lawyers, and a few stopped at the door and refused to come any farther. Luca Vitale came in last, his charcoal coat spotless. He walked right past Lorenzo and headed straight for my father.

Lorenzo moved to intercept him. Luca didn't even look at him. He simply ordered one of his men to set a wooden box in front of my father.

"Don Moretti," Luca said, "if you're going to change the rules at the New York docks, the least you can do is drink with your old friends first."

Inside was a bottle of aged wine from Sicily. My father didn't touch it. Luca uncorked it himself, and a waiter poured wine into nine glasses. The representatives exchanged glances before anyone reached for one.

The cork rolled to a stop by my foot.

I bent to pick it up. My fingers were still an inch away when I caught a faint, bitter smell. It wasn't the usual bitterness of wine.

At the neutral-ground clinic in Malta, I'd smelled the same thing once before, just before a man's heart rate suddenly went out of control. Dr. Rosa Galea had pulled me back and told me that if I ever smelled it again, I should check the rim of the glass first.

A film of oil clung to the side of my father's glass, so thin it was almost invisible.

Luca raised his glass, and his gaze finally settled on me. He didn't look surprised. It was as if he'd known all along that I'd be sitting there.

"Tonight," he said, "we need to decide once again who deserves to control the New York docks."

My father lifted the glass to his lips.