His children were screaming at 3 a.m. when the mafia boss opened the nursery door and saw what the nanny was really doing

The shipyard was a labyrinth of rusting steel, abandoned cranes, and rotting timber.

The rain had turned into a driving squall, whipping the gray water of the Kill Van Kull into whitecaps that crashed against the decaying piers. Sleet stung the skin like needles.

Vincent moved through the maze of stacked shipping containers like a phantom native to the dark. He knew the docks. He had grown up on these piers, learning the hollow acoustics of empty freight containers before he was old enough to drive.

To his right, Hannah moved even faster. She was lower to the ground, sliding between narrow gaps with zero wasted motion, carrying an integrally suppressed Heckler & Koch MP5.

"Two scouts advancing down the central alley," Hannah’s voice whispered through Vincent’s tactical earpiece. "Point man has thermal goggles. Take him first."

Vincent rounded the corner of a rusted yellow container. Through the sleet, he saw the silhouette of a man holding an assault rifle, the green glow of night-vision gear strapped to his helmet.

Vincent didn't hesitate. He raised the Benelli and fired two rounds of heavy buckshot.

The roar of the shotgun was swallowed by the booming thunder above. The point man was lifted off his feet, crashing backward into the mud. Before the second scout could bring his weapon up, three suppressed rounds from Hannah’s submachine gun tore through his chest, dropping him without a sound.

"Clear," Hannah whispered, stepping over the fallen man, stripping two spare magazines from his tactical vest in a single, fluid motion.

"Three more flanking from the waterside," Vincent said, checking the tactical feed on his wrist monitor. "They’re trying to encircle the pump station."

"Let them try," Hannah replied. "I rigged the fuel barrels near the eastern pier with remote detonators before we went inside."

Vincent looked at her through the rain. "When did you have time to do that?"

"While you were making coffee," she said, deadpan.

A volley of automatic gunfire suddenly erupted from the shadows ahead. High-caliber rounds chewed into the steel container beside Vincent’s head, showering him in sparks and shredded rust.

Vincent ducked, dropping to one knee, returning fire with the shotgun. The deafening booms echoed through the shipyard, driving the attackers behind a row of concrete barriers.

"Suppressing fire!" a voice shouted through the storm—Salvatore’s voice. "Flush them out! I want Vincent’s head on the dock before the sun comes up!"

"Sal!" Vincent roared back, his voice cutting through the wind like a battle horn. "You should have stayed in Bay Ridge!"

"You're done, Vincent!" Salvatore yelled from behind the cover of a massive crane footing. "The Commission won't save you! Once you’re dead, the harbor belongs to me! And your brats will spend the rest of their short lives in a shipping container on their way to South America!"

The mention of his children snapped the last tether of Vincent’s restraint.

He lunged from cover, pumping round after round into the concrete barrier, forcing Salvatore’s gunners to duck. A mercenary leaned out to line up a shot on Vincent’s exposed chest, but Hannah was already there.

She vaulted onto the hood of an abandoned forklift, took aim, and fired a double-tap directly through the mercenary’s neck. As the man fell, she dropped from the forklift, grabbed his fallen rifle by the sling, and spun, firing a full-auto burst into the secondary flank, dropping two more men into the freezing mud.

"Hannah! Move!" Vincent shouted.

A heavy-caliber sniper round cracked from the crane tower above, striking the concrete inches from Hannah’s boots, showering her with stone fragments. She rolled behind a stack of wooden pallets just as a second round splintered the timber above her head.

"Sniper at twelve o'clock high," Hannah breathed into the comms, her breath ragged. "Fifty-caliber. I'm pinned."

Vincent glanced up through the driving rain. The sniper was perched eighty feet up on the maintenance platform of a rusted gantry crane, perfectly positioned to control the entire yard.

Vincent discarded the empty shotgun, drew his Glock, and looked at Hannah.

"Can you reach the crane controls?" Vincent asked.

Hannah looked across twenty feet of open mud to the generator housing at the base of the tower. "If you give me three seconds of cover."

"I’ll give you five," Vincent said.

He stepped out into the open, raising both arms, firing deliberately into the upper platform of the crane. The muzzle flashes drew the sniper’s fire instantly. A heavy round ripped through Vincent’s tactical jacket, grazing his left shoulder, the kinetic impact spinning him half-around, searing pain exploding down his arm.

Vincent didn't stop. He fired again.

In those three seconds, Hannah crossed the mud like a streak of lightning. She reached the generator housing, hit the manual emergency override, and triggered the crane’s massive industrial halogen floodlights.

Ten thousand lumens of blinding white light blasted directly into the crane tower, completely blinding the sniper’s night-vision optics.

A strangled cry echoed from above as the sniper ripped the burned-out goggles from his face. Hannah didn't wait. She shouldered her rifle, aimed straight up into the glare, and fired three steady, single shots through the steel grating.

A heavy thud followed. Then silence.