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

Only Salvatore Vane remained.

The sleet was turning into heavy snow, dusting the bodies and the blood across the gravel lot with a deceptive blanket of white.

Salvatore stood trapped at the end of Pier 4, the freezing waters of the bay churning violently behind him. His tactical jacket was torn, his ammunition spent, holding only a silver-plated Colt .45 with shaking hands.

Vincent walked toward him, his heavy boots crunching on the gravel. Blood dripped from Vincent’s left sleeve, staining the snow, but his face was completely devoid of pain. He looked like an ancient executioner arriving to settle a debt centuries in the making.

Hannah walked four paces behind him, rifle lowered but ready, watching the perimeter like a hawk.

"Vincent," Salvatore gasped, backing up until his heels hit the wooden edge of the pier. "Listen to me... listen to me, brother."

"Don't call me brother," Vincent said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Brothers don't slip poison into a woman’s morning tea."

Salvatore’s eyes darted toward the water, then back to Vincent’s gun. Panic, raw and ugly, twisted his aging face. "She was changing you, Vincent! She was turning you soft! You were talking about selling the ports, going legitimate, pulling out of the unions! My whole life was tied to that business! My father died for this family!"

"And you killed my wife for a balance sheet," Vincent said.

"I didn't want to hurt the kids!" Salvatore cried, his voice cracking into a desperate whine. "I was going to send them away! To a private school in Switzerland! They would have been taken care of!"

"They were terrified, Sal," Vincent whispered, stopping five feet from him. "My five-year-old daughter was crying in the corner of her bedroom while your animals broke through her window."

Salvatore raised the Colt .45. "Stay back, Vincent! I swear to God—"

Hannah’s rifle barked once.

A single round shattered Salvatore’s right wrist. The silver Colt went spinning into the dark water below. Salvatore screamed, collapsing to his knees, clutching his ruined arm to his chest, sobbing into the freezing wind.

Vincent stepped forward, grabbed Salvatore by the collar of his expensive wool coat, and dragged him up until their faces were inches apart.

"Did she suffer?" Vincent asked, his voice shaking with a rage so profound it seemed to vibrate through the pier beneath them. "Tell me the truth, Salvatore. Did Claire suffer?"

Salvatore looked into Vincent’s eyes, saw that there was no mercy left in the universe, and gave a broken, bloody grin. "Every day for nine months, Vincent. Every single day."

Vincent didn't yell. He didn't curse.

He simply drew the ceramic blade Hannah had kicked away in the nursery—the one he had tucked into his belt—and drove it upward beneath Salvatore’s ribs, through the diaphragm, and into his black heart.

Salvatore gasped, his eyes going wide and glassy.

"One thing you should know is true," Vincent whispered into the dying man’s ear. "Daddy always comes back."