It doesn't knock first.
Rocco walks in. He isn't wearing a suit jacket. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing the tattoos on his forearms—ink that tells the story of every man he’s hurt and every prison sentence he’s served. He looks pale. Not sick—Rocco doesn't get sick—but shaken. His jaw is locked so tight I can see the muscle jumping beneath the skin.
The room goes dead silent. The air pressure drops. Rocco doesn't interrupt board meetings unless someone is dead or the building is on fire.
"Everyone out," I say.
They scramble. Papers are gathered, laptops snapped shut. In thirty seconds, the room is empty.
"What is it?" I ask. I stand up, buttoning my jacket. "Did Volkov hit a shipment?"
"It’s worse," Rocco says. His voice is tight, strangled.
"What could be worse?"
"It’s Marco."
The name hits me in the chest like a physical blow. Marco Vitelli. My driver. The man who has driven me every day for three years. Quiet. Loyal. He has a wife in Queens and a kid on the way. He held the door for me this morning. He nodded and saidgood morning, Mr. Falconewith the same steady reliability he brings to everything.
"What about him?"
"He didn't show up for his shift this morning. We tracked his phone to the warehouse on Pier 7." Rocco swallows hard. "Ale, you need to come. Now."
I walk around the desk. "Is he alive?"
Rocco shakes his head. "No. And it’s... it’s bad."
The driveto the warehouse is a blur.
Rocco drives. He grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are white. He doesn't speak. The silence in the car is heavy,suffocating. I stare out the window at the grey city, at the rain slicking the streets, and I feel a cold knot of dread tightening in my stomach.
Pier 7. One of our secure facilities, used for moving high-value shipments off the docks. It should be empty.
Instead, it’s swarming with our men. Unmarked cars are parked haphazardly around the entrance. Men in leather jackets and shoulder holsters are standing guard, smoking nervously. When they see my car approach, they straighten up. They look scared.
We park. I get out. The air smells of brine and old oil and the metallic tang of fear.
I walk toward the warehouse entrance. The men part like the Red Sea. They don't look me in the eye. They look at the ground. They look at their shoes.
I step inside.
The warehouse is massive, cavernous. The high ceilings are lost in shadow. Dust motes dance in the shafts of light coming through the high windows. The smell hits me instantly—copper and rot.
Marco is lying on a sheet of plastic tarp in the center of the floor.
He is unrecognizable.
His face has been destroyed. The orbital bones are shattered. His nose is gone, reduced to a pulp of cartilage and blood. His hands are zip-tied behind his back, the plastic cutting deep into the wrists, turning the skin purple. His shirt has been ripped open, revealing a torso that is a map of purple and black bruising.
I stop three feet away. I force myself to look. Not at the horror of it, but at the data. I shut down the part of my brain that wants to scream and turn on the part that analyzes.
Systematic beating. Blunt force trauma. Left-side dominance.
"Who found him?" I ask. My voice sounds hollow in the massive space.
"Night watchman," Rocco says. He’s standing behind me, vibrating with rage. "Found him like this an hour ago."
"And the signature?"
