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"Thank you, Gemma," I reply with a dry smirk. "I hear you managed to tame a bear in the snow while we were away."

Victor lets out a booming laugh that shakes the crystal water glasses on the table.

"She did not tame me, little Donna," Victor rumbles, his blue eyes flashing with dangerous amusement. "She merely convinced me that working with the Sicilians is more profitable than cleaning up her bodies."

He reaches into his jacket, pulling out a heavy, leather-bound folder embossed with the gold seal of the Russian Bratva, and slides it across the glass table toward me.

Beside it, he places a cashier's check drawn from the Bank of Cyprus.

"Five million dollars, as agreed," Victor states, his voice dropping into serious business. "A personal reparations settlement paid directly into your private trust, Donna Iris, for the inconvenience my former lieutenants caused in Queens."

I reach out, my fingertips finding the smooth paper of the check, my thumb tracing the embossed numbers.

"Five million," I murmur, turning to face toward Victor's silhouette. "A fair start, Pakhan. But the port rights are what seal this deal of old bad blood."

Victor nods with genuine respect. He looks at Romeo, then at Jamie, seeing the united front between the Italian throne and the Irish docks.

"The terms are written per your cousin's demands," Victor explains, tapping the leather folder. "The Bratva relinquishes all claims to the Brooklyn piers and the New Jersey rail hubs. In exchange, the Messina and O'Connor syndicates grant my ships unrestricted transit through the Atlantic corridor, with a guaranteed forty percent of all pharmaceutical imports cleared through Boston."

Jamie leans forward, resting his forearms on the table, his green eyes narrowing.

"And the remnants of the Scottish diocese?" Jamie asks, his thick brogue cold as a winter loch. "Callum and I burned their priory in Inverness, but there are still corrupt priests hiding in Dublin and Rome."

"The diocese is finished, O'Connor," Victor replies coldly, waving a massive, scarred hand. "I cancelled their offshore letters of credit yesterday. Any priest who tries to contact my men in Europe is being handed directly to Gemma for disposal. The Russian church wants nothing to do with disgraced fanatics who lost their war."

Romeo reaches into his suit jacket, pulling out a gold fountain pen and unscrewing the cap with a sharp, metallic twist.

He swirls the fancy pen in his hand before pulling the three copies of the treaty toward him, signing his name across the bottom of each document in bold, sweeping strokes: Romeo Messina, Don.

He slides the papers to Jamie. He takes the pen, signing with the heavy, jagged script of an O'Connor patriarch: James O'Connor, Head of the Boston Brotherhood.

Then, Jamie passes the pen to me.

The room goes completely dead silent.

Victor watches with rapt attention. Gemma leans forward, her dark eyes shining with pride.

I take the gold pen in my right hand, not hesitating even for a second. I don’t ask for someone to guide my fingers over the paperwork. I use the tactile edge of the parchment that Romeo notched for me before the meeting to guide the nib against the paper.

My signature is clean, elegant, and unbroken: Iris O'Connor Messina, Donna.

Victor takes the documents last, signing with the thick Cyrillic flourish of the Bratva Pakhan, stamping each page with his wax signet ring.

"Done," Victor rumbles, leaning back and extending his massive hand across the table toward Romeo.

He grips his palm in a hard, bone-crushing handshake that seals forty years of underworld peace.

"Questa nostra cosa," Romeo says in a deep, controlled tone.

"To our thing," Victor echoes in English before turning to clink his glass with Gemma.

The meeting breaks up into low, victorious murmurs as Tony gathers the signed originals to lock into the vault downstairs. Victor and Gemma excuse themselves to the terrace to discuss flight plans for their return to Moscow, leaving the heavy scent of cigars and victory lingering in the air.

Jamie stands, walking around the table to kiss the top of my head.

"I have to get back to the docks, sis," Jamie whispers affectionately. "Elizabeth and I have two ships from Liverpool clearing customs at noon."

"Be careful, Jamie," I murmur, squeezing his wrist. "And don't let Elizabeth do all the heavy lifting."