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At one fifty-six, Dasha drives my blue Fiat into the lot at Belmont Harbor and parks it facing out.

“Car’s in,” Leo’s voice says quietly, far away. “No movement yet.”

“Boat?” Caleb asks.

“Lyudmila’s on slip nine. Curtains drawn. Somebody’s aboard. Light’s on in the cabin.”

Natasha’s hand finds mine on the sofa and squeezes.

“Two men coming out of the boathouse,” Leo says. “Walking toward the car. Hands in their jackets.”

“Wait,” Caleb says.

I can’t breathe.

“Third man,” Leo says. “Fourth. Fifth, from the parking garage.” A pause. “Boss. There’s a van. Black, pulling up behind the Fiat. Back doors opening.”

“How many?”

“Six more. Armed. Long guns.” Leo’s voice changes. “That’s not Geoff’s people. Those are Rusakov’s.”

The open line is very quiet for one second.

Then Caleb says, “Go.”

And through the phone in my hand, I hear the first gunshot. Then the second. Then so many I can’t count them, cracking and echoing off the water.

Somebody shouts. Glass breaks.

Then the line goes dead.

CALEB

The first shot takes out the van’s windshield.

That’s Leo, from the roof of the harbor master’s office, with a rifle he’s had since we were both twenty-five. The second shot puts the driver down across the wheel. The horn starts blaring, one long, flat note, and the six men climbing out the back with long guns all turn toward the sound at once.

That’s their mistake.

I come out from behind the dumpster at the end of the boathouse with Andrik on my left and two of my men on my right. I’m already firing before the first one’s finished turning around.

I don’t think about it. I haven’t thought about this part for years. It’s arithmetic. Distance, angle, cover, count. The man nearest the van goes down. The one behind him gets his rifle halfway up before Andrik drops him. A third runs for the boathouse door, and I put two in his back before he reaches it, because the boathouse is where they wanted my wife to walk.

Glass explodes somewhere behind me. My phone, in my jacket pocket, takes a round meant for my ribs. I feel it hit, a hard punch against my side, and the plastic shatters.

The line to Galana goes dead.

For one second, everything inside me goes cold and still.

She heard that. She heard the shooting, and then nothing.

Then a bullet chips concrete a foot from my head, and I put that away too, in the place where I keep everything I can’t afford to feel until later.

“Dasha?” I shout.

“Fine!” Her voice comes from inside the Fiat, low and furious. “They shot the hat!”

Two of Rusakov’s men are behind the van now, using it as cover, firing blind. Leo’s angle can’t reach them. I go wide, around the far side of the boathouse, along the edge of the dock, with the water slapping at the pilings under my feet. I come out behind them.