“I HAVE $1.43… IS THAT ENOUGH FOR SOUP?” — THE MAFIA BOSS WENT SILENT WHEN A 5-YEAR-OLD SAID ONE LAST NAME

The battle for the estate was over in twenty-two minutes.

Valeri Petrov had expected an aging don grown complacent behind high walls and private security. He had not expected Constantine Vulov to fight like a wolf backed into a corner, with twenty years of street warfare and military precision backing every move.

By the time the remaining mercenary vehicles were hemmed in near the frozen pond, nine of Valeri’s men lay dead in the snow drifts, their weapons discarded, the rest surrounded by twenty heavily armed Vulov enforcers who had cut off their retreat through the tree line.

Constantine walked across the blood-spattered snow, his long coat trailing behind him, the barrel of his rifle smoking faintly in the freezing air. He didn't have a scratch on him, though his white shirt was blackened with powder burns and grime.

Valeri Petrov sat on his knees in the slush, his hands zip-tied behind his back, a gash across his forehead bleeding down into his eyes. He looked up at Constantine with pure venom.

“You’re a dead man, Vulov!” Valeri spat, coughing up red onto the snow. “You think you can wipe out our family and just walk away? The Chicago Commission—the Council in Moscow—they know what Clara took! They will hunt your bloodline to the ends of the earth!”

Constantine stopped two feet in front of him. He handed his rifle to Lev, who stood at his right flank.

“Your brother Yuri made the same speech,” Constantine said, his voice flat, devoid of anger, which made it infinitely more terrifying. “He made it in Geneva. He made it three hours before his car went over the cliff.”

Valeri’s eyes widened with sudden, suffocating panic. “You… you arranged the hit in Switzerland?”

“I don't leave enemies behind me, Valeri,” Constantine said. “I never have. The only reason your brother lived six years was because I didn't care enough to cross the ocean for him. But then he sent his trash to a roadside diner in upstate New York.”

Constantine drew his pistol from his shoulder holster.

“Wait! Wait!” Valeri scrambled backward on his knees, kicking against the snow. “The money! Clara’s ledger—there are three offshore accounts nobody knows about! Fifty million in bearer bonds in the Caymans! I’ll give you the routing codes! I’ll give you everything!”

Constantine looked down at the whimpering man. He thought of Maya’s dirty fingers holding out $1.43 on Helen’s greasy diner table. He thought of Clara shivering under a stained comforter in room six of a thirty-dollar motel, spitting blood into a dirty towel.

“Keep your money,” Constantine whispered.

Crack.

The single gunshot echoed across the frozen valley, swallowed quickly by the thick, falling snow.

Valeri crumpled into the red-stained drift and did not move again.

Constantine lowered the weapon, holstering it without looking down. He turned his back on the bodies, looking toward the main house where the exterior floodlights were beginning to cut through the smoke.

“Clean this up,” Constantine said to Lev. “Burn their vehicles. Take the bodies across the state line and leave them where the state troopers will find them. I want this property spotless before sunrise.”

“Yes, Boss,” Lev said, pausing for a beat. “And the child? The mother?”

Constantine looked up at the stone terrace of the house, where the heavy bunker elevator doors would soon be reopening.