“Prison transpo is four minutes out,” Ace announced in my earpiece through a secure line. “Two prison guards will be escorting Esposito from the van, and two courthouse guards will meet them at the door.”

“Nico, you in position?” Dad asked.

“Ready and standing by.”

We’d received information that the transpo van would be dropping Esposito off at the back entrance to the courthouse in order to avoid the media frenzy swarming the front steps of the building. Cris, Dad, and Luka were already inside. Ace was set up with all the camera feeds and various tech back in the SUV we took here, monitoring the situation from all angles. And Rome was hunkered down with his sniper rifle in the building across the street in case shit got real.

“As I suspected, Esposito’s crew is everywhere,” Dad murmured in my ear. “Benito has soldiers patrolling every inch of the building.”

“And the street,” Rome added. “More than just Esposito soldiers, too.”

“You know they’ll all be packing.” This from Luka.

“They’d be insane to pull shit in front of the courthouse,” Cris spat.

“Have we seen any Niners yet?” I asked.

“Nah,” Rome grunted.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Ace added.

“You’d think Benito would have placed guards back here, too,” I commented. “If this is where Raphael will actually be exposed.”

But the area was surprisingly empty. Nothing but a small parking lot with a few cars and some dumpsters.

“They might not be as concerned about his safety while he has guards on him,” Dad speculated. “He’ll only be walking, what, twenty feet from the van to the building?”

I made a sound of agreement. “If that.”

“Transpo two minutes out.”

I spent those two minutes doing what else but thinking about Lexi. It was the one thing guaranteed to distract me, something I really couldn’t afford to be right then. My mind needed to be on the job, in the moment. Distractions led to mistakes. And in these scenarios, mistakes often meant death. We were only there to ensure that everything with Raphael’s first day on trial went smoothly, but when it involved the families, anything could happen.

Nevertheless, Lexi’s face still popped up in mind. Her sensual striptease. Her enthusiastic blowjob. Her peaceful form sleeping in bed. That happened a week ago, but it might as well have been an hour ago for how acutely it still affected me.

We’d been dancing around each other ever since that night. Not really arguing, but not really getting along either. We both seemed to realize how close things had come that night to getting too intimate, and we’d been tiptoeing around on eggshells to avoid another slip-up. Even fighting was a bad idea because our brand of fighting tended to have sexual undercurrents.

I’d be honest, though. I liked pissing her off.

Pushing her buttons got me hard.

Another thing that got me hard?

Sexy Lexi seemed to have a flare for voyeurism. A few mornings ago, I’d been in my bedroom, having just finished my workout and shower routine. I’d been standing beside my bed, wearing nothing but wet hair and a towel. As I was replying to an email on my phone, I’d heard a noise at my bedroom door.

Sure as shit, Lexi had been peeking through the cracked doorway.

Staring at me. Avidly.

She’d looked beyond mortified at being caught and scurried off before I could get a word out.

But I’d stood there grinning like a jackass for a solid five minutes.

A large white van came around a corner, bringing me back to the present. It headed in my direction down the narrow street behind the courthouse.

“Transpo has arrived.”

I was holed up in an abandoned convenience store across the street. The small building was dirty and empty, aside from some moldy boxes and random trash bags littering the floor that I suspected homeless people and various wild life had made good use of.

The windows were streaked with dirt, but I had a clear view of the entrance Raphael would be escorted through. As the van came to a stop, I pulled back the slide of my .45 1911 pistol. Better to be prepared with one in the chamber in case something did go down than be caught unaware. The van remained parked for several minutes, I assumed to alert the guards inside the building, as well as to mess with Raphael’s restraints.

Moments later, the two courthouse guards exited the building and waited for Raphael to be handed off. Assisted by the two transpo guards, the boss of the New York mafia stumbled from the van, looking far older and frailer than the last time I’d seen him.

He looked like shit.

His once shiny black hair had been chopped off, leaving him with a haphazard buzzcut. He’d lost a good amount of weight. And even with his shackled ankles, he seemed to be hobbling more than necessary. Was he injured? Sick?

Everything happened so fast. There wasn’t even time to think.

The four guards met at the back of the van for the exchange—

Shots rang out.

Fuck!

“Shots fired, shots fired!” I shouted.

I just couldn’t tell where they were coming from.

I burst out of the building, gun raised, but didn’t have a clear target to aim at. One transpo guard was already down, and the other three were scrambling for their guns and cover. I crouched behind an old ice machine just as a dark van with blacked-out windows came careening down the street. Its passengers were firing their semi-automatic weapons through the open windows. One courthouse guard tried to push Raphael behind the transpo van for cover, but a bullet struck him in the chest, felling the guard.

“Nico!” Dad yelled in my ear. “Talk to me! What’s happening?”

The van hadn’t reduced its speed as it continued barreling in our direction. Raising my gun and firing, I shot out windows and hit one of the front tires. Of course, this drew the shooters’ attention. I had to quickly duck behind the machine as they opened up a few rounds near my head, striking the brick and mortar building behind me instead.

“Nico!” Cris barked.

“Unmarked van,” I panted through the surge of adrenaline. “Multiple shooters. Two guards are down.”

“Esposito’s men?” Rome asked, sounding out of breath, like he was running.

“Can’t tell. They’re all wearing masks.”

“Niners?” Ace asked frantically.

The gang’s rogue members that had shot up the mafia summit meeting a few months ago had all been wearing masks. Were they trying to complete their revenge against the Espositos, despite their own boss’s orders?

“Don’t know. Possibly.”

My heart pounded furiously, but not from fear. Life and death situations like this usually happened too rapidly to stop and consider what was at stake. How much risk was involved. You just had to react, try to be smart, and hope for the best.

With one of the front tires blown, the van’s driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the transpo van. When the dark van’s side door flew open, the shooters in ski masks jumped out and fired off rounds in all directions. The other two guards went down in the chaos. I got off a few more shots and might have even hit one of the bastards, but I didn’t think it was fatal.

They went straight for Raphael and put a gun to his head.

Goddammit.

“Let him go!” I roared, bounding up from behind the machine with my gun raised.

The shooters’ heads all snapped in my direction. There looked to be four of them, plus the driver, who never got out of the vehicle.

The one who held Raphael by the back of his neck, gun barrel pressed to his temple, laughed maniacally. “Why should I? The man has killed many people, no? He’s a monster, yes? I’ll just kill him now and spare the taxpayers a lot of money to forego this trial.”

His accent was odd. He was clearly trying to disguise his real voice.

“It doesn’t matter,” I shouted back. “Justice has to be served for all the crimes he’s committed. The law determines his punishment from here on out, not you.”

They all laughed this time. Raphael’s back was turned to me so I couldn’t see his face. Was the man scared for his life?

“We make the laws in our world!” the shooter bellowed, still laughing. “We serve our own justice. Surely, you can understand that, Rossetti. This is your world now as much as it is ours and as much as it his.”

They know who I am.

My finger itched to squeeze the trigger. I didn’t give two shits if this guy wanted Raphael dead or what his beef with the families was. They’d just shot four innocent men. People who had families. Families who were relying on them to come home in one piece tonight.

“Death would be too quick for him,” I said in hard voice. “He deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life.”

Where the hell were all the cops that were patrolling the front of the courthouse? Hadn’t they heard the gunfire? Shouldn’t they have been converging on these son of bitches by now?

The shooter yanked Raphael back, using him as a human shield as they made their way toward the van. “Sorry, but we can’t let that happen. He’s got debts to settle before he gets off scot free. And we’re going to make sure he fulfills every last one.”

“Stop!”

Ignoring me, the four of them hauled Raphael into the back of the van. I popped off some rounds at the tires, hoping I’d at least be able to eliminate their transportation. That’s when the driver, who I’d nearly forgotten about, rolled down his window and fired off three quick shots in my direction.

One clipped my shoulder.

The force of the impact slammed my back into the brick wall.

Shit, that burns.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I vaguely heard one of the men yell. “You know we’re supposed to leave them all alive!”

“Bastard still looks alive to me,” the driver spat.

My disorientation gave the driver enough time to put the van in reverse and speed off down the street, leaving their front bumper and a trail of carnage in their wake.

No. Fucking. Way that just happened.

“Nico!” Cris snapped in my ear. “What the fuck’s going on, man?”

“Ace, alert the cops. Dark van, blacked-out windows, dented front bumper. No license plate. Five shooters. They just made off with Esposito.” I ran across the street to where the four guards lay. “And get a fucking ambulance back here now!”

I grunted through the fiery pain in my shoulder as I bent down to check the first guard’s pulse.

Dead.

Same with the second.

The third one’s pulse was there, but it was faint. I wasn’t sure he was going to make it.

The fourth man actually had his eyes open as he put pressure on a wound in his side. I whipped off my suit jacket and helped him press it against the bleeding hole.

“You’re gonna be all right, man. Help’s on the way.”

He gritted his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. “They take Esposito?”

I glanced down the street, the dark van long fucking gone. “Yeah. They did.”

The New York boss was no longer in police custody.

I prayed to God those assholes actually did kill him.

Because Raphael Esposito had a massive score to settle with my family.

And if he managed to get free of them, all of our lives would be in jeopardy.