“Dance As My Husband—There’s a Red Dot on Your Forehead,” She Whispered to the Mafia Boss…

Then silence

Then silence.

He looked at me.

I looked at the bodies.

“Remind me never to criticize your dancing again.”

“Who are you?”

“Madeline Hayes.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“It’s all you get.”

I reached the freight elevator and hit the call button.

Nothing.

So I opened the service panel and bypassed the lock.

Gabriel watched.

“You break into hotels often?”

“Only the nice ones.”

The doors opened.

We stepped inside.

For exactly three seconds, everything went quiet.

No orchestra.

No screaming.

No glass breaking.

Just the hum of the elevator.

Then Gabriel slammed me against the wall.

His forearm pressed across my collarbone.

The muzzle of his gun stopped beneath my jaw.

“I’ve been patient.”

I almost laughed.

“You threatened me before asking my last name.”

“You know my protocols. You knew the route. You knew where my security would move me. Either you’re saving me, or you’re helping somebody kill me.”

“Both would be inefficient.”

“Convince me.”

So I told him the part that mattered.

“The men upstairs are carrying equipment purchased through a Newark shipping intermediary called Hudson Maritime Logistics.”

His face stayed blank.

But his eyes didn’t.

“Never heard of it.”

“You own forty percent through three shell companies.”

That landed.

I continued.

“The purchase authorization came through a private account controlled by Nathaniel Caruso.”

Gabriel’s oldest friend.

His underboss.

The man whose name appeared beside Gabriel’s on half the charity programs downstairs.

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe.”

I leaned closer to the gun.

“Call him.”

Gabriel stared at me.

“Go ahead.”

He took out his phone.

No signal.

I smiled without humor.

“Funny timing.”

The elevator jerked.

Lights flickered.

Then stopped.

Gabriel looked at the floor indicator.

Fourth floor.

We had been heading down.

Somebody had seized control of the elevator.

Heavy footsteps sounded outside.

I pulled the compact pistol strapped beneath my torn skirt.

Gabriel looked down.

Then back at me.

“You really did come prepared.”

“I came prepared for a gala.”

“This is your gala equipment?”

“You should see what I wear to Thanksgiving.”

For the first time, he almost smiled.

Then the footsteps stopped directly outside the doors.

Gabriel lifted his weapon.

I lifted mine.

And as the elevator doors began opening, I realized something worse than Nathaniel’s betrayal.

Somebody inside Gabriel’s family knew exactly where we were.

And they were waiting.

PART 2 — The failed ambush proves Gabriel’s enemies already control his house.

The doors opened six inches.

Gunfire hit the steel.

Gabriel pulled me sideways.

I fired low through the gap, not trying to be heroic, just forcing whoever was outside to move.

Gabriel pushed through first.

Thirty ugly seconds later, the hallway was quiet.

Too quiet.

Three attackers were down.

One had escaped around the corner.

I grabbed the encrypted radio clipped to one man’s vest.

Gabriel searched another attacker’s pockets.

Then he froze.

“What?”

He held up a black hotel key card.

Not guest access.

Executive security access.

“That opens staff-only floors,” I said.

“My office arranged those cards for my protection team.”

“Then somebody duplicated them.”

He stood.

“No. Only three people can authorize replacements.”

“Let me guess. You, Nathaniel…”

“And Lorenzo.”

Lorenzo Bellini.

His consigliere.

Sixty-one years old.

Family friend.

The man who had reportedly held Gabriel at his baptism and stood beside his father’s casket twenty years later.

Gabriel looked suddenly older.

Not weaker.

Just less certain.

That was more dangerous.

We moved through the fourth-floor service hall.

Somewhere nearby, a vacuum cleaner still ran unattended.

A television inside a guest suite played a Yankees highlight reel.

New York kept moving.

That’s the thing about disaster.

Half a block away, somebody is always ordering Chinese food.

My earpiece remained dead.

“They’re jamming us,” I said.

Gabriel glanced at me.

“Whoever hired you expected this?”

“Some of it.”

“Who?”

I didn’t answer.

He stopped me beside a housekeeping cart.

His stare could have cracked stone.

“Madeline.”

“Your sister.”

Everything in him went still.

“Evelyn?”

“She hired Archangel three weeks ago.”

“My sister is in Milan.”