We landed in San Diego under a warm afternoon sun.

The air smelled of salt and dry earth.

I hired a driver to take me to a small rental house in La Jolla.

It was a quiet cottage on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The walls were painted white, and the floors were made of light pine.

There were no security cameras, no iron gates, and no guards in the shadows.

The only sound was the constant, rhythmic crash of the waves below.

In the weeks that followed, the news from Chicago was filled with the Vale family name.

The newspapers called it the greatest collapse of an organized crime family in thirty years.

Luca had cooperated fully with the federal authorities.

He received a light sentence and entered a witness protection program in the Midwest.

Marcus did not fight the charges.

He hired the best lawyers in the state, but only to negotiate a plea agreement.

His empire was systematically dismantled.

The properties were seized, the illegal businesses shut down, and the associates arrested.

But Marcus avoided a maximum-security prison.