“No blood, Giovanni.”

“Promise me.”

Giovanni looked at the blinking red dot on the screen.

Then his phone began to vibrate in his palm.

An unknown number flashed on the screen.

He slid his thumb across the glass and put the phone to his ear.

“Moretti,” he said.

There was a pause, and then a raspy, familiar voice came through the speaker, loud enough for me to hear.

“You should have stayed in the suburbs, Giovanni,” Marcus Vance said.

The line went dead with a sharp click.

Giovanni stared at the silent phone in his hand.

His knuckles turned white around the casing.

The hum of the rain against the thick glass of the study window was the only sound in the room.

“Vance is in Boston,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl.

“He knows we are here.”

He turned toward the gun safe hidden behind the oak paneling.

“I am going to end this tonight,” he said.

I stepped between him and the wall, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“No, Giovanni,” I said.