“Dante,” Isabella said, her hand reaching over the seat to touch my shoulder.

“You know what will happen if you use that.”

“It is the only way to make it stick,” I said.

“Kane has judges on his payroll.”

“He has federal prosecutors who dine at his charity galas.”

“Local evidence will disappear before it reaches a courtroom.”

“But this ledger,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

“This is everything our father built.”

“It is everything you have protected.”

“It is a cage,” I said, looking out at the white waste of the harbor lands.

“It is time to burn the cage down.”

Luca slowed the van as we approached the outer gates of the municipal harbor.

The chain-link fence was topped with rusted barbed wire, caked in fresh snow.

A single padlock secured the chain, but the gate had been pushed open just enough for a vehicle to pass.

Tire tracks, fresh and deep, cut through the drifts ahead of us.

“Turn off the lights,” I told Luca.

The headlights died, leaving us with only the pale gray light of the approaching dawn.