The war room smelled of cold coffee and gun oil.
"The Romanos will expect a frontal assault," Yuri said, tapping a stylus against the digital blueprint of Pier 42. "They have the high ground on the cranes. If we just drive onto the pier, we're targets in a shooting gallery."
I leaned over the table, my eyes tracing the layout of the warehouse where I had been held. "The cranes aren't the problem, Yuri. It's the water. Salvatore will have boats. He'll wait for us to commit to the center of the pier, then cut off our retreat from the river."
Dimitri watched me, his gaze intense. "She's right. He's a tactician. He wants a pincer movement."
"Then we don't give him a center to hit," I said, my finger tracing the old sewer lines I had crawled through. "The tunnels. They don't just lead to the wine cellar. They lead to the maintenance sub-levels under the pier itself. If we split the team—Viktor takes the sub-levels and comes up behind their sniper positions, while you and I take the main entrance—we turn his pincer into a trap."
Yuri looked at Viktor. Viktor looked at the map. A slow, shark-like grin spread across Yuri's face.
"The Emerald Queen has a mind for slaughter," Yuri muttered, actually sounding impressed. "It's a gamble. If the tunnels are flooded or blocked, Viktor's team is out of the fight."
"They aren't blocked," I said firmly. "I heard the water moving when I was in that hole. It's clear."
Dimitri stood, the finality of his movement silencing the room. "The plan stands. Viktor, take ten men and hit the sub-levels at 0400. Yuri, you're with the secondary convoy. Maya and I lead the breach."
The meeting broke. One by one, the men left until it was just Dimitri and me in the flickering light of the monitors. The silence was absolute.
"You should be sleeping," he said, though he didn't move toward the door.
"Neither of us is going to sleep tonight, Dimitri."
We went upstairs. The bedroom felt too large, too quiet. The luxury of the silk sheets felt like a mockery of the concrete and blood waiting for us at dawn.
Dimitri went to the small safe behind the portrait in the corner. He didn't pull out cash or a passport. He pulled out a single, weathered envelope and a key.
"If I don't walk off that pier tomorrow," he said, his voice flat, "this key opens a vault in Zurich. Everything is in your name. Not the Bratva's. Yours. There's enough in there to buy a country. You take Viktor, you go to the Alps, and you never look back."
I walked over to him, taking the envelope from his hand and dropping it on the floor.
"No."
"Maya—"
"I told you at the restaurant," I said, stepping into his space, my hands flat against his chest. I could feel his heart—steady, powerful, and fast. "We walk off that pier together, or we stay there together. There is no 'after' for me without you. Do you understand that?"
Dimitri's control snapped. He grabbed my waist, pulling me into him so hard the air left my lungs. He didn't kiss me—he searched my face, his eyes raw and desperate.
"I spent ten years in a tomb," he rasped. "I thought I was dead. I thought I was just a ghost who knew how to kill. And then you walked into my study with that debt on your shoulders and that fire in your eyes, and I started to breathe again."
He leaned down, his forehead resting against mine. "I love you, Maya. Not the contract. Not the alliance. You. Just you."
My heart staggered. I had known it—seen it in the way he looked at me, felt it in the way he touched me—but hearing it was a different kind of violence. It shattered the last of my defenses.
"I love you too," I whispered, my tears finally breaking. "That's why we're winning tomorrow. Because I'm not letting anyone take my heart twice."
The intimacy that followed wasn't a distraction. It was a vow. Every touch was a promise; every gasp was a prayer. We moved together with a frantic, desperate need to memorise the texture of each other's skin, the taste of each other's breath. It was tender and brutal all at once—a farewell that refused to be a goodbye.
The clock on the nightstand ticked toward 0400.
We didn't talk as we got ready. We moved in a synchronized dance we had perfected over the last few weeks.
Black tactical gear. Kevlar vests. Extra magazines. The weight of the steel was a grounding comfort. I watched Dimitri check his weapons, his movements mechanical and perfect.
I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was pale, but my eyes were like emerald flint. I tucked a serrated blade into my boot and checked the chamber on my Glock.
"Ready?" Dimitri asked, standing at the door.
"Ready."
The convoy was waiting in the drive. Six black SUVs, engines idling like growling beasts. Viktor gave me a sharp nod as he climbed into the lead vehicle. Yuri gave me a salute.
We drove through the sleeping streets of New York, the city unaware that its future was being decided in the predawn fog.
When we reached Pier 42, the sun was a thin, bruised line of purple on the horizon. The fog was thick, rolling off the Hudson in grey waves.
The Romanos were already there.
A line of black cars blocked the entrance to the pier. Salvatore Romano stood in the center, flanked by twenty men. He wasn't wearing tactical gear. He was in a black overcoat, leaning on a silver-headed cane, looking like a king waiting for a parley.
Dimitri and I stepped out of the SUV. We walked to the center of the neutral zone, ten yards from Salvatore.
"The 48 hours are up," Salvatore said, his voice carrying through the fog. "You could have run, Dimitri. You could have lived."
"I prefer to rule," Dimitri replied.
Salvatore looked at me, a flicker of something like regret in his eyes. "A waste of beauty. Such a shame."
He raised his cane.
"Kill them all," Salvatore commanded.
The first shot didn't come from the Romanos. It came from the top of a shipping container behind them.
*Crack.*
The battle for New York had begun.