The chandelier above us cast sharp, prismatic glimmers across the polished mahogany table, but the warmth in the dining hall vanished in an instant.

The rain had turned into a thick, low-hanging mist by the time the ambulance and my private security convoy secured the perimeter of the Gary docks.

Dominic Vance didn't die from his injuries. I made sure my personal physician patched him up right there on the concrete, giving him enough adrenaline to keep him conscious, but enough paralytics to ensure he couldn't move a single muscle below his neck.

We brought him back to the basement of my estate.

The room was constructed of eighteen-inch poured concrete, located thirty feet beneath the floorboards of the main house. It was a room I had built five years ago for enemies who refused to talk. I had never intended to use it again after Maya died.

Now, it was the only place on earth that mattered.

Vance was strapped to a heavy steel medical chair in the center of the room. Overhead, a single halogen lamp cast a harsh, unforgiving circle of light over his bruised, bandaged face.

Grace sat in the corner, her hands still trembling, while little Amara slept upstairs in the guest wing under the watchful eyes of three heavily armed guards.

I walked into the room, tossing a thick black file onto the steel table beside Vance.

"You have thirty seconds to give me the registration number of the vessel," I said. My voice was no longer angry. It had passed beyond fury into a cold, terrifying realm of pure execution.

Vance coughed, a thin line of red saliva running down his chin. "You... you can't touch me, Julian. If my heart rate monitor drops below sixty beats per minute... the satellite link to the boat automatically severs. The crew has orders to drop the child into the ocean if they lose connection with me for more than twelve hours."

I looked over at Leo, who stood at a computer terminal against the far wall.

"Is he telling the truth?" I asked.

Leo looked up, his face grim. "He’s telling part of the truth, Boss. There is an active biometric signal transmitting from a wrist monitor he’s wearing. It’s encrypted through a Swiss server. If he dies, or if his vitals drop into shock, the signal cuts out."

Vance managed a grotesque, triumphant smile. "You see? I hold the leash, Julian. You kill me... you kill your daughter."

I slowly walked around the chair until I was standing directly behind him. I leaned down, resting my hands on his shoulders.

"You always were short-sighted, Dominic," I whispered into his ear. "You thought you were the only one who built a shadow network over the last ten years."

I pulled a satellite phone from my pocket and pressed speed dial. I put the call on speakerphone.

The line rang twice before a deep, authoritative voice answered with a heavy French accent.

"Julian. I was wondering when you would call."

Vance’s grotesque smile vanished. His eyes widened in sudden, absolute terror.

"Henri," I said into the phone. "I need the naval tracking grid for Sector 4 off the coast of Lake Michigan and the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Look for an unregisteredPanamanian cargo vessel that left port within the last six hours."

Henri—the head of the Syndicate Corsica, a man who controlled every illegal shipping lane between Montreal and Marseille—let out a soft, dry chuckle over the speaker.

"Already done, my friend," Henri replied. "My coastal spotters picked up a low-frequency radio relay from a rusty container ship named the 'Vanguard.' She turned off her transponder three miles past the border. She is currently sitting four miles offshore, waiting for a rendezvous with an offshore tugboat."

Vance began to thrash against his leather restraints. "No! How... how do you know Henri?!"

"Henri was my father's business partner thirty years before you learned how to drive a getaway car, Dominic," I said softly, cutting the phone line and placing it back into my pocket.