REINA

He was at my feet.

Domenico Gravano — the most powerful, most terrifying, most consuming presence I had ever encountered in my life — was at my feet.

He had hit the floor the way large things fall. Heavy and final and without grace, one hand outstretched, the other pressed uselessly against his forehead where the blood was coming from. Gushing. Dark and fast and relentless, pooling against the marble beneath him, spreading outward in a shape that kept growing.

His eyes were open.

They were fixed on me.

He was still breathing — ragged, wet, terrible breaths that rattled somewhere deep in his chest. Blood bubbled at the...