Clara to cling tightly around his neck and point past his shoulder directly toward the untouched wineglass beside his seat

The chandelier lights snapped off in unison, plunging the grand dining gallery into deep winter twilight. The pale, natural light filtering through the two-story arched windows cast long, skeletal shadows across the Persian runner, the shattered grandfather clock, and the overturned silver trays.

Roman stood in the center of the room, an immovable silhouette against the falling snow outside. He had discarded his suit coat entirely, standing in his white shirt with the dark ink on his neck catching the faint blue luminescence of the dusk.

Through the frosted glass, four dark figures emerged from the tree line, moving in tactical formation across the open lawn toward the terrace doors. They wore heavy parkas, night-vision mounts, and carried suppressed short-barreled carbines.

"Hold your fire until they clear the stone steps," Roman murmured into his collar mic.

The men in the shadows along the gallery wall did not breathe. Vincent was crouched behind the overturned mahogany dining table; two capos flanked the velvet drapes near the conservatory.

The first intruder reached the glass French doors of the terrace. He raised a tactical pry-bar, wedging it into the brass latch.

The wood groaned. The latch sheared with a sharp crack.

The heavy glass door swung inward, letting in a blast of freezing winter wind that rustled the linen napkins scattered across the floor. The lead mercenary stepped across the threshold, his carbine sweeping the gloom.

Roman didn't wait.

His Kimber 1911 barked twice—deafening, unsuppressed roars that echoed off the vaulted ceiling like cannon fire.

The heavy .45-caliber rounds caught the point man squarely in the chest, punching through his ceramic body armor and throwing him backward onto the flagstones of the terrace in a spray of dark mist.

Before the remaining three operators could raise their barrels, the dining gallery erupted into a synchronized wall of gunfire.

Vincent and the capos opened up from behind the mahogany barricade. The glass panes of the French doors shattered in a blizzard of diamond shards, raining down over the snowy steps as the tactical team was caught in a brutal crossfire. The second man crumpled at the threshold; the third dropped his weapon and scrambled backward into the snow, dragging his wounded leg.

The fourth man, however, had slipped through the flanking window of the service pantry.

A boot scuffed behind Roman.

Roman spun on his heel just as the mercenary brought the muzzle of a suppressed submachine gun level with the Don’s throat.

Roman didn't try to draw a bead. He stepped inside the line of fire, his left forearm swatting the barrel aside as a three-round burst stitched a line of holes through the walnut paneling behind him. With his right hand, Roman drove the heavy steel slide of his 1911 directly into the man’s windpipe.

The mercenary gagged, stumbling backward. Roman closed the distance with terrifying speed, driving a brutal knee into the man’s solar plexus, followed by a downward elbow that broke the man’s collarbone with a sickening snap.

The intruder collapsed onto the runner, his tactical helmet rolling away across the floorboards.

Roman planted his boot firmly on the man’s throat, pressing until the operator’s eyes bulged in the dim blue light.

"Who hired you?" Roman demanded, his voice a low, gravelly rasp above the sound of the whistling winter wind. "The name."

The man clawed at Roman’s trouser leg, his breath wheezing through his crushed throat. "V-Vance... Vance from Chicago... he said... he said the D'Angelo line was weak..."