Dovie watched her father Merrick drown a torn page from her sketchbook in a fountain and viciously forbid her from ever drawing what she saw again.

Merrick’s hands were shaking violently as he pulled himself up against the crushed display rack. His shattered fingers trailed blood across the white wood.

"The Chicago outfit," Merrick gasped, his breath hitching in his throat. "The Moretti faction. They’re the ones funding Julian’s trust! They put up the forty million to buy out the port debt!"

Torsten didn't lower the gun. "The Morettis were wiped out in ninety-two."

"Not all of them!" Merrick wept, desperate to purchase thirty more seconds of breath. "Dominic Moretti’s son... Leo. He’s been operating out of logistics warehouses in Gary, Indiana. He’s the one who promised Julian the seat on the Commission! He’s in town right now, Torsten! He’s waiting at the private hangar at the municipal airfield for Julian to bring the signed shares!"

Torsten’s steel-grey eyes flicked toward Julian, who was still slumped against the piano.

Julian didn't deny it. He spat another mouthful of blood onto the ivory keys, a bitter, broken laugh escaping his ruined lips.

"You thought you were a king, Uncle," Julian croaked. "You thought thirty years of sitting in this mausoleum made you untouchable. Leo Moretti has three crews across the state line. By tomorrow morning, the waterfront belongs to him whether you kill me or not."

Torsten lowered the gun three inches, aiming it directly at Julian’s right kneecap.

Phut.

The suppressed gunshot was no louder than a heavy cough, but the mechanical snap of the slide was distinct and metallic.

Julian shrieked, an ear-splitting howl of absolute agony as his kneecap shattered, his hands clawing at his shattered leg, his body convulsing against the polished mahogany of the piano.

Arthur lunged forward with a father’s primal panic. "Julian!"

Cassian stepped out from the shadows of the archway, his own pistol drawn, the muzzle pressed hard into the hollow beneath Arthur’s left ear.

"Stay right there, Arthur," Cassian whispered softly. "Don't make this messy for your brother."

Torsten didn't look down at Julian’s writhing form. He turned back to Lavinia.

His daughter was standing upright now. The pain in her fractured shoulder seemed to have receded behind an iron curtain of pure, ancestral resolve. She stepped around the pool of blood, walking until she stood directly over Merrick.

Her husband looked up at her, weeping, his face swollen into a grotesque caricature of the handsome corporate attorney she had married five years ago.

"Lavinia... please," Merrick sobbed. "I was terrified. Julian said they would kill me if I didn't get the signature. I did it to protect us... to protect Dovie..."

Lavinia reached down with her uninjured left hand.

She gripped the lapel of his tuxedo, leaning down until her face was three inches from his battered nose.

"You pushed me down fourteen oak steps, Merrick," she whispered, her voice trembling with a cold, terrifying clarity. "You watched my shoulder snap against the newel post, and then you told me to stop screaming because the neighbors might hear."

She looked up at Torsten.

"Dad," she said.