ella

old wood, lemon polish, and suffocating stillness. It was a gilded

was asleep before his head hit the pillow, his small han

ce of heavy, gold-embossed stationery, I quickly wrote down a list. My handwriti

I said

at the gates. I handed her the paper. "I need you to procure these items

Specific agricultural fertilizers? Gallons of medical ethanol and untraceable chemical reagents?" She looked up at

was. The naive girl she had served was dead, buried u

my voice a flat, icy command

line had been drawn. Maria swallowed hard, clutching the paper

nked by two Moretti sedans. The convoy was supposed to take us s

gray blur of the highway. We were appr

decay was the "Ghost of Gary"-a former rival *Consigliere* everyone thought was dead. He held a black book, a ledger of sins that could black

to let them hav

the button for the driver's p

n the rearview mirror. "Miss Isabella, the Don's

" I repeated, m

eek is a graveyard. It's crawling with bottom-feeding *Associates* an

eyes with the *Capo* in the mirror. The air in the cabin grew heavy w

olute certainty in my voice broke his r

oarded-up storefronts and crumbling brick factories loomed ahead like rotting teeth against th

ower in the distance. The board was set, a