The silence that followed Sophie’s whisper wasn’t the quiet of an empty house; it was the suffocating stillness of a loaded barrel pressed against the back of the skull.

“Grace,” I said, keeping the gun pressed to her father’s temple while my eyes scanned the perimeter windows where red laser dots were beginning to dance across the wallpaper. “You realize if you give the order, your father dies first. Right before my men put twenty rounds through your chest.”

Grace didn't blink. She took two steps into the parlor, her stance perfectly balanced, her weapon locked squarely on my center mass.

“My father is seventy-four years old, Dominic, and his kidneys are failing,” she said calmly, her voice entirely devoid of emotion. “He’s lived twenty years longer than he deserved. But you? You’re going to put that gun down, or you’re going to watch every single one of your loyal capos outside in those SUVs get taken down by federal snipers before breakfast.”

Vince cursed under his breath, peering out the shattered French doors. “Boss, the courtyard... there’s at least half a dozen tactical units moving in. We’re boxed in.”

I looked at Grace. Really looked at her. For sixty days, she had lived under my roof. She had cooked meals for my traumatized girls. She had wiped their tears, taught them how to sing again, and earned a level of trust that no amount of mafia gold could ever buy.

“Why?” I asked, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Why play house with my daughters? Why put them through that if you’re just a fed?”

“Because when we raided your primary warehouse last year, we found the psychological evaluations of your children,” Grace said, her jaw tightening. “You didn't care about their trauma, Dominic. You cared about their silence because it made you look weak in front of your capos. You bought them ponies like you were buying silence from a corrupt alderman. I didn't come here to kill you. I came here to take your children away from a monster who uses them as collateral.”

That hit harder than a hollow-point round.

She was right. In the beginning, I had treated my daughters' silence like a business failure—something to be fixed with money, intimidation, and specialists. I hadn't listened to them. I hadn't held them. I had hidden behind my fortress and my guns.

“They love her, Boss,” Vince muttered quietly, lowering his weapon an inch. “If we start a war here, the girls... they’ll never forgive us. They’ll know we chose blood over them.”

I stared at the gun in my hand. For twenty years, Dominic Romano had survived by never showing mercy, by never lowering his weapon, by never letting anyone see a soft spot.

And for twenty years, it had built me a twenty-room tomb.

Slowly, deliberately, I opened my fingers and let the Glock drop to the hardwood floor with a heavy thud.

Grace’s eyes flickered with a brief flash of surprise, but her aim didn't waver. “Kick it over here.”

I nudged the weapon across the floor with the toe of my boot.

“Now what, Special Agent Bennett?” I asked, meeting her gaze head-on. “You arrest me? You put me in a federal penitentiary? What happens to Olivia, Sophie, and Nora when they wake up tomorrow morning and find out the only person who brought them back to life was just an agent using them as bait?”