ena

abella so cleverly masked in her c

Queens distillery had been partitioned with heavy canvas tarps, creating a

ing the extraction. Nonna Elena knelt at the foot of the bed, her rosary beads clicking softly in the dim light. I didn't pray. I

le ticked beneath his skin. He had promised me a doctor. He n

sted Underboss, pushed through the canvas flaps. His usually s

demanded, his voice

s curling into fists. "Dr. A

atever he wanted, Leo. Dr

. Alistair Kirkland bought him. The contract explicitly states Alcott is forbidden from tre

over the infirmary, broken only

he bullets was dangerous; a Don who controlled the scalpels was a god. Kirkland's power wasn't just in his soldiers; it was woven

rival family. We were fighting an invisible, suffo

ate, clawing need by nightfall. I needed a reason to keep breath

Hobbs and I slipped past the rusted, pol

rs ago. Now, it was nothing but a blackened skeleton looming under the pale moonlight. Weed

and resting on the grip of his holstered weapon.

my grandfather's study. The roof had caved in, and the mahogany bookshelves were reduced to splinter

ere

artment my grandfather had shown me when I was a little girl. Insid

d closer, clicking on a small flashlight, casting

out the rolled parchment.

, a seven-year-old holding a wooden wooden horse. They progressed, year by year, until the final sketch-a si

o forget her. The Professor had taught me that nostalgia was a

ily, and future had been violently stol

ger," I whispered into the dark, not car

or The Professor anymore. It wasn't just a

clutching it to my chest like a shield. The cold, perfect we

Derek," I said,

ing the ghosts of my past back to the distillery, w