“Angelo Battaglia moved on Poppa John.”
Those five words changed everything.
As trusted lieutenant Gavriil Volkov races toward the Fulton River district, he already knows the truth before he arrives. Anthony—the man calling him—is dying. Roberto is already dead. Poppa John Carlisi, head of one of Chicago's most powerful organized crime families, is missing after an ambush orchestrated by their oldest enemies.
Before Anthony takes his last breath, Gavriil makes one promise.
"Amnesty be damned. We burn that family to the ground."
Abigail Hartman has spent years rebuilding her life.
Her tiny bakery and coffee shop is everything she has left after a tragic past she refuses to revisit. Safe behind the doors of Holy Cannoli, she's finally found peace.
Until she hears a noise in the kitchen.
Expecting a stray cat—or perhaps a fallen pan—she instead finds an elderly man bleeding across her spotless floor, a pistol pointed directly at her.
Outside, armed men search every building in the alley.
"He's in one of these stores."
"Bring in the dog."
The wounded stranger lowers his weapon and studies her with tired eyes.
"You look like my Sofia when she was young... Let them in, piccolo. They're here for me, not you."
But Abigail has learned one lesson from life.
It's always the innocent who get hurt.
Instead of turning him over, she makes a split-second decision that changes both their lives forever.
Using coffee grounds to hide the scent of blood from the tracking dog, she conceals the wounded man behind a butcher's block, starts the industrial mixer to cover any sounds he might make, and calmly opens the door to armed killers.
She lies.
She smiles.
She survives.
Barely.
When the danger finally passes, the wounded stranger grips her hand with surprising strength.
"No ambulance," he whispers.
"Call Gavriil. He'll know what to do."
Moments later, Gavriil Volkov arrives through the back door of her bakery.
Six foot six of controlled power dressed in a dark suit, he expects to find his mentor dying.
He doesn't expect to find the woman whose voice had already captivated him over the phone.
"Hey, moy angil," he says softly.
"It's me... Gavriil."
Abigail has no idea that the man standing in front of her is one of the most feared men in Chicago's criminal underworld.
Gavriil has no idea that the courageous baker who saved Poppa John's life is about to become the one woman capable of bringing him to his knees.
And neither of them realizes that by sunrise, Chicago's oldest mafia war will have claimed another victim...
Abigail herself.
