I feel like I can hear my heartbeat getting slower and steadier as I bring the car to a stop and turn off the engine. It’s a skill I learned in prison. I forced my body to calm down and be ready for anything when having to deal with the police.

Most of all when dealing with Price.

Some close contacts and I set up a meeting with him under the pretenses that he’s meeting his the ex-cop we met at the club. It’s a run-down bar just off the highway on the outskirts of the city where bikers tend to pass through. Not the kind of place you’d expect to be finding a cop, but Price has an understanding with the owner, and from what I understand, the two have a tenuous alliance, of a sort.

That’s going to be a problem. But this is the one shot I have at getting Price alone, maybe even off-guard. It’s a risk I need to take.

But it isn’t a risk I’m willing to put on anyone else. That’s why I’m out here alone tonight.

I lied to Nico. I told him I’d meet him at the Room With a View to plan a proper setup with all the support I really need for a job like this. But to do that would be to ask too much of a man who’s already given me too much. And besides, if this goes sour, I don’t want him to get his name implicated in something as big as this. It’s a miracle he’s kept himself out of too much hot water so far.

As for Serena, she thinks I’m meeting Nico too. It pains me to keep her in the dark more than anything, but she’s the one person above all I can’t risk getting hurt. Right now, nobody knows she’s been an accomplice to a wanted fugitive. I want to keep it that way.

I feel the little disk in my jacket pocket. It’s one of many copies I made, of course. Our ex-cop friend really pulled through: there are more people willing to move against Price than I ever expected. Most of them are beat cops who are too young to get jaded, but there are a few mid-level people running desk jobs in the force who have been paid to cover up Price’s paper trail of corruption. Just enough to knock him off his high horse.

I push the door to the bar open and step inside to the smell and thick haze of smoke. Old rock is playing while rough-looking bikers hang out around the pool tables or at the bar. I don’t stop as I move in. I’m not planning to stop and chat with the bartender before heading upstairs.

Price’s usual meeting place is the rooftop. The sign on top of the front of the bar makes sure anyone up there has a little privacy from the street view, even though the building is only a story high.

Unfortunately, I see the stairs leading up to the roof are past the bar. I’ll be noticed heading upstairs. No matter. Price still can’t get away.

I head toward the bar, and I’m about halfway there when a voice behind me makes me freeze.

“Hey, think I’d let you go in there alone?”

As I stop, I can’t help the feeling of a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “You tailed me. Well done.”

“Learned from the best,” says Serena as she steps up beside me and I look down at her. “Don’t worry, I didn’t snitch to Nico.”

As I see her standing there beside me confidently, I don’t feel any impulse to tell her this is too dangerous for her or too much for her to handle. She has her family’s blood in her, after all. She’s my girl. I should have known that any girl of mine wouldn’t accept anything less.

“Be ready, then,” I say in a low tone, barely audible over the sounds of the bar. “I don’t expect this to go so good.”

“I’d be disappointed if it did,” she says with a wink.

I step up to the bar, and as I start to head to the stairs, the bartender’s eyes snap over to me. He’s a squirrelly little guy with a chin-strap beard and a shaved head.

“That’s staff-only,” he says with a suspicious look.

“I have business upstairs,” I growl, moving past him and taking Serena’s hand as I go.

I don’t hear him shout after us, which tells me something’s up.

“He was texting something on a burner phone last I saw him,” Serena says as we hurry up the stairs. That confirms my suspicions.

“He must be in Price’s pocket,” I say, pulling out a gun and holding it at the ready. “We’ve lost some of the element of surprise, then.”

“Not all of it,” Serena points out.

“No, not all of it,” I say with a smile as we reach the door to the roof. I stop, turn to Serena, and pull her into me to press my lips to hers briefly.

“I love you,” I whisper.

“I love you,” she says back with a smile. “Let’s handle this, together.”

I kick the door down.

My gun is out and ready, but instead of hearing the gunshots I was expecting, I hear the sound of someone blowing smoke.

Furrowing my brow, I look at the figure standing at the edge of the roof toward the rear of the building, his back to me, a glowing cigarette in his hand.

“You move fast, Bruno,” says Detective Price, not turning around to face me. He’s staring out into the woods behind the bar, and I see him slip his phone back into his pocket. “Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting my man to turn me out like this. Well done.”

“What, were you hoping your winning personality would keep him in line?” I ask as Serena steps up beside me, her fist gripping her switchblade.

“Good point,” he says with a quiet, humorless laugh, turning around to face us, “but when he’s found dead in his apartment, I’ll make sure the report says that he was a loyal friend of yours.”

“If you were calling for backup, I’d call them off,” Serena says, and Price raises his eyebrows, amused. “We’ve got something you don’t want them seeing.”

Showing my hand, I carefully remove the disk from my jacket pocket, holding it up for Price to see. A thin smile comes across his lips.

“Get a little dirt on me, did you?” he says, lighting up another cigarette. The smoke swirls around his face as he breathes in and out, cold eyes flitting between us. “Looks like I have some housecleaning to do when we leave here.”

“There’s enough info on this disk to put you away a lot longer than I would have been in prison,” I say, twirling the disk around before putting it back in my pocket. “I would guess there are a lot of boyscout-types on the force who’d like to get their hands on this.” Price is keeping his cool, but I can tell it’s a thin veil. His eyes follow the disk as I put it away, and he isn’t as calm as he was when he would talk to me in prison. We’re getting to him.

Still, he keeps a poker face that would fool most people.

“Come on, you don’t think I’d call the boys in blue to back me up at a place like this,” he says, gesturing down to the bar itself.”

“No,” I agree, “there’s a lot of things here that would be embarrassing to explain.”

“Y’know,” he says, “I’m sure you’re new to the whole ‘whistleblowing’ thing, but usually, you keep things a little more uh, subtle than this.”

“I’m here because this is personal, Price,” I say, stepping forward, my fist clenched. “This is more than just you chasing me down. You’ve made Serena’s life hell. You went after my associates. You tried to kill my uncle!” I bark, and I have to fight the urge to fire my weapon into him right then and there. “We’re past you just stroking your ego or building your spider’s web of corruption in the NYPD. This has become between you and me. Why?”

“Are you serious?” he laughs, flicking his cigarette to the ground and snuffing it out. “Listen, Bruno, you’ve been a lot more pain than you’re worth, but you’ve got guts, so I’ll level with you. Organized crime? That shit is fantastic for me. You mafia families have your factions and your blood feuds and your politics. You’re like little governments flying under the radar. And it just so happens that some of us cops realize, ‘hey, this can work out for us, if we open our minds up a little.’ So I help some Mafioso out here, they help me back. When one family loses power, I shuffle my priorities around, and at the end of the day, I get a nice paycheck. It ain’t pretty, but it works, get it? People like me are what keep the city running. The mafia keeps the streets cleaner than they would be, and I just help the right Mafioso do their jobs and stay in their place.”

He takes a few steps forward, raising a finger and gesturing between the two of us with a hardening face.

“But you two? Some upstart rebel without a cause with a chip on his shoulder and the bratty daughter of a mafia don who should have been killed off with him a long time ago? You two are a threat to all the good stuff we’ve got going on. You outlived your usefulness a long time ago. The Abruzzi family, those guys you call Cleaners? They’re the future of the Bronx.”

He turns his eyes to me, narrowing them. “And if I’ve gotta kill some useless old man to make that point, nobody’s gonna cry, and it’ll be a lot cleaner than dragging out a bloody mob war.”

“I never asked for any of this, you fucker,” I growl, stepping forward and gripping my gun, but he just smiles.

“Ah-ah-ah, let’s not add cop-killing to your track record now.”

“I don’t have to kill you,” I say, controlling my temper, for Serena’s sake, though each word is laced with anger. “As much as I want to. I want you to disappear, Price. Back off my family, and that includes the Costas. Get a transfer somewhere quiet, and I’ll leave your reputation intact. It’s cleaner that way, like you say. Cross me, and you’ll rot in the prison cell you had set up for me,” I say with finality.

Price stares into me for a moment, then licks his lips and scratches his head. “Hate to burst your bubble, but I already decided how this was gonna go down before you even got up here.”

Before I can ask what he means, I hear the sounds of crashing glass and breaking wood from downstairs.

“Hear that?” Price says with a chipper smile. “That’ll be the bikers downstairs. My bartender friend knows how to get a fight going, and man, some of these gangs get violent.”

In the blink of an eye, Price draws a gun, and mine snaps up to him… but he aims his at Serena, and we both freeze.

“So when they find your bodies,” he explains in a cold, even tone, “you’ll just be two fugitives who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and by the looks of things, there’ll be nobody else to handle that blackmail of yours.”

We’re frozen for a moment before I hear a creak behind me. Pierce’s eyes move to the door for half a second as the bartender emerges from the stairs with a lead pipe in hand, and I take my chance.

But I don’t shoot. I can’t risk that.

I dive for Serena, and just as my body wraps around her and pulls her to the ground, Pierce fires, and I feel my side burning.

“Kill them!” Pierce shouts, and he dives for cover behind an AC unit as I get off Serena and fire at him.

Adrenaline surges through my body as my bullets make sparks on the unit, and I realize Serena has rolled away from me, blade flashing.

“Serena!” I shout, but she’s already rushing toward the bartender, who looks just as surprised as I am. But I don’t have time to watch their fight: a bullet whizzes by my ear as Price blind-fires.

Gritting my teeth, I fire twice more at the unit he’s hiding behind, and as I fire, I barrel toward it. Faster than I knew I could move, I leap up on top of the unit and fire down toward where he is, and I see his crouching form turn with wide, white eyes in surprise. He tries to raise his weapon to me, but I descend on him so fast that when he fires, his wrist is already on the ground under my hand, and the bullet ricochets off the sign.

I have him nearly pinned, and I bring my head down to his nose to disorient him. He grunts in pain as I make contact, but he lands a hard blow to my side where I was already bleeding from the gunshot wound, and I’m forced to release him.

He staggers to his feet, but I’m back up the next second. He squares up with me, fists raised, and we trade blows like boxers. Our guns have fallen to the side, and I don’t think either of us notice until we’re already swinging at each other, our hatred runs so deep. He lands a blow on my jaw, and it’s got more force behind it than I knew he had in him, but soon I have the chance to move in close and grapple him.

I bring him down to the ground with all my weight, and as I wrestle him, I catch sight of Serena fighting with the bartender.

I can’t avoid watching her for a moment, my heart leaping into my throat as I see him lunge, his brutish moves careless, but I swell with pride at the sight of Serena handling herself perfectly: she moves as nimbly as if we’d been training just yesterday, and I watch her dodge the heavy swing of the lead pipe and move up close to the bartender, grabbing him by the wrist with one hand before she brings her knife up under his arm.

At the same time I hear the blade go into his flesh and hear him scream, Price lands a solid punch across my face, then grabs it, trying to get his thumbs up to my eyes.

I roll with him, putting my knee to his stomach and wrenching him hard, and we’re deadlocked, our pressure points putting each other in intense pain.

“I... I was there, you know,” he snarls as we struggle, “at the shooting. I saw the whites in the old man’s eyes when the bullets flew into his house.”

I start to turn him around and wrench his arm behind him, but the knees me in the stomach and rolls away, and we’re on our feet again, both breathing heavily. There’s a wild look in his eyes as he gets ready for me again, and he wipes away a little blood from his lip.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “when you’re dead, I’ll make sure Serena isn’t lonely this time.”

It’s then that I notice he’s standing beside one of our guns, and he dives for it. I start to run forward, but as his fingers wrap around it and he lifts the weapon…

... There’s a solid whump as Serena swings the lead pipe across the side of his head, and Price falls to the ground, clutching his head as his mouth is fixed in a silent scream.

“Bruno!” Serena calls as she tosses me the pipe, and I catch it solidly as I stride forward, flashing a smile at her, the bartender dying behind her.

“The gang fight isn’t a bad cover,” I say as I loom over him, knuckles white as his reddened eyes glare up at me, still dazed. “I think it’ll do for you.” I lift the pipe above my head and take aim.

“Say hello to Lorenzo for me.”

I swing down.