Farrell Black stared up at the screen at the front of the conference room, his eyes skimming the angry red dots scattered throughout the city. He’d been trying to find a pattern, his brain stubbornly searching for coherence, to no avail.

He thought about Occam’s Razor, the idea that the most likely solution is usually the most obvious.

“There is no strategy,” he finally said.

“No sense makes the most sense,” Damian Cavallo agreed from his seat across the table.

Nico kept his eyes on the screen. “I tend to think you’re right.”

Farrell turned his eyes on Christophe Marchand and Luca Cassano, their faces shadowed in the room, most of the lights shut off to make seeing the screen easier.

“Thoughts?”

“I see no other explanation for the random nature of these hits,” Christophe said.

Luca shrugged. “Makes as much sense as anything else.”

“The question is, what do we do about it?” Nico murmured.

Farrell hadn’t figured that out yet either. They’d thought eliminating Primo Fiore was the answer to reclaiming the New York territory for the Syndicate. Primo had, after all, been the leader of the Fiore organization, the only impediment to the Syndicate’s takeover once Damian Cavallo had pledged his organization to it.

They’d been wrong.

Farrell didn’t like being wrong.

His gaze came again to Damian. He’d always been a man of few words — something Farrell understood well enough — but Damian had grown even more subdued in the wake of his extended bid to recapture the New York territory.

It had begun with Aria, Primo’s sister.

Didn’t it always begin with a woman?

The question incited no bitterness. His own reckoning had happened at the hands of Jenna, the love of his life and mother of his daughter. It had been his life’s greatest upheaval — and its greatest happiness.

But it had nearly cost him everything, including his freedom, his life.

Still, it had been wishful thinking to believe their troubles in New York would end with the death of Primo. True, he had commanded the second biggest operation in the territory after Damian’s. In fact, a few short months ago, the Fiore organization had been the only thing standing between the Syndicate and its rule of New York under Damian’s leadership.

They hadn’t expected Malcolm Gatti, the crazy bastard who’d been pulling Primo’s strings, to return after being run off during the shoot-out that had killed Primo. He’d been working with Stefano Anastos and the Greek Mob during the last conflict between Fiore and the Syndicate, and Farrell had agreed that the likelihood of Gatti launching another attack on New York was slim considering he’d barely escaped with his life the first time.

Clearly, they’d been wrong about that, too.

And Farrell really fucking hated being wrong.

“What do they hope to gain with this strategy?” Christophe asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Chaos,” Damian said softly, his eyes on the screen. “It washes with what we’re picking up on their digital operations.”

“Which is?” Luca asked.

“Nothing,” Damian said. “Absolutely nothing.”

Nico turned away from the screen, settled his unnervingly level gaze on Damian. “Nothing?”

Damian nodded. “There is no digital footprint. Everything we were tracking before — bank routes, encrypted email, flight plans, shipping manifests — has all gone quiet.”

“How can an organization — any organization — exist off-grid in this day and age?” Nico asked.

It didn’t surprise Farrell that the question had come from Nico. It was Nico Vitale who had reimagined the old-world mob into a modern army of coordinated, intelligent men capable of violence, but also well-versed in using technology and modernity to their advantage.

His belief in the new model had nearly gotten him — and Angel, his wife — killed, but it had proven to be visionary. Their first priority after taking down Raneiro Donati, the former leader of the Syndicate, had been to restructure the organization on a grand scale. The irony was not lost on Farrell that their current enemy was using the very tactics they were working to retire.

“I have no idea,” Damian said. “I can only assume they’re reverting to the old-school model of security, communications, transportation. Whatever they’re using, we can’t see it. Christophe and I pooled the capabilities of our cyber labs and the most they could find through their combined efforts was one flight in to JFK by a former low-level associate of Anastos and a stray email on one of the old encrypted channels that asked for a new channel.”

Farrell raised his eyebrow. “And?”

“The inquiry went unanswered,” Christophe said.

Nico sighed. “So we have an unseen enemy indiscriminately hitting targets to create chaos without any traceable presence.”

“Fuck,” Farrell muttered.

“I’d say that accurately sums up our position,” Christophe said.

“I’m not hearing any solutions,” Luca said. “Are we saving those for later?”

“I can only think of one,” Nico said.

Farrell looked at him. “Care to share?”

“Locke Montgomery,” Nico said.

“Fucking-A,” Farrell muttered. “He’s a mercenary.”

Yes,” Nico agreed. “One with experience in off-the-grid operations.”

He had a point. Locke was a strange mix of modern technology, altruism, and recklessness. His targets were self-selected and isolated, seemingly random people who had subverted law and order, committing crimes for which they never paid a price.

Locke’s targets only had one thing in common — they were people who had hurt innocents in one way or another: corporate crooks who wrongly foreclosed on the homes of hardworking people, murderers and rapists who walked due to technicalities in spite of overwhelming evidence, financial advisers who invested their clients’ money in doomed funds that ultimately bankrupted retirement accounts and college funds.

It wasn’t that Locke didn’t have cyber capabilities. On the contrary, his cyber team was at least as good as the ones run by Christophe and Damian.

But Locke’s team was used to working unconventional targets who were more careful than most, targets who attended Harvard Business School and Yale Law, who knew enough about modern technology to subvert or avoid it — or pay someone to do it for them.

Locke’s specialty was finding a way in when it looked like all the doors and windows had been sealed. He was as likely to parachute into a target’s domain as he was to hack into their financials, as likely to tail a target himself as he was to hire someone else to do it. He worked with a small band of mercenaries like himself, men who had turned their back on traditional law and order, including Braden Kane, the former FBI agent who had helped get Farrell and Jenna out of the mess in Europe that had almost killed them both.

“It’s not the worst suggestion,” Farrell said.

“Who the hell is Locke Montgomery?” Damian asked.

Farrell listened as Nico explained, glossing over the more unpredictable elements of Locke’s operation. Damian wouldn’t want predictable, not after the shooting of Aria on the night Primo had been killed.

“No offense,” Damian said, “but I don’t know this guy from Adam. No way am I letting him into our operation.”

“I haven’t personally worked with Montgomery, but I do trust Nico,” Christophe said. “Given our limited options, perhaps you should do the same.”

Damian stood, his gaze traveling to the men seated around the table. “Pull rank if you want — you’re the boss — but as long as the New York operation is mine, I’m opting out of bringing in Montgomery.” He headed for the door. “I’ll keep you posted.”

The door shut heavily behind him.

“That went well,” Farrell said.

“We can always force his hand,” Luca said. “He’s right: we’re in charge.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Nico said. “We brought him in to lead the territory. Micromanaging his leadership will only undermine his trust in the organization. That damage will be worse than any that can be done if we wait him out.”

“Waiting bores me,” Farrell said, “but I agree, it’s the wisest move at this point.”

“He may come around,” Christophe said. “He can be reckless, but he’s one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever met.”

Farrell didn’t know whether to be annoyed or proud that Christophe’s gaze flickered his way.

“Then we’re agreed?” Nico asked.

Christophe nodded.

“I agree,” Luca said.

“Me, too,” Farrell said. “But we can’t let it go on too long. Vegas is still a mess. We need to deal with it sooner rather than later.”