The child came through the hedge on a Tuesday afternoon like she had decided the gap was there specifically for her.

It happened on a rainy Tuesday, three weeks after the toxicology report arrived.

Tommy was the one who noticed it first. The nine-year-old boy had the hyper-vigilance of a child raised on streets where cars didn't slow down unless they were looking for trouble. He was sitting on the concrete edge of the estate's drainage ditch, carving a stick with a dull pocketknife, when he saw the black Ford Explorer idling on the access road beyond the privet hedge.

The vehicle had no license plates.

Tommy didn't run. He pocketed his knife, stood up slowly, and walked through the gap in the hedge straight toward the main house. He didn't go to the kitchen where his mother worked. He walked straight into Luca's study.

Mateo reached for his shoulder, but Luca raised a hand.

"Let him speak," Luca said from behind his desk.

Tommy crossed his arms, his jaw set tight. "There's a black truck parked by the drainage pipe. Two men inside. One of them has a camera with a long lens. He was taking pictures of Maya while she was on the swing."

Luca's eyes darkened instantly into something terrifyingly cold. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"Mateo," Luca said calmly. "Bring them to the wine cellar."

Ten minutes later, the iron door of the cellar slammed shut.

The two men were pinned against the damp stone wall by four of Mateo’s enforcers. Their camera had been smashed on the floor, its memory card sitting on Luca's desk upstairs. The lead scout, a mid-level street soldier named Jimmy "The Rat" Vane, was trembling so hard his teeth were clicking together.

Luca wheeled himself into the light of the single hanging bulb.

"Jimmy," Luca said softly. "You've been on my payroll for six years."

"Mr. Costello, I swear to God!" Jimmy whimpered, blood dripping from his split lip where Mateo had struck him. "Marcus told us to watch the estate! He said you were acting strange... he said you were canceling medical appointments and looking into old financial ledgers! He just wanted to know who the kid was!"

"Who the kid was," Luca repeated, his voice dangerously level.

"He thinks... he thinks the woman is a federal witness!" Jimmy blurted out, desperate to save his own skin. "Marcus thinks you're preparing to hand over the dock manifests to the FBI! He said if the kid is your leverage, we needed to secure her before the summit!"

Luca sat in total silence for three long seconds.

Then, he leaned forward in his chair. "Mateo."

"Yes, Boss?"

"Put Jimmy and his friend in the safehouse in Milwaukee. Strip them of their phones. If Marcus tries to contact them, feed him automated location pings."