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“Yes.”

She drops her hands. “You agree with me?”

“I don’t see any other explanation.”

“Then who?”

“I’m finding out.”

She looks at me. I don’t know if she’s forgotten about the map entirely or simply set it aside for now. All I need is a little bit of time to make things right.

But Osip is proving to be elusive. Niko can’t find him. Neither can any of the dozen-plus men we have pounding the pavement, looking for signs of the Vetrov fuck who’s trying to ruin my woman’s life.

I just need time. Just a bit. Just a little.

I need Delilah to hold on for a little longer.

I shouldn’t have hoped, though.

The next day, a rented box truck backs into the loading area of the bakery and knocks out over ten feet of the concrete curb, the steel bollard by the roll gate, and a section of the brick apron where the delivery ramp meets the wall.

Then it pulls out, tires screeching, and disappears.

Josef gets the plate, but we can’t seem to find the owner. It’s either fake or stolen.

He also gets, on his phone, a ninety-second clip of two men creeping across the alley at four in the morning photographing the rear of the building, the gate, and the second-floor windows.

Delilah arrives, looks at the rubble, and for a moment, I’m sure she’s going to break down in tears.

Instead, she draws in a deep breath, then gets to work.

She calls her insurance broker, her contractor, and a debris removal company, and gets it all taken care of. She refuses to let me assist or offer so much as a penny to cover her losses.

Fine.

I’ll handle things my way.

By that afternoon, Yuri has located the kamikaze truck. From what we can tell, it was rented from a lot in Ozone Park on a license belonging to a man named Bruno Perry. When we track down Mr. Perry and pay him a visit, he shows us the cash he was paid by a known bookie associate of the Halyard Group.

We smash up his apartment and tell him not to take cash payments for hit-and-run assignments anymore, or else he’ll find himself involved in one on the receiving end.

Niko has the anonymous health complaint traced through a call center in Yonkers. That call center’s landlord? Halyard Group.

Anton finds Halyard’s counsel of record. Turns out the attorney shares a suite and a fax number with the title insurance company in Sheepshead Bay.

Niko lays it all on the map table Friday night and taps it. “It’s undeniable now,” he says. “Osip knows about the bakery, and he is causing as much trouble as he can.”

“I know,” I say.

Niko doesn’t move his hand off the map. “Then you know what comes next.” He straightens up. “He’s not going to keep breaking her curb forever, Kane. That’s the warm-up. At some point, he’s going to walk into that bakery, sit down at one of those little tables, order a coffee, and tell her everything you didn’t.”

I look at the ninety green squares. Twenty years of my life in marker.

“Tell her first,” Niko says. “Tonight. Right now. Get in the car.”

“No.”

“Kane—”