While Victor Moretti sat at the head of the long dining table weeping beautifully for the capos, everyone praised his grief and ignored his hollow eyes.

Lily stood on the narrow stone landing at the head of the second staircase. The wood door had drifted half-shut behind her, muffling the distant hum of the estate’s central furnace into nothingness. Here, thirty feet below the manicured lawns of the north terrace, the air was unnervingly warm and pressurized, as if the mountain itself were holding its breath.

She looked down. The steps were narrower here, hand-chiseled directly out of the dark gray slate, their surfaces worn smooth in the center by boots that had walked them centuries ago.

"Look, Mimi," Lily whispered, her fingers stroking the rabbit’s lone button eye. "Someone left the nightlight on."

With the fearless, unbothered rhythm of an explorer, Lily began her descent. She held Mimi by the paws, letting the rabbit’s feet dangle as she navigated the steep drop. One step, two steps, three steps. The amber glow intensified, painting the sweating slate walls in rich shades of honey and bronze.

When her shoes hit the level stone of the bottom floor, the space opened up into a wide, circular vault. The ceiling was low, formed of massive granite slabs supported by two central pillars of stacked river stone. An old brass hurricane lantern sat on a low wooden bench near the wall, its flame turned low, casting long, barred shadows across the flagstones.

In the center of the chamber stood the cage.

It was not a modern holding cell made of chain-link and galvanized steel. It was an antique monstrosity of wrought iron, six feet square, constructed of square vertical bars an inch thick, set barely four inches apart. The top was domed with overlapping iron straps, and the heavy door was fastened by an enormous, hand-forged sliding bolt secured with a tumbler padlock the size of a dinner plate.

Inside the cage, sitting on a low wooden cot bolted to the stone floor, was a man.

He was sitting with his back against the wall, his long legs drawn up, his forearms resting on his knees. He wore an expensive, tailored charcoal-black suit, but the jacket was wrinkled, stained with lime dust, and missing two buttons at the cuff. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, the stiff collar soiled with sweat and dark streaks of dried blood. Thick, wavy dark hair, heavily disheveled and falling across his forehead, partially obscured a jawline covered in four days of rough, dark stubble.

When the soft scuff of Lily’s shoes echoed against the granite floor, the man did not flinch or shout. His movement was slow, agonizingly deliberate, like that of an apex predator waking from a heavy drug.

He lifted his head.