On the way, he thought with annoyance, pulling his comb from the back pocket of his jeans and sweeping it through his shock of wavy hair.

The trial had lasted two months but he had beaten the indictment, been acquitted of all counts. It had proven somewhat tricky, because the identities of the jurors had been closely guarded. They had been shuttled to and from the courthouse in unmarked vans, escorted by a swarm of cops from the Organized Crime Task Force, and addressed only by number in the courtroom. The blonde with the good legs whom Nick had smiled and winked at throughout the trial was Juror Number One. The fat man who sat with his arms crossed over his belly was Juror Number Nine. Everything top secret. But Nick had sneered at the government’s secrets. Nick had been persistent. His people knew clerks in the U.S. Attorney’s Office with access to what were laughably called “high-security” databases, and had gotten the information they needed to reach two members of the panel.

Fifty thousand dollars—along with guarantees that the jurors’ families would be protected from sudden accidents and disappearances—had bought Nick Roma an acquittal. He had thought that a fair deal. In fact, he considered himself primarily a dealmaker. At thirty-five years old, he had already forged reciprocal arrangements with the Italians, the Chinese triads, the Colombian cartels, even the Yakuza. He’d built steadily and creatively upon street-level enterprises such as prostitution and narcotics trafficking, gaining footholds in the banking system, launching elaborate financial schemes, cracking open new markets wherever he’d seen a dollar. He had made contacts in the legitimate corporate and political communities, and set up clearinghouses for his activities in over a dozen states ... which was why he’d taken personal affront at the government attorneys’ characterization of him as a greenhorn thug, the leader of a ring of ethnic wannabes.

In his mind, nothing could have been further from the truth.

He had immigrated from Russia with his parents when he was six years old and since then had never been out of the country, never even been away from New York City. When he was twelve, his mother had successfully gone through naturalization proceedings, gaining citizenship for him as well. He had worked on his pronunciation until he spoke without any trace of an accent. At twenty-one he had altered the spelling of his first name and dropped the last syllable from his surname. Thus, Nikita Romanov had become Nick Roma.

He was as solidly American as anyone in that courtroom. And every time he thought of the prosecutors he promised himself that their insult would be repaid with interest. He was nobody’s joke. He—

Nicky heard a knock on his door, put the finishing touch to his hair, and returned the comb to his back pocket.