Already, I’m missing Nero—he’d know exactly what to do to royally fuck up Yenin’s network. He could probably hack into it remotely. But Nero is barely conscious, and definitely not able to work. So I’ll have to figure it out myself.

The porn production was likewise a surprise. We knew that Yenin imported girls from the poorer regions of the Ukraine and Romania, but we thought it was only to stock his depressing little brothel. It was Yelena who told me that the girls are actually used to make fetish videos, which he likewise sells online through OnlyFans and Pornhub.

Finally, there’s the wind farm. This is, apparently, a brand-new venture. Yelena explained it to me, based off snippets she’d overheard, and things her brother had told her.

“It’s a new industry,” she said, “So it’s poorly regulated. You’ve got high prices, complicated financing. And then there’s the government subsidies. Adrian told me he’s skimmed off ten million this year alone, taking green energy grants and pocketing the funds. He’s supposed to have eight windmills out there, but only two of them actually work.”

I plan to wipe out all three of his cash sources, all at once. Mikolaj and I have timed the attack down to the minute.

Mikolaj and his men will take down the sports betting ring.

“Make sure you wipe the system, before you destroy the servers,” I told him. “We don’t want him back and up and running with just the cost of a few new computers.”

“Don’t worry,” Miko said, carelessly. “I’m bringing a kid from Wroclaw. He was stealing weapons schematics from the Department of Defense by the time he was fifteen. So I’m sure he can handle whatever Yenin is running.”

I sent Antonio and Carlo Marino to Yenin’s brothel to clear out the girls and torch his makeshift film studio.

“Bring Bosco Bianchi,” I told them. “But don’t let him near the girls.”

“What do you want us to do with them?” Antonio said.

“Let them go. Or tell them they can go to Bareback on 48th Street if they want a new job—Lorenzo is always hiring.”

“Do we have to bring Bosco at all?” Antonio frowned.

“Yes,” I said. “He’s better than nothing.”

“We’ll make him go in first,” Carlo grunted, “So he doesn’t shoot one of us in the back by accident.”

I’ll be taking Stefano, Zio, and Tappo to the wind farm.

Before we head out west of the city, I take my three enforcers over to the last phase of construction on the South Shore development. We pick up two unmarked white construction vans, and a whole shit ton of nitroglycerin.

The nice thing about having demolition licenses is legal access to a wide variety of explosives.

Now, I’m no construction expert—Dante’s the one who oversaw most of our crews, not to mention liaising with the various unions and sub-contractors. But if there was one thing I was always interested in, it was blowing shit up.

We had to demolish all the existing steelworks structures before we could start the fresh build on the South Shore. I was there for all of it—setting charges, synchronizing the timing, and detonating.

Bringing down a building isn’t just about setting a bomb. You have to work with the existing structure, so you can bring it all down as cleanly and effectively as possible.

There’s four main ways you can bring down a structure—telescoping, implosion, progressive collapse, and the technique I’ll be using for the wind turbines: toppling. I want to bring those fuckers all the way down, and I don’t want to do it quietly.

As we drive out to the field full of its eight turbines, I tell Stefano to stop and pull over. Only a single-lane road heads in this direction, with fenced-off fields on both sides. The turbines share space with a pasture full of docile brown cows peacefully grazing on the cropped grass. A cattle grid across the road deters the cows from wandering out where they don’t belong.

The cattle grid is a simple structure: a depression in the road covered by a transverse grid of metal bars. I pop it up easily, revealing the empty space beneath. Zio helps me pack the area with gelatine explosives, connected to a remote detonator.

“You gonna blow up some cows?” Zio asks me, his shaggy hair hanging down over his eyes. Zio’s only twenty, and he has the perpetually sleepy look and rumpled clothing of an all-day stoner. But he’s a lot sharper than he looks.

“Something like that,” I say.

We set the heavy metal grate back in place, then continue on down toward the turbines.

Splitting up, we set our charges around the base of each structure. I check each one myself, noting that the blades of only two turbines are spinning in the light breeze. The others are dead, just like Yelena said. All eight look battered and dented, and not well maintained. These are three million-dollar machines—or at least, they were when they were new. I’m sure Yenin bought them for a steal when he set up his bullshit energy operation.

Though I’ve seen turbines from a distance many times, I’ve never been this close to one before. They’re much bigger than I expected—almost three hundred feet tall, and fifteen feet across at the base. I’m glad I brought plenty of nitroglycerin.

“We all set?” Tappo asks me, nervously.

He’s eyeing the explosives with great mistrust. No one is a more fearless fighter than Tappo, but he prefers to work with his hands. He doesn’t trust the explosives, and almost jumped out of his skin every time Stefano drove over a pothole, thinking the nitro in the back of the van was going to obliterate us all.

“Yeah,” I say. “You stay here to set off the charges while the rest of us take cover.”

“Are you serious?” he cries, looking green.

“No, you idiot, I’ve got a detonator,” I tell him, holding up the remote.

“Oh, fuck off,” he grumbles, scrambling to get behind the vans, which we’ve parked a respectable distance away.

While the others take cover, I climb up on top of the van so I can get a better view. I’m pretty sure we’re far enough back that I won’t risk any shrapnel, and I want to enjoy the show.

The turbines stand in the field, pale and eerie from this distance, like a graveyard of propellers silhouetted against the sky. I press the detonator.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then explosions bloom along the base of all eight turbines, like brilliant flaming flowers unfurling in the air.

We drilled boreholes on the base, concentrating the explosives on the east side of the towers so the turbines would all topple in the same direction. The noise of tearing steel is like an outraged scream—then the thunder of 164 tons of metal tumbling down. Eight columns of smoke rise up into the sky.

Zio has climbed up next to me, wanting to see the aftermath clearly.

“Fucking hell,” he says, in his mellow voice. “Sort of beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It is to me,” I say.

“ ‘Cause of the fire, or ‘cause it’s really gonna piss off Yenin?”

“Both,” I grin.

“What do we do now?” Stefano pipes up from the ground.

“We wait,” I say.

Forty minutes later, a black Mercedes SUV comes roaring up the bumpy road. I watch it speeding along. I recognize the vehicle, but it’s too far away for me to make out who’s driving.