The Cost We Pay follows a grieving father whose quest for vengeance and expanding criminal power collide with a ruthless Chicago mob boss, exposing the destructive line between love, protection, and possession. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

First off, I am thrilled to have back-to-back 5-star reviews, first with The Sins We Inherit and now with the sequel, The Cost We Pay. When I finished The Sins We Inherit, I knew the second book couldn’t simply be bigger—it had to be more personal. Cost spends the first novel convincing himself that everything he does is about protecting his family. In The Cost We Pay, I wanted to test that belief.

Maddy’s shooting forces him to confront something he can’t fix, control, or intimidate away. Instead of dealing with that pain, he doubles down on the one thing he understands: control. The tragedy is that he continues calling it protection even as the people closest to him begin experiencing it as possession.

How did you create tension between the Milwaukee and Chicago criminal organizations?

I wanted Milwaukee and Chicago to feel distinct, but I also wanted to bring some realism to the historical connective tissue between organized crime in the two cities. Milwaukee has always existed in Chicago’s shadow geographically, and historically there were relationships and connections between their criminal worlds as well.

In the novel, Cost’s organization is more personal—built around family, neighborhood history, relationships, and loyalty. Chicago operates on a different scale and with different math. John Decesso sees people, businesses, and even relationships as assets. That contrast creates tension before anyone ever fires a shot. Cost is accustomed to being the most powerful person in the room, and suddenly he’s dealing with someone whose reach extends well beyond his own.

Did any secondary character become more important during the writing process than you originally expected?

Definitely Nico Vistoso. After what happens at the end of the first book, it would have been easy to treat Nico simply as someone Cost needs to punish. But the more I wrote him, the more interested I became in his guilt and the consequences of what he’d done. His interaction with Maddy became especially important because it allowed me to explore accountability and forgiveness from a completely different perspective than Cost’s obsession with revenge.

Tiger also became increasingly important even though he’s no longer alive. His journal originally came from an idea I had for a separate story about Tiger’s rise and Cost’s fall. Eventually I realized the journal belonged inside this novel. It gave me a way to expand the mythology of the Caduto family while allowing Tiger’s words to challenge Cost’s romanticized ideas about power, loyalty, and legacy.

Can you give readers a glimpse inside the next installment of The Sins We Inherit Saga?

Book III is the reckoning.

The first two books have been about inheritance, power, consequence, and the choices Cost makes in the name of protecting the people he loves. The final installment will be less about expanding that universe and more about forcing Cost to face everything those choices have created.

At its heart, the question becomes much simpler: after everything he’s done and everything it’s cost him, is redemption still possible—or has the fall already been set in motion?

I want the final book to bring the story full circle. Not necessarily bigger. Just inevitable.

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