Pay or Die!

The rookie detective Petrosino convinces the New York City Police Commissioner to authorize a dedicated squad to fight the Black Hand on its own turf. He emphasizes the need to speak Italian and to win the trust of tenement residents. This reform sets the stage for a proactive street-level crackdown.

Petrosino identifies Lupo Miano as the leading extortionist and makes him the first target. He soon realizes the criminal network runs deeper than a single racketeer.

Petrosino, though shy socially, discovers Adelina Saulino loves him and they begin a romance that leads to marriage. Their union grounds him personally as he pursues his dangerous work.

When the Black Hand targets Enrico Caruso, Petrosino appoints himself as the singer's personal bodyguard. He embraces high-profile protective duties to root out threats to a public figure.

After a performance, a bomb placed in Caruso's car kills the chauffeur; a forgotten hat saves Caruso's life. Petrosino pursues the bomber, shooting him as he tries to flee.

A Black Hand note reaches a jeweler who alerts Petrosino, prompting a larger counter-strike. The criminals escalate with a bomb hidden in a vegetable cart, killing the jeweler and several schoolgirls; the bomber survives and a nun provides a facial sketch that helps identify him.

Petrosino infiltrates the bomber's hideout, smuggling himself in wrapped in a bale of cotton rags. After a brutal fistfight, the bomber is killed; Di Sarno, a Black Hand member, hangs himself in despair over his daughter's death.

Petrosino adopts a bold tactic: travel to Italy to locate gangsters who can be deported for justice and to gauge the reach of a growing nationwide crime syndicate. He discovers that Vito Zarillo is a fugitive wanted in Sicily for double murder.

Zarillo sends a warning back home by mail, entrusting Johnny Viscardi to carry on if something happens. The note reveals the transatlantic reach of the Black Hand and hints at a wider crime network.

The day before his planned return, Petrosino is lured to a meeting with a traitorous informant who is revealed to be the head of Sicily's mafia and he is shot in the street. Back in New York at the funeral home, Viscardi sees Zarillo spit into Petrosino's coffin, a shocking clue that helps seal the breakout of the Black Hand leadership.