The Boss’s Dog

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the distant patter of rain and the harsh, ragged breathing of two wounded men.

Salvi lay motionless beside the ruined grand piano. His remaining henchmen outside, hearing the sheer devastation inside and realizing their leadership was gone, scrambled back into their vehicles and sped out through the ruined gates into the night.

Arthur lowered the shotgun, his knees buckling. He slumped against the wall of the upper landing, clutching his side. Blood was seeping through his black fleece—a stray bullet from the foyer fire had caught him in the ribs.

Vincent hurried up the stairs, checking the gardener’s wound with practiced fingers. “You’re hit.”

“Through and through,” Arthur wheezed, groaning as Vincent applied pressure with a clean handkerchief. “I’ll live. Where’s Lily?”

“I’m here, Daddy.”

Lily emerged from the shadows of the hallway. She wasn't crying. Her face was pale, her little fingers clutching her one-eared stuffed bear against her chest.

Titan walked beside her, his head low, nuzzling her hand with every step. When the dog reached Arthur, he licked the gardener’s bloody knuckles once, then sat down between Lily and the staircase, facing outward, an unyielding sentinel.

Vincent looked down at the child. In the dim light of the emergency candles flickering in the sconces, she didn't look like the granddaughter of a ruthless mob kingpin or the heiress to an encrypted fortune. She looked like a little girl who had lost her mother and nearly lost her father.

Vincent reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out the crumpled drawing of the black truck that Lily had made.

“You were very brave tonight, Lily,” Vincent said softly.

Lily looked at the drawing, then looked at the dead men on the marble floor below.

“Mr. Rourke?” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“Can we go back to the cottage now?”

Arthur closed his eyes, a tear cutting a clean track through the soot on his cheek. “We can’t go back to the cottage, sweetheart. We have to go far away.”

Vincent stood up. He walked to the broken balustrade, looking down at the wreckage of his home. His security chief was dead. His gates were smashed. The five families in New York would know about this before noon. War was coming, or perhaps a total restructuring of the underworld’s hierarchy.

He turned back to Arthur and Lily.

“You’re not going anywhere, Bennett,” Vincent said.

Arthur looked up, his brow furrowed with confusion and fear. “Rourke, you don't owe us anything. We brought death to your door.”

“You brought a traitor to the surface,” Vincent countered, pointing toward Marco’s body. “Diaz would have sold me out to Salvi eventually. You saved my life. Titan saved yours. In my world, blood isn't paid with apologies. It’s paid with loyalty.”

Vincent knelt beside Lily again. He reached out, his rough, scarred hand gently tapping her nose.

“How would you like to keep driving Titan in your pink car every afternoon?” Vincent asked.

Lily’s eyes lit up with a faint, hopeful spark. “Can I put the scarf on him again?”