THE MAFIA BOSS ORDERED HIS DOG TO COME—BUT THE DOG SAT ON A SHOP OWNER’S FOOT AND REFUSED TO MOVE

The rain had cleared by evening, leaving the cobblestone streets of Baltimore’s historic Fells Point slick and reflecting the amber glow of old-fashioned streetlamps.

Inside Happy Tails, Emily locked the front deadbolt, turned off the neon grooming sign, and exhaled a long, shaky breath. Her hands were still slightly stained with antiseptic from cleaning Brutus’s paw earlier that morning. She couldn't get the image of Dante Valente out of her head—the cold authority, the flash of vulnerability when he held his dog, and the terrifying weight of his promise.

She walked back to her small apartment located directly above the shop, kicked off her sneakers, and poured herself a cup of chamomile tea. But peace was hard to come by. As she sat by the second-story window overlooking the harbor, a sleek black sedan crawled slowly down the empty street below, its headlights extinguished. It stopped directly in front of her shop, idling for nearly two minutes before pulling away into the fog.

Emily’s chest tightened. She wasn't naive. Living in Baltimore meant knowing how the city worked. You didn't attract the attention of men like Dante Valente without leaving a ripple in the dark water.

Meanwhile, three miles away across the harbor, inside the private, ultra-secure penthouse suite of the Valente Shipping Terminal, Dante stood behind a massive floor-to-ceiling glass wall, looking out over his empire of cranes and cargo ships.

Marco stood near the door, holding a thick file folder.

“You found who did it?” Dante asked, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.

“We found him, Boss,” Marco replied grimly. “It was Jimmy ‘The Hook’ Rossi. One of our mid-level dock foremen down at Pier 42. He thought Brutus was getting too close to the shipping manifests we keep in the secure annex. He tried to hobble the dog so he wouldn't wander into the restricted zone during the night shift.”

Dante didn't turn around. “Where is Jimmy now?” Tied to a chair in the basement of our primary warehouse on Pratt Street,” Marco said.

Dante took a slow sip of his scotch. “Bring him up here.”

Ten minutes later, Jimmy Rossi—sweating profusely, his face bruised and pale with terror—was shoved onto the pristine white marble floor of the penthouse suite. He fell hard, gasping for air as two guards hauled him up to his knees.

Dante walked slowly out of the shadows. He looked down at Jimmy the way a scientist might look at a particularly repulsive insect.

“Jimmy,” Dante said softly. “You’ve worked for my family for twelve years. I trusted you with dock security. I trusted you around my warehouse shipments.”

“Boss! I swear to God I didn't mean no harm!” Jimmy sobbed, his voice cracking hysterically. “The dog—the dog was sniffing around crates he shouldn't have been near! I panicked! I didn't know it was your dog—well, I knew, but I thought—ah, Christ, Boss, have mercy!”

Dante crouched down until his face was inches from Jimmy’s sweating forehead. His grey eyes were as cold as a frozen tomb.

“You hurt my dog,” Dante whispered, each word dropping like lead weights. “You wrapped industrial wire around his flesh and left him to suffer in the dark. That wasn't about security, Jimmy. That was cruelty.”

“Boss, please! I got a family! I got kids—”

“Your family will be taken care of,” Dante interrupted coldly, standing back up and signaling to Marco. “Send him to the upstate timber yard. Make sure he works off every single dollar of medical care Brutus required—for the next twenty years. And if he ever steps foot in Baltimore again, feed him to the harbor.”

As Jimmy was dragged away, screaming and thrashing into the hallway, Dante walked over to his mahogany desk. Resting beside his laptop was a small photograph one of his informants had slipped under his door an hour earlier.

It was a candid photo of Emily Parker, laughing as she held a fluffy Pomeranian puppy outside her shop earlier that afternoon.

Dante picked up the photo, his thumb tracing the edge of the glossy paper. He wasn't a man given to romantic impulses. In his world, sentimentality was a fatal weakness, a handle for enemies to twist. Yet, every time he closed his eyes, he remembered the way Emily had planted herself between his armed enforcers and a bleeding animal, showing a fearless, radiant defiance that cut right through his armor.

He reached for his phone and dialed a private, secure number.

“Vince? It’s Valente,” Dante said when the line connected. “I want a full 24-hour security detail assigned to the perimeter of Happy Tails boutique on Thames Street. Plainclothes. No uniforms, no marked cars. I want nobody touching that shop. Understand?”