Chapter 3 - The Siege of Clearfield Street
"Brier! Grab her!"
There was no time to use the building’s creaky, slow elevator. Brier scooped Posie up into her arms, wrapping the girl's legs around her waist. Posie clung to her mother's neck, burying her face into Brier’s shoulder, terrified but trusting implicitly.
Brutus moved ahead of them, stepping out into the narrow third-floor corridor just as the first man cleared the top of the stairs.
The man was large, wearing a leather jacket and holding a heavy black pistol equipped with a suppressor. The moment he crested the landing and saw Brier, he raised the weapon. "Don't move, girl—"
He never finished the sentence.
Brutus didn't bark. He launched his massive frame across the ten feet of hallway like an artillery shell. He hit the gunman squarely in the chest, the sheer weight of the 130-pound dog driving the man backward down the steep flight of concrete stairs. The sound of cracking bones and panicked screams echoed off the brick walls as the two tumbled down toward the second-floor landing.
"Brutus!" Posie cried out from Brier's arms.
"Keep moving!" Brier sobbed, turning left toward the rear fire escape door.
She slammed her body against the emergency bar. The metal door burst open into the freezing night air, leading to a rusty iron staircase that wound down into the narrow, trash-strewn alleyway below.
Behind them, a gunshot rang out—a dull, muffled pop-pop from inside the building, followed by a terrifying roar of pure, unfiltered animal fury.
Brier’s heart nearly stopped. Had they shot Brutus?
She paused at the top of the fire escape, her knuckles white as she cradled Posie tightly against her chest. "Brutus!" she screamed toward the open door.
A second later, the heavy doorframe shook. Brutus burst through the opening into the cold night air. His left shoulder was wet with crimson blood where a bullet had grazed his thick hide, but his yellow eyes were ablaze with unyielding protective instinct. He showed no sign of weakness. He bounded past Brier, taking the lead down the metallic, rattling steps of the fire escape, clearing the path ahead.
Down in the alley, a second man was waiting at the base of the iron ladder. Hearing the clattering metal above, he looked up and drew a handgun from his coat.
Before the shooter could aim up toward Brier and Posie, Brutus jumped from the middle landing—a fifteen-foot drop into the darkness. The giant dog crashed directly onto the gunman, slamming him face-first into the brick wall of the alley. The weapon clattered uselessly into an open dumpster.
Brutus stood over the unconscious man, snarl dripping from his jaw, before turning back to Brier, who was frantically descending the last ladder rung with Posie clinging to her neck.
"Good boy! Oh God, good boy!" Brier wept, checking his bloodied shoulder. The bullet had torn through skin and fat, but had missed muscle and bone. The dog barely seemed to feel it; his head was turning back and forth, scanning the street exits.
"Mommy, Brutus is hurting!" Posie cried, her tears wetting Brier’s shoulder.
"He's going to be okay, baby. We have to run!"
Brier sprinted down the narrow alleyway, her feet sloshing through freezing puddles. Brutus ran right alongside them, his broad shoulder pressing lightly against Brier’s leg every few steps to keep her balanced in the dark.
They burst out of the alley three blocks away, breathless and shivering in the harsh streetlights. Brier looked around wildly. She couldn't go back to her apartment. She couldn't go to her friends; it would put them in mortal danger.
She pulled out her phone with trembling hands, only to realize she had left it on the kitchen counter during the rush. She was completely cut off, isolated in the middle of a cold city, hunted by the most dangerous men in Philadelphia.
She looked down at her heavy purse, feeling the outline of Uncle Tony’s canvas envelope inside.
There was only one person left who could help them—a man her Uncle Tony had mentioned in a letter years ago. A retired homicide detective named Marcus Vance, who had spent twenty years trying to destroy the Moretti crime family before being forced out of the department by corrupt superiors.
Marcus lived near the river, six miles away in the industrial shipyards.
"Can you walk a little bit if I support you, Posie?" Brier asked, her voice shaking as she lowered her daughter onto a bus stop bench under a dim light.
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Posie looked at her mother, then down at Brutus, who sat heavily on the cold concrete beside her feet, leaning his bleeding shoulder against her leg. Posie reached out, her tiny hand finding the top of his large head, holding onto her compass.
"I can be brave, Mommy," Posie whispered, wiping her tears with her sleeve. "Brutus will protect us."
