Chapter 3 - THE MIDNIGHT VISITATIONThree nights later, the Romano mansion was swallowed by a heavy, suffocating silence.
The storm rolled in off Lake Michigan around midnight, bringing with it sheets of driving rain that lashed against the tall stained-glass windows of the west wing. Fork lightning split the black sky, illuminating the sprawling estate in brief, blinding flashes of silver, followed immediately by the deep, bone-rattling concussions of thunder.
Vincent was still awake.
He sat at his heavy mahogany desk in the dark study, the glowing amber tip of a cigar his only companion. Spread out across the blotter were architectural blueprints of the city’s shipping ports—lucrative contracts he was fighting three rival syndicates to control.
Normally, numbers and logistics were a soothing balm, a reminder of his absolute dominance over the chaos of the world.
Tonight, the numbers swam before his eyes.
Every time he closed them, he saw Sophia’s small hand resting on Diesel’s scarred snout. He heard her soft voice echoing through the dusty corridors: “Quiet houses are sometimes sad.”
A sharp scratch at the heavy oak study door broke the silence.
Vincent froze.
He lowered the cigar, his hand hovering over the heavy revolver resting in the velvet-lined drawer beneath his desk. No one came to his study after midnight. Maria knew better. Giuseppe knew better. Security guards patrolled the perimeter, but they never approached his private quarters unsummoned.
Scratch. Thump.
It wasn’t human.
Vincent stood up slowly, silently, his boots making no sound on the thick oriental rug. He pulled the revolver from the drawer, checking the chamber with a practiced click, and crept toward the heavy door.
He gripped the brass handle, yanked it open, and raised the barrel.
Standing in the dimly lit hallway was not an assassin, not a rival mobster, and not a ghost.
It was Diesel.
The one-hundred-and-twenty-pound bulldog stood on the threshold of Vincent’s private sanctuary, looking entirely out of place against the Persian carpets and oil paintings. Water dripped from his black, scarred coat onto the floorboards, forming a small puddle around his paws. His massive head was lowered, and his amber eyes looked up at Vincent with an expression that defied every rule of nature.
Zero aggression. Absolute, undeniable submission.
Vincent stared down at the beast, his finger still locked tight around the trigger of his gun.
“How did you get out?” Vincent whispered, his voice dangerously tight. “Giuseppe! Security!”
No one answered. The storm outside drowned out any call for help, and the west wing was miles away from the security station.
Diesel didn’t lunge. He didn’t growl. He let out a low, pathetic whine—a sound no one had ever heard the beast make—and took one slow, deliberate step forward across the threshold of the study.
“Get back,” Vincent ordered, leveling the gun at the dog’s forehead. “Back to the east wing, Diesel. Now.”
The bulldog stopped. He sat heavily on his haunches, his thick tail giving a single, mournful thump against the floor. He looked from the barrel of the gun up to Vincent’s eyes, as if recognizing the exact same cold, barricaded loneliness reflected in the gangster’s gaze.
Vincent’s finger trembled slightly against the trigger.
For five years, he had fed this animal, housed this animal, and watched this animal tear apart anyone who tried to bridge the gap between them. He had viewed Diesel as a mirror of his own impenetrable fortress—a weapon forged in pain, surviving through isolation.
And now, the beast was standing in his study, having broken out of the most secure courtyard in Chicago, simply because a little girl had shown him a moment of kindness.
“You traitor,” Vincent muttered hoarsely.
He lowered the gun.
Diesel let out a heavy sigh, stepped past Vincent’s legs, and walked over to the Persian rug directly in front of the unlit fireplace. He curled his massive, scarred body into a tight circle, laid his heavy head on his paws, and closed his eyes.
He wasn’t leaving.
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Vincent stood in the doorway for a long, silent minute, listening to the rain batter the glass. Slowly, he walked back to his desk, laid the revolver down, and picked up his cigar.
For the first time in twenty years, the master of the Romano empire was no longer the most isolated creature in his own house.
