Chapter 2 - The Audit of Enzo Dante
Enzo Dante did not raise his voice. Men who ruled empires built on docks, union contracts, and discreet banking didn't need to shout; the quietness of their authority was what kept people awake at night. He crouched down, ignoring the ruined catering containers, and brought his face level with the dog and the girl.
The mastiff—the creature known across three states as Il Diavolo, the devil of the Docks—growled a low, warning note the moment Enzo shifted his weight. It wasn't an attack growl; it was a territorial placement. The dog shifted its bulk slightly, interposing its scarred shoulder between Enzo and Emily.
Enzo’s eyes flicked from the animal to the girl. He saw the frayed cuffs of her Apex Logistics jacket, the cheap silver ring on her thumb, and the desperate, stubborn set of her jaw.
"You walked into a penthouse on the forty-second floor of the financial district carrying a catering order," Enzo said slowly, his tone analytical, like an auditor reviewing an irregular ledger. "You dropped your tray. You hummed a tune that hasn't been popular since the mid-nineties. And my dog, who has ripped the throat out of a trained German Shepherd without breaking his stride, is currently treating you like a long-lost relative."
"He was stolen," Emily said, her hands still locked in the thick fur around the dog's neck. The animal let out a soft, pathetic whine, pressing its wet nose against her collarbone. "When I was thirteen. From my backyard in Astoria. Someone cut the chain."
"People don't steal fighting mastiffs from Astoria to sell them to elite Italian syndicates," Enzo remarked dryly. "They buy them from specialized brokers in Naples for figures that would pay off your apartment building twice over."
"I don't care where you bought him," Emily fired back, the protective instinct overriding her common sense entirely. "I know the notch in his ear. I know the white star on his chest. I know the way he twitches his left hind leg when he dreams about chasing squirrels. That's Siri."
"His name is Brutus," Enzo said.
"His name is Siri," Emily corrected fiercely.
For three long seconds, the penthouse grew so quiet that the hum of the climate control system sounded like a jet engine. The guards looked at their boss, waiting for the hand signal that would clear the room of an inconvenient witness. Five thousand dollars was a lot of money for a delivery girl, but a dead girl didn't cash checks.
Instead, Enzo stood up, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his dark trousers. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the glittering grid of Manhattan traffic far below.
"Maria," Enzo called out without turning around.
The older housekeeper hurried out from the shadows, wringing her apron in her hands. "Sir?"
"Clear the debris. Bring a fresh bottle of Barolo to the study. And prepare the guest suite on the lower tier."
Maria blinked, her eyes darting nervously toward Emily. "The... the guest suite, Mr. Dante?"
"The girl isn't leaving," Enzo said, his voice dropping into a register that brook no argument. "Not because she wants to, but because Brutus has decided to adopt her, and I make it a policy not to argue with animals that possess better judgment than my associates." He turned back, his dark eyes fixing on Emily with an unnerving, calculating intensity. "And you, Miss Marcus. You have a choice. You can take your five-thousand-dollar tip, walk out that elevator, and pretend you never saw this penthouse. Or you can stay here, figure out how a stray puppy from Astoria ended up in a syndicate boss's kennel, and explain to me why someone went to an awful lot of trouble to launder a dog."
Emily looked down at Siri. The massive beast was licking her hand again, its tail thumping a steady rhythm against the marble.
She thought of her brother's mounting medical bills. She thought of the eviction notice taped to her apartment door that morning. And she thought of the seven years she had spent wondering if her dog was cold, or hungry, or dead in a ditch.
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Emily stood up slowly, keeping one hand buried in the mastiff's collar.
"I'm staying," she said.
