Chapter 1 - WHAT ELSIE FOUND UNDER HIS FUR
The mafia boss’s dog had just attacked a professional handler so badly that the man fled through the estate gates bleeding when my maid’s three-year-old daughter walked directly toward him, clutching a small laundry cloth in her hand.
I was certain I was seconds away from witnessing something horrific.
Instead, the animal that had obeyed only me for ten years ignored my order, rested his enormous head in the little girl’s lap, and exposed a secret someone inside my estate had been trying to keep from me.
My name is Alessio Romano.
Men in Chicago knew better than to enter my property without permission.
Nero usually made sure they remembered why.
Snow had covered the estate throughout the night.
By sunrise, the service courtyard rested beneath a thin layer of white, looking strangely peaceful.
But it wasn’t.
Nero stood in the middle of the courtyard, drenched and furious.
An overturned washbasin sat nearby.
His leash lay beside the drain.
Small drops of blood marked a trail through the snow toward the east gate.
The handler was already gone.
His name was Gavin Shaw, supposedly one of the best canine behavior specialists in Illinois.
He had lasted exactly twelve minutes.
Before leaving, he told my guards there wasn’t enough money in the world to make him return.
Double his pay wouldn’t do it.
Neither would triple.
I knew why.
Nero was no ordinary dog.
For more than a decade, he had stayed beside me through situations that would have broken most men.
He had protected me without hesitation.
Once, during a warehouse fire, he refused to leave until he knew I had made it outside safely.
He slept outside my bedroom door when I was injured.
He knew more of my secrets than most of the men who worked for me.
But something about him was different that morning.
His left hind leg shook.
His ears stayed flat.
And when I heard the deep growl rumbling in his chest, I realized it didn’t sound like anger.
It sounded like pain.
Then Sienna screamed.
“Where’s Elsie?”
My housekeeper rushed through the servants’ doorway only to stop so abruptly another woman nearly ran into her.
Her three-year-old daughter was already in the courtyard.
Elsie wore an oversized red wool coat, the buttons fastened crookedly across her chest.
In one hand she carried a battered teddy bear.
In the other, a folded white laundry cloth.
“Elsie,” Sienna whispered. “Honey, don't move.”
Elsie kept walking.
I stepped beneath the stone archway.
“Everyone stay away from the dog.”
My men immediately moved back.
Sienna couldn't.
I understood.
That was her little girl walking toward an animal that grown men had become afraid to approach.
Elsie stopped three feet from Nero.
Then sat down.
I raised one hand toward my guards.
Nobody moved.
For several seconds, the courtyard stopped breathing.
Elsie placed her teddy bear in the snow.
Then unfolded the cloth.
“You're wet.”
Nero growled.
Sienna covered her mouth.
Elsie did not move closer.
She waited.
The growl weakened.
Then she stretched her arm far enough to touch the cloth gently against his shoulder.
Once.
Twice.
Nero stopped growling.
“You're cold,” she whispered.
She wiped the black fur again.
Then:
“The bad man is gone now.”
My eyes immediately moved toward the abandoned leash.
“What bad man?”
Elsie did not answer me.
Maybe she didn't hear.
Maybe three-year-olds do not recognize when adults desperately need information.
Then Nero moved.
Sienna gasped.
One of my men reached beneath his coat.
“Don't.”
I never raised my voice.
I didn't need to.
Nero lowered himself onto the wet stone.
Then placed his enormous head directly into Elsie’s lap.
I stared.
“Bruno.”
His old command name.
The one I had used when he was a six-month-old pup.
His ear twitched.
“Come.”
Nothing.
“Bruno. Come.”
For ten years Nero had responded to that voice through gunfire, crowds and chaos.
Now he simply closed his eyes while a three-year-old child dried the fur behind his ear.
Elsie smiled.
Then froze.
Her fingers had reached the thick fur between Nero’s shoulder and neck.
She frowned.
“Mister Alessio?”
Her tone had changed.
I walked toward them slowly.
Nero opened one eye.
He let me approach.
Elsie separated the fur.
“What’s that?”
At first I saw only skin.
Then blood.
A tiny puncture.
And something metallic protruding less than a quarter inch from the swollen tissue.
My entire body went cold.
I crouched.
“Don't touch it, sweetheart.”
Elsie immediately moved her hand away.
Good.
I looked closer.
A broken needle.
Not from some old veterinary procedure.
Fresh.
The tissue around it was inflamed.
Then I saw another puncture.
And another.
Someone had been injecting my dog.
Repeatedly.
I stood.
“Call Dr. Levin.”
My estate veterinarian.
“Now.”
Sienna ran to Elsie.
I expected Nero to react when she lifted her daughter.
He did not.
He watched Elsie leave.
Then looked at me.
Not guilty.
Not violent.
Exhausted.
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Samuel Levin entered the courtyard with a veterinary technician.
He had treated Nero since the dog was two.
The moment he saw the punctures, his expression changed.
“Inside.”
Nero refused the kennel.
He followed Elsie.
We converted the laundry sitting room into an examination space because apparently the most feared dog in my organization had selected a three-year-old in a crooked red coat as his emotional-support human.
Elsie sat on a stool.
Nero lay beside her.
Dr. Levin removed the broken needle fragment.
Then shaved a narrow section of fur.
Four puncture sites.
Different ages.
“What medication did you prescribe him?”
I asked.
“Nothing injectable.”
My stomach tightened.
“Could these be from the handler?”
“One could.”
He looked again.
“Not all four.”
“How old?”
“Hard to say exactly.”
“Several days.”
Maybe longer.
Blood samples were taken.
Dr. Levin checked Nero’s heart rate.
Eyes.
Reflexes.
Then his left leg.
Nero whined.
Elsie immediately touched his head.
“Easy, friend.”
Dr. Levin looked at me.
“His behavior makes more sense now.”
“What do you mean?”
“If someone has repeatedly injected him with something that causes disorientation or discomfort, then people approaching with equipment could become triggers.”
I looked toward the abandoned leash through the window.
“Gavin.”
“Possibly.”
“Or someone before him.”
Elsie suddenly said:
“Silver pen.”
Every adult turned.
Sienna crouched.
“What, baby?”
“The bad man has silver pen.”
My pulse changed.
“What bad man?”
Elsie looked toward me.
Then pointed toward the hallway.
“He goes shhh.”
Sienna frowned.
“Who?”
Elsie pressed one finger to her lips.
“Shhh.”
Then:
“Nero cries.”
Nobody spoke.
Sienna went pale.
“Elsie, when did you see that?”
The little girl shrugged.
Three-year-old time.
Useless.
Yesterday could mean an hour or a month.
“Where?”
Elsie pointed toward the laundry corridor.
“Down there.”
My security chief, Damian Cross, stood near the door.
I looked at him.
“Camera coverage?”
“Full corridor.”
“Pull it.”
He hesitated.
Only half a second.
That was enough.
“Damian.”
His expression tightened.
“There was a system interruption Tuesday morning.”
My blood went cold.
“How long?”
“Eleven minutes.”
“And nobody told me?”
“It was logged as maintenance.”
“By whom?”
He checked his tablet.
Then his face changed.
“Owen Gray.”
My estate operations manager.
Twenty-three years with my family.
He knew every boiler.
Every service entrance.
Every staff schedule.
Every dog on the property.
Including Nero.
“Where is Owen?”
Damian touched his earpiece.
No response.
Another guard called his office.
Empty.
His apartment above the garage.
Empty.
Vehicle still present.
Phone on his desk.
I looked toward Nero.
Elsie had started humming to him.
The dog’s eyes remained closed.
Dr. Levin’s phone buzzed.
Preliminary toxicology screen.
He read.
His expression hardened.
“What?”
“There’s evidence of a veterinary sedative in his system.”
“Prescribed?”
“No.”
“How much?”
“Enough that repeated exposure could leave him confused, weak and unpredictable.”
I stared.
Someone had been drugging the dog responsible for guarding the interior of my estate.
Not enough to kill him.
Enough to make him unreliable.
Aggressive.
A liability.
And if Nero attacked a professional handler?
I would remove him myself.
The realization came slowly.
Then all at once.
This was not about hurting my dog.
It was about getting him out of the way.
I looked at Damian.
“What is happening on this property in the next seventy-two hours?”
He didn't need to check.
“The Romano Foundation winter gala.”
Three hundred guests.
Politicians.
Business owners.
Donors.
Temporary staff.
Caterers.
Musicians.
Florists.
Dozens of people who did not normally have access to my estate.
And Nero was supposed to patrol the service wing.
The same service wing where Elsie had seen a man hurting him.
I looked toward the little girl.
She was whispering into Nero’s ear.
Then she said something that made Sienna stop breathing.
“He said Mister Alessio goes bye-bye Friday.”
Friday.
The gala was Friday.
I crouched in front of her.
“Who said that, Elsie?”
She hugged her teddy bear.
“The bad man.”
“What bad man?”
She thought very hard.
Then looked toward the ceiling.
“Mr. Gray.”
Nobody in the room moved.
Owen Gray had disappeared.
My dog had been drugged.
Eleven minutes of security footage were missing.
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And a three-year-old child claimed she had heard my estate manager say that on the night of my largest annual event—
I was going away.
