Part 7
On the roof, Vincent reached his position and clicked his radio twice.
Nico gave the signal.
The loading entrance burst inward as Walter forced the service door open. Shots crossed the warehouse. One guard fell near the loading bay; another dropped beside Walter. The third fired into the rafters before Vincent stopped him from above.
Everett seized Rosie by the hair and pulled her against him.
Hannah lunged, then stopped when the pistol touched her daughter’s temple.
“Back, Nico!” Everett shouted. “Move and she dies!”
Nico stood inside the service entrance.
His pistol remained lowered. The leather lead hung from his wrist.
Then it emptied.
Rook had backed his head free of the loose loop.
The dog crossed the concrete low to the ground, his injured leg trailing. He had no speed left for the charge Nico had trained into him. His front paws gained a few feet, slipped, and gained again.
Rosie saw him.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came.
Everett turned the pistol away from her head and fired at the approaching dog.
Rook staggered. For a moment his front legs spread beneath him.
Then he pushed forward once more and caught Everett’s gun wrist.
The pistol struck the floor.
Everett screamed and let go of Rosie. Hannah caught her beneath the arms and rolled with her behind a low stack of packing material, covering the child with her body.
Nico crossed the remaining distance.
He fired once into Everett’s knee, kicked the fallen pistol beyond reach, and drove him facedown against the concrete. Rook held until Nico gave the release command.
Only then did the jaws open.
Walter brought cuffs. Nico secured Everett’s good wrist first, then the injured one as carefully as the circumstances allowed.
“You stay alive,” Nico told him. “You’ll tell every one of them what you did.”
Everett tried to turn his head. Nico had already left him.
Rook had collapsed beside the packing crates.
Rosie crawled from beneath her mother’s arm. The dog turned his head toward her and managed one slow lick along her wet cheek.
She pressed her forehead against his muzzle.
“My good boy,” she whispered.
Nico knelt beside them. He had carried his father after a shooting. Only hours earlier, he had held Paul’s hand beside the fountain. Now he gathered Rook’s head into his lap and bent until his mouth touched the scarred skull.
“Stay here with me.”
His voice failed. He tried again.
“Stay.”
They carried Rook back to the sedan. Nico took most of his weight and refused to surrender it until they reached the open rear door. Hannah climbed in first so the dog’s head could rest across her knees.
Dr. Hale was waiting at the estate.
The retired army veterinarian had treated Bellandi dogs for decades and still kept a mobile surgical setup for emergencies. Walter had cleared the old ground-floor study. Lamps stood over a prepared table, and sterile instruments waited beneath covers.
Hale examined the leg, then the wound behind Rook’s shoulder.
“The first round damaged the femur,” he said. “The second is much worse.”
A portable image showed where it had stopped near the sac around the heart.
Hale looked at Nico.
“Another half inch and he’d be gone.”
“Do what he needs.”
“I intend to. Now get out of my way.”
Nico obeyed.
He sat outside the study for six hours.
Hannah brought coffee and placed it beside him. When he didn’t reach for it, she sat in the adjoining chair. Rosie slept on the hall sofa, curled around a cushion, the silver star still held inside her fist.
Dried blood stiffened the front of her nightdress.
Nico looked down at his hands.
“The kennel was behind a service alley,” he said. “Somebody burned it for an insurance claim. All the others were dead.”
Hannah turned toward him.
“He was so small I thought he was part of an old blanket. I fed him with a dropper for three weeks. Every two hours.” Nico rubbed at a dark stain beside his nail. “The handlers said he’d never work. Said I’d be better off starting with another dog.”
He watched the closed study door.
“I trained him to hurt people. I didn’t train him for this.”
Hannah rested her hands in her lap.
“He chose her,” she said.
Nico nodded without looking at her.
When Hale finally came out, he removed his gloves before speaking.
“He’s alive.”
Hannah covered her mouth.
“The leg won’t recover completely. He’ll drag it, and I don’t expect him ever to run again. There’s damage around the ribs as well. We watch him closely for forty-eight hours.”
“And after that?” Nico asked.
“If he gets through those two days, I expect you’ll have him for years.”
Nico pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. His shoulders moved once, then again. Hannah left her hand on the arm of his chair, near enough for him to take.
Everett spent the next night in the lowest stone room beneath the house. A doctor had stabilized his knee and splinted his wrist. No one came to hear his explanations.
Julian arrived the following morning with two cases of documents.
Nico found the federal evidence packet first. The memory card had been preserved, its handling documented, and sworn statements accompanied the copies. A sealed submission was ready for the United States attorney responsible for the region’s organized-crime cases.
“Federal custody,” Julian said. “An open trial. With what’s here, he faces decades.”
Nico signed where indicated.
“No private settlement.”
“None.”
Walter entered after the last page was signed.
“Owen was found in the holding room. He took his own life before the transfer.”
Nico put the pen down.
After a moment, he said, “His brother’s debt. Clear it anyway.”
Walter nodded and went out.
The four remaining regional captains arrived before noon. Nico placed copies of Thomas’s records before them, named the accounts, and played Everett’s voice through a small speaker in the middle of the dining table.
No one touched the decanter.
When the recording ended, the oldest man, a captain from the southern freight yards, came around the table and kissed Nico’s hand. The others stood with him. There were no questions about succession.
Nico left them with Julian.
In the old study, Rook rested on folded blankets beside the cold fireplace. Nico sat on the floor and opened a napkin containing pieces of boiled chicken.
The dog took the first piece gently from his palm.
Nico waited until he swallowed before offering another.
Rosie appeared carrying something against her chest. She knelt beside them and unfolded a small velvet hat, this one midnight blue with a silver cord around the brim.
“This is for saving people,” she said.
Nico settled it lightly between Rook’s ears.
The dog’s tail brushed the blanket twice.
Hannah stopped in the doorway, her hand against the frame. Nico looked up at her. She stayed there while Rosie adjusted the silver cord and asked whether heroes liked chicken…
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