THE MAFIA BOSS DISCOVERED HIS FIANCÉE’S SICK SECRET—NOW HE’S MAKING HER PAY AND TURNING THE MAID INTO HIS QUEEN

The glass doors of the clinic shattered inward as Luca’s heavy boot kicked them off their tracks.

A young receptionist sitting behind a plexiglass barrier leaped from her chair with a terrified shriek. "Sir! You can't come in here like that! We are a private facility—"

Daniel stepped through the door behind us, his black overcoat parting just enough to reveal the leather shoulder holster beneath. The receptionist’s voice died instantly in her throat.

"Where is the senior technician?" Luca asked, his voice chillingly quiet in the sterile, fluorescent lobby.

A side door swung open, and a tall, balding man in blue scrubs walked out, holding a clipboard and looking furious. "What the hell is going on out here? Call the police, Brenda! We have an aggressive patient in the prep room—"

Luca closed the distance between them in three long strides.

He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't raise his voice. He simply grabbed the doctor by the front of his scrubs, lifted him several inches off the linoleum floor, and slammed him against the drywall.

"Where is my dog?" Luca asked.

Dr. Vance’s face turned pale gray. "I... I don't know what you're talking about! We had an emergency surrender brought in by an animal control transport—"

"Where is he?"

"Prep room three!" Vance choked out, his eyes bulging in terror. "He's on the table—we just drew the pre-medication—"

Luca dropped the doctor like a bag of wet laundry and kicked open the double doors leading into the back treatment area.

I ran right behind him, ignoring the fiery agony tearing across my back.

Prep Room Three was a cold, narrow room smelling strongly of bleach and rubbing alcohol. In the center sat a stainless-steel examination table.

Lying on that freezing metal surface was Bruno.

The old golden retriever was lying on his side, his gray muzzle resting flat against the steel. A wide strip of medical tape was wrapped around his right front leg, securing an intravenous catheter. Standing over him was a young assistant holding a syringe filled with pink liquid.

Bruno’s cloudy, dim eyes were half-open. When the heavy door slammed against the wall, his tail gave two faint, pathetic thumps against the metal table.

"Step away from the table," Luca whispered.

The assistant dropped the syringe. It shattered against the tile floor, splashing the pink fluid across the baseboards.

Luca didn't look at the assistant. He walked slowly to the table, dropped to his knees, and buried his face in Bruno’s wet, golden fur.

"I'm here, boy," Luca murmured, his broad shoulders shaking slightly. "I'm right here. You're going home."

Bruno let out a long, shuddering sigh, resting his heavy chin directly on Luca’s forearm. He licked Luca’s wrist with a dry, tired tongue.

I stood in the doorway, tears streaming freely down my face, my hand pressed against my mouth to stifle my sobs.

Dr. Vance stumbled into the room, rubbing his bruised neck. "Look... the paperwork was completely valid! The owner authorized an immediate humane end due to severe unprovoked domestic attacks! The woman who called—"

Luca stood up. He turned around slowly. The vulnerability that had been present while holding his dog vanished instantly, replaced by the lethal, calculating boss of the Moretti family.

"The woman who called was not the owner," Luca said. "I am Luca Moretti."

Vance’s knees visibly buckled. Even across state lines in Indiana, the Moretti name was synonymous with untouchable power, multi-million dollar shipping terminals, and men who vanished without a trace.

"Mr. Moretti... I swear, I had no idea," Vance stammered, raising trembling hands. "She presented certified digital authorizations under your name. She said the dog had mauled a housemaid earlier today!"

Luca reached back, grabbed my wrist gently, and pulled me forward into the light of the examination room.

"Does this look like a dog bite to you, Doctor?" Luca asked, turning me slightly to display the torn fabric and the straight, mechanical gouge across my shoulder.

Dr. Vance swallowed hard, looking at the wound. "No... that's... that's a blunt trauma abrasion from a metal edge. There are no puncture marks."

"And yet you were thirty seconds away from killing my mother's dog without a physical examination or a quarantine hold," Luca said, his voice dropping to a deathly whisper.

"I... I can explain—"

"Daniel," Luca said.

"Yes, boss?"

"Confiscate every hard drive, every phone log, and every piece of paper in this building. If this man deletes a single byte of metadata from Vanessa Bellini’s calls, make sure he never practices medicine on a stray rat again."

"Consider it done."

Luca turned back to the table. With immense tenderness, he wrapped Bruno in the blue flannel blanket he had carried from Chicago. He carefully scooped the seventy-pound dog into his arms, lifting him against his chest as if he weighed nothing at all.

Bruno whimpered softly, nestling his gray head against Luca’s collarbone.

Luca looked at me. "Emma. Let's go home."

"What about the engagement party, Mr. Moretti?" I asked, following him down the hallway as Daniel’s men began dismantling the clinic's server rack.