Chapter 6 - THE SCENT OF RAIN AND RUST
The green dot didn't waver.
It rested squarely on Zeus’s forehead.
Zeus didn't bark.
He went dead still, every muscle in his haunches coiling like a steel spring.
I moved on instinct.
I threw my hand across Zeus’s brow, blocking the laser with my palm.
The green light burned against my skin.
"Don't shoot," a voice whispered from the pines.
A figure stepped out of the shadows.
He wasn't wearing Moretti's tactical viper patch.
He wore a mud-splattered black windbreaker and carried a customized sniper rifle.
It was Luca.
Dominic’s youngest lieutenant.
A kid of twenty-four whose father had driven for the Castellano family for thirty years.
Dominic’s gun was already leveled at Luca's throat.
"Give me one reason, Luca," Dominic said softly.
The words were dead.
Empty of all mercy.
"Matteo took my sister, boss," Luca choked out, lowering the rifle instantly.
Tears cut clean tracks through the mud on his face.
"He grabbed Sofia from her dorm at Loyola an hour ago."
"He told me if I didn't confirm your bodies in the basement, Sofia dies in the meat grinder at Pullman."
Dominic didn't lower his weapon.
"You pointed a rifle at my dog."
"I was tracking the thermal signature from the culvert," Luca whispered, dropping to both knees in the wet leaves.
"I saw you climb out."
"I couldn't let Matteo's scouts see you."
"Kill me if you have to, boss."
"Just get Sofia out."
Dominic stood over the kneeling boy for three long seconds.
The Chicago wind howled through the bare branches above us.
I watched Dominic's eyes.
The mob boss who had ruled through terror was weighing blood against loyalty.
Slowly, Dominic lowered his pistol.
"Get up, Luca."
Luca blinked through his tears, looking up in disbelief.
"Boss?"
"You're driving," Dominic said.
Ten minutes later, we were squeezed inside Luca's beat-up civilian Subaru, racing south on the Dan Ryan Expressway.
The heater blasted hot, dry air against our soaked jeans.
Zeus lay across my lap in the back seat, his chin resting heavily on the door armrest, watching the highway lights blur past.
His breathing had evened out.
He was recovering faster than I was.
"What is at the Pullman yards?" I asked from the back.
Dominic sat in the front passenger seat, reloading three magazines with rhythmic clicks.
"An abandoned railcar maintenance facility," Dominic answered.
"Five hundred acres of rusted steel, grain silos, and dead locomotives."
"Victor Moretti bought the title ten years ago through a shell company."
"He runs his dog fights in the subterranean repair pits."
My stomach turned.
"Repair pits?"
"Concrete inspection trenches beneath the tracks," Dominic said, his voice flat and hard.
"Ten feet deep."
"Nowhere to run."
"The gamblers stand above on the iron catwalks."
"That's where he kept Zeus," I realized, my fingers digging into the dog's fur.
"That's where Julian found him," Dominic agreed.
"Zeus was the champion."
"Moretti called him the Iron King."
"He made Victor two million dollars in illegal bets before Julian pulled him out."
Zeus’s ears twitched at the mention of the word King.
He let out a low, mournful sigh, nuzzling his nose into my palm.
"He hates that place," I whispered.
"We all hate that place," Dominic said, staring into the dark highway ahead.
"My brother died there."
Luca’s phone buzzed on the dashboard.
A text message lit up the screen:
PULLMAN YARD 4. PIT THREE. BRING THE DOG ALONE OR THE GIRL BURNS.
Attached to the message was a live video feed.
My breath caught in my throat.
The screen showed the interior of Hope Haven Rescue.
The reception desk where I had spent three years checking in stray mutts.
Standing in the center of the lobby was a man holding an industrial flare.
Beside him, tied to the wooden front counter, was a terrified young woman.
Sofia.
Luca's sister.
And in the background, thirty dogs were barking in frantic, hysterical terror from their kennels.
The smell of spilled gasoline was practically radiating through the pixels.
"They're already inside my shelter," I gasped, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes.
"They won't light it," Dominic said, reaching into the back seat.
His large, calloused hand closed over my trembling fingers.
The grip was warm.
Steady.
Unshakable.
"Why?" I asked, looking into his espresso eyes.
"Because Victor is greedy," Dominic said softly.
"He wants the ledger."
"He wants the dog."
"And most of all, he wants to watch me crawl before he kills me."
Dominic turned back toward the windshield.
May you like
"Luca, take the 111th Street exit."
"We're not crawling tonight."
