Chapter 2 - THE MIDNIGHT AUDITBack at Second Chance Haven, the digital clock on the microwave glowed 1:45 AM.
Claire Bennett sat at the battered wooden desk in the back office, the overhead fluorescent tube flickering with an annoying high-pitched buzz. In front of her sat an open manila folder containing the paperwork Adrien’s man, Marcus, had hurriedly printed out earlier.
Registration: Titan, Purebred Cane Corso. Sire: Imperator’s Shadow. Dam: Black Queen of Milan. Owner: Adrien Cole.
Claire traced her thumb over the embossed crest of the Cole Syndicate’s holding company printed at the bottom of the vet history page. She wasn't naive. You don't live twenty-eight years in this city without knowing who rules the docks, the shipping lanes, and half the municipal council. Adrien Cole wasn't a businessman who dabbled in shadows; he was the shadow.
"You’re playing with a live grenade, Claire," a voice rasped from the doorway.
Leo, the seventy-year-old night caretaker with a bad hip and a history of loose talk, leaned against the doorframe, chewing on an unlit toothpick. "I saw those cars. That’s Cole. Men like that don't come for dogs. They come to bury problems. Why didn't you just hand the beast over and let sleeping syndicate dogs lie?"
Claire didn't look up from the papers. "Because the dog was starving for peace, Leo. Did you see his eyes when he walked in? Not wild. Exhausted. Like a soldier who’s been in the trenches for ten years without a rotation."
"A soldier who bites people's throats out when his boss gives the word," Leo muttered, limping over to drop a steaming mug of black coffee onto her desk. "You think you saved him? Or did you just paint a giant target on this shelter's corrugated tin roof?"
Before Claire could answer, the motion-sensor security light outside the front entrance flooded the courtyard with blinding white glare.
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Through the wired glass of the office door, they didn't see a car. They saw shadows. Three figures, moving with terrifying, military precision, slipping past the quarantine runs without making a single sound.
Claire’s hand dropped silently to the lower desk drawer, her fingers wrapping around the cold steel barrel of an old Remington tactical shotgun she kept loaded for stray coyotes—or worse.
