Director Fletcher Boon didn't step back. He stood squarely in front of the door to Isolation Room C, his jaw set, his designer shoes planted firmly on the worn linoleum. But his hand, resting on the steel handle, trembled ever so slightly.

"How long has she been in there?" he demanded, checking his gold-plated watch for the fourth time in two minutes. "Four minutes? It feels like forty. Walt, if she gets mauled, I am pinning this entirely on your work record. You bypassed the protocol."

Walt didn't look at him. He was staring through the narrow wire-reinforced glass panel at eye level, his hands resting flat against the steel doorframe.

"She's not getting mauled, Director," Walt said quietly.

"You can't see a damn thing through that smudge—"

"Look at the reflection in the glass, you idiot."

Boon muttered an oath, stepped past Walt, and pressed his face against the cool wire mesh.

Inside the dim amber glow of the isolation room, the giant mastiff was no longer pressed against the back wall. The hundred-and-forty-pound war dog had dragged his massive, scarred frame across the concrete floor. He wasn't lunging. He wasn't snapping.

He was lying with his enormous, blocky head resting directly across Lena Mercer’s knees.

Boon’s breath caught in his throat. "What... what is he doing? Is he paralyzing her? Is that a submission hold?"

"He's breathing, Boon," Walt said, a rare, grim smile touching the corners of his mouth. "Look at his shoulders. The kid hasn't moved an inch, and the dog's heartbeat has dropped by half. I watched three certified K9 trainers from the state police get thrown against that wall last Tuesday by a single twitch of his neck. And she's got him resting like a lapdog."

Before Boon could answer, the secure phone on the wall outside his office began to ring.

It wasn't the standard digital trill of the facility's internal intercom. It was a sharp, double-pulse ring—the private trunk line that only linked to one terminal in the entire building.

Boon stiffened. He shot one last look through the glass door at Lena, then practically sprinted down the corridor toward his office, snatching up the receiver on the second ring.

"Director Boon speaking."

"Is it done?"

The voice on the other end of the line was low, gravelly, and carried the flat, unaccented cadence of a man who didn't waste syllables. There was no background noise—no hum of an office, no clatter of traffic—just the dead, heavy silence of a secure satellite link.

Boon swallowed hard, his fingers tightening around the plastic handset. "Mr. Moretti. We were... just evaluating the animal's status. The veterinary team has prepared the terminal paperwork as requested."

A cold pause stretched across the line.

"I didn't ask about the paperwork, Boon," Victor Moretti said, his voice dropping an imperceptible fraction of a degree. "I asked if the dog was dead."

"Not... exactly, sir," Boon stammered, his professional composure fraying at the edges. "The mastiff has been highly volatile. We lost two handlers last week, and the Westchester unit was en route to—"

"Who is in the room?" Moretti interrupted.

Boon blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I asked," Moretti said, each word dropping like a lead weight into the receiver, "who is in the isolation cell with him right now? My security monitors show the interior seal was overridden three minutes ago. Walt Prior's card was used. But the heat signature on the floor isn't Walt."

Boon stared through his open office door down the dim hallway, where Walt Prior was still standing sentinel outside Room C.

"It's... a delivery contractor, sir," Boon blurted out, realizing how insane it sounded even as he said it. "A girl. She dropped off some commercial dog food boxes twenty minutes ago, walked past reception like she owned the place, and sat down on the floor outside the door. Walt let her in. I tried to stop them, but—"

The line went completely dead silent.

Not a click. Just the absence of breathing.

For ten long seconds, Boon thought the call had dropped. He pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the screen, and then Moretti's voice returned—quieter now, but sharp enough to cut glass.

"What is her name?"

"Mercer," Boon said quickly. "Lena Mercer. She works for Apex Logistics out of Albany. She has no credentials, Mr. Moretti. I'm calling the police right now to have her removed for trespassing, and—"

"If you touch her," Moretti said, every single syllable dropping like a frozen dagger into Boon’s chest, "if so much as a hair on her head is disturbed before I get down there, you won't need to worry about the dog's euthanasia order, Director. Because I will personally sign yours."