Chapter 3 - The Trap at the ClinicThe alley behind the Southie Veterinary Clinic was pitch black, swallowed entirely by the looming brick walls of the abandoned fish-packing plant next door.
Tommy Sava stepped out of the passenger seat of the lead sedan, his long black trench coat catching the bitter wind. He adjusted the silencer in his jacket pocket, his heart beating a heavy, rhythmic tattoo against his ribs. He hated this. He hated ghosts, and he hated loose ends.
"Is it inside?" Tommy muttered into his collar mic, signaling the two enforcers waiting in the vehicle behind him.
“Confirmed,” Rico's voice crackled through the earpiece. “The girl is still inside. The beast is awake. It's standing up, Tommy. It looks like a damn monster.”
Tommy walked toward the back door of the clinic, his leather boots clicking sharply against the frozen pavement. He reached out and pushed the metal door open. It swung inward with a long, agonizing squeak.
The smell hit him first—antiseptic, wet fur, and the unmistakable metallic tang of old blood.
"Hello?" Tommy called out, his hand sliding inside his coat. "Anybody home?"
From the treatment room at the end of the narrow corridor, a soft light flickered. Tommy drew his weapon, keeping low, his training kicking in with cold, mechanical precision. He crept down the hallway, rounding the corner into the examination room with his pistol raised.
What he saw made his finger freeze on the trigger.
Dr. Clara Vance was pressed back against the supply cabinet, her eyes wide with terror, her hands trembling as she held a heavy surgical tray like a shield. But she wasn't looking at Tommy.
She was looking at the dog.
Nero was standing on all four legs. At fourteen years old, a normal Neapolitan mastiff should have been crippled by hip dysplasia and exhaustion. But this animal stood like a warhorse. His massive, wrinkled head was raised high, his black coat gleaming like wet coal under the emergency backup light. He wasn't growling. He wasn't snarling. He was simply watching the doorway with an expression of such ancient, calculating hatred that Tommy felt a cold sweat break out across his neck.
"Put the gun down, Tommy," a voice whispered from the dark hallway behind him.
Tommy spun around, lowering his weapon an inch as Dario Ferrante stepped out of the shadows.
Dario looked past Tommy, his eyes locking onto the massive black mastiff at the end of the room. The air between them seemed to snap with invisible electricity. Seven years of absolute silence, seven years of frozen grief, evaporated in a single heartbeat.
Nero took one slow, deliberate step forward. The floorboards groaned beneath sixty kilograms of muscle.
"Boss," Tommy warned, his voice cracking slightly. "That thing isn't normal. Look at its eyes."
Dario didn't answer. He walked past Tommy, his long legs eating up the distance down the hallway, until he was standing directly in the doorway of the examination room.
He didn't pull a gun. He didn't flinch.
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He simply looked at the dog that had shared his father's final breath.
And then, the mastiff did something that made Dr. Clara Vance drop her surgical tray with a deafening crash against the tile floor.
