Chapter 5 - Shadows on the PerimeterBy the third week, the routine had settled into a strange, uneasy rhythm.
The black town car picked me up twice a week like clockwork. The massive stone estate on the North Shore no longer felt quite so intimidating; instead, it felt like an oversized training paddock. Titan and I had made real progress. He no longer bolted at the sound of the iron gates, and he understood the basic impulse control drills well enough to sit quietly while Moretti’s men walked past carrying heavy lockboxes and duffel bags.
On a crisp Thursday afternoon, Moretti was actually participating.
He stood on the gravel driveway holding the heavy leather leash, dressed in a tailored black overcoat against the biting lake wind. Titan sat perfectly at his left side, his amber eyes fixed on Moretti’s face, waiting for a cue.
"He’s watching you," I noted, standing a few feet away with a clipboard. "Not me. You."
"He realizes who feeds him," Moretti said, though there was a strange warmth in his voice that he usually kept locked away.
"No, he realizes who's holding the anchor," I corrected. "Animals mirror their handlers, Mr. Moretti. When you're calm, he's calm. When you're distracted..."
I stopped mid-sentence.
Far down the long, winding private drive, past the wrought-iron security gates, a pair of headlights flickered through the dense pine trees. Not the smooth, low hum of Moretti’s town car, but the ragged engine noise of an uninvited vehicle.
Titan’s head snapped toward the driveway. The hair along his spine lifted in a sudden, bristling ridge of black fur. He didn't bark—he never barked when he was truly focused. He just locked his body into a rigid, coiled spring of muscle.
Moretti didn't flinch. His hand tightened on the leather leash with enough force to turn his knuckles white, but his posture didn't break. He looked down at the dog, then across the roof of his car toward the treeline.
"Inside, Elena," Moretti said, his voice dropping into a quiet, lethal register that had nothing to do with dog training.
"Not a chance," I said, stepping closer to them both. "If that's an intruder, Titan’s going to read your adrenaline. If you tense up, he’s going to attack. Give me the leash."
"Elena—"
"Give me the leash, Dante," I said, using his first name for the very first time.
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Something in my tone—absolute, unyielding, professional—cut through the syndicate boss's instincts. Without a word, Moretti passed the heavy leather strap into my hand.
The strange car broke through the tree line and stopped fifty yards down the drive: a matte-black SUV with tinted windows and no plates. The passenger door swung open before the vehicle had even fully stopped.
