Chapter 2 - The Moretti ShadowThe leader of the three men was a squat, thick-necked enforcer named Frankie 'Pins' Milano. He had a gold tooth that caught the diner's harsh fluorescent glare and a habit of clicking his thumbnail against his front teeth when he was nervous—or about to hurt someone.
"Well, look at this," Frankie muttered, his voice cutting through the grease-laden air of the diner. He didn't look at Julian directly; instead, he kept his eyes locked on the dark glasses of the woman sitting across from the city's most feared kingpin. "The boss has been looking all over town for you, Julian. Thought you’d checked out after that little surprise at the docks."
Julian didn't turn around. He didn't need to. His hand remained flat on the table, fingers drumming a slow, rhythmic tattoo against the wood. "Frankie. You’ve got a short memory. I told you last month what happens to men who forget to knock before entering a room I'm occupying."
"Times change, Voss," Frankie sneered, taking another step forward. His hand drifted toward his beltline. "The old man is tired of waiting for you to hand over the waterfront titles. And it looks like you’ve found yourself a little distraction. Hey, sweetheart—" Frankie reached out a heavy, stubby hand toward Nora's shoulder. "—why don't you get up and let the adults talk business?"
The air in the diner didn't just freeze; it shattered.
Ghost didn't growl this time. There was no warning rumble through the floorboards. There was only a sudden, violent explosion of black muscle.
Before Frankie’s fingers could graze Nora’s coat, a hundred and thirty pounds of bone and fury launched across the table. Ghost cleared the Formica surface in a single, terrifying bound, his jaws snapping shut not on Frankie’s throat, but on the enforcer’s outstretched forearm with the force of a hydraulic press.
Crack.
The sound of bone snapping echoed off the grease-stained walls. Frankie shrieked, a high, ragged sound of absolute panic, stumbling backward into a rack of potato chip bags that collapsed in a plastic avalanche. His two associates panicked, fumbling for their iron, but they were too late.
Julian was already out of his chair. His hand cleared his shoulder holster with fluid, lethal grace, the barrel of a polished Sig Sauer pistol pressing square against the forehead of the second man before the thug’s safety could even click off.
"Drop it," Julian whispered. It wasn't a request. It was a physical law.
The second man dropped his gun to the linoleum floor with a heavy clatter. The third man backed away, hands raised, his eyes wide with horror as Frankie writhed on the floor, clutching a mangled, bleeding forearm while Ghost stood over him, one massive paw planted squarely on the enforcer’s chest, teeth bared, waiting for a single twitch.
"Get them out of my sight, Frankie," Julian said, keeping his gun steady on the second man. "And tell Vince Moretti that if he sends amateurs to do a man's job again, I won't send them back in pieces. I won't send them back at all."
As the two surviving thugs dragged their howling companion toward the door and vanished back into the sleet, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the diner once more.
Julian slowly lowered his weapon and slid it back into its holster. He turned his head back toward the booth, expecting to see a terrified civilian trembling in the aftermath of violence.
Instead, Nora Ashford was calmly sipping from the bottle cap of water she had poured for the dog earlier. She hadn't flinched once. Not a single muscle in her face had twitched.
"You missed an amateur," Nora said softly, setting the bottle cap down. "The one standing by the kitchen door with a snub-nosed revolver tucked into his belt. He’s been sweating through his shirt for the last three minutes."
Julian’s head snapped toward the kitchen doors. A busboy—a kid no older than nineteen, pale as a ghost—was slowly pulling his hand away from his waistband, dropping a cheap, rusty revolver onto the stainless steel prep counter.
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Julian stared at Nora, a cold realization creeping up his spine. She hadn't seen the kid. She couldn't see anything.
Then how did she know he was there?
