The Mafia Boss’s Dog Refused to Leave the Little Girl’s Coffin—Then They Heard Something Inside

The pounding came again.

Small fists. More than one pair.

Tomas twisted against the ropes. "Open it!"

Enzo raised one hand. The trucks began rolling toward the loading bays.

"Those vehicles leave," I told him, "and you leave in pieces."

He smiled. "You always confused anger with power."

Tony killed the warehouse lights from a maintenance panel.

Darkness swallowed the catwalk.

Bruno moved by scent. I heard a guard shout, then crash into a crate. Tomas's chair scraped across the floor as Tony dragged him behind a forklift.

I climbed the steel stairs while bullets struck the railing. At the top, Enzo was gone.

A truck smashed through the loading gate.

Detective Brooks's vehicles blocked the street. The driver swerved, hit a concrete barrier, and stalled. Officers pulled him out while paramedics opened the false refrigeration wall.

Three children were inside.

Alive.

The youngest could not have been more than five.

The second truck tried the river exit. Bruno leaped onto its side step through an open passenger door. The driver panicked and slammed the brakes. Tony dragged him from the cab.

I found Enzo in the office above the loading dock, feeding documents into an industrial shredder.

"Carlo begged you," I said.

He did not turn. "Carlo was weak."

"He was better than both of us."

Enzo reached for a pistol under the desk. I kicked the drawer shut on his hand and drove him against the window.

Below us, officers carried children into ambulances. Their faces were frightened but alive.

Enzo watched without emotion.

"Arrest me," he said. "By sunrise, half the evidence will disappear. Judges owe me. Detectives owe me. Your own people owe me."

Detective Brooks entered with her weapon raised.

"Maybe," she said. "But children make terrible secrets. They grow up. They remember. They testify."

She cuffed him.

For the first time, Enzo looked old.