The Little Girl Stole the Mafia Boss's Killer Dog for a Joyride

Nate Brooks lasted forty-three minutes.

Not because Ronan threatened him.

Ronan barely spoke.

He simply sat across from Nate in the old wine cellar beneath the east wing while Mason leaned against the stone wall and Atlas lay at his feet.

The dog watched Nate without blinking.

That did more than shouting ever could.

"Sebastian paid me to watch Cole," Nate finally said.

Ronan's face did not move.

"Since when?"

"Since before Cole was hired."

Mason pushed away from the wall.

"Before?"

Nate nodded.

"Your application got flagged. Sebastian had your name on a list. When HR cleared you, he told Pierce to make sure you got the job."

Mason stared at him.

That was worse than being discovered.

He had not slipped through Sebastian's defenses.

Sebastian had opened the door for him.

"Why?" Mason asked.

"He thought you would lead him to the drive."

Ronan's gaze sharpened.

"And Gavin?"

Nate looked down.

"Pierce knew we were monitoring him. I do not know how much else he knew."

"Convenient."

"It is the truth."

Ronan leaned forward.

"You poisoned meat for my dog. You helped a gunman get onto my property. You photographed a five-year-old child. The truth is the only thing keeping this conversation civilized. Do not waste it."

Nate swallowed.

"Sebastian said Cole would panic if the girl looked vulnerable. He said fear would make him go for whatever he had hidden."

Mason took one step forward.

Atlas rose with him.

Ronan lifted one hand.

Mason stopped.

Barely.

"Why sedate Atlas?" Ronan asked.

Nate's eyes went to the dog.

"Sebastian hates him."

Mason's jaw hardened.

"Why?"

"The dog remembers people."

A cold silence followed.

Nate rubbed both hands over his face.

"Black Hollow used the dogs around the warehouses. Rook was there for meetings. Transfers. Training. Sebastian said if Cole got near him, the animal might reconnect. Might lead him somewhere."

Ronan frowned.

"A dog cannot testify."

"No. But a dog can find things."

Mason looked at Atlas.

Old canine memory was not magic.

It was scent, repetition, place, routine.

A dog could remember a route years later if the associations were strong enough.

Especially a working dog.

Especially one trained to search.

"What things?" Mason asked.

Nate shook his head.

"I do not know."

Ronan stood.

"Where is Sebastian now?"

"Manhattan, I think."

Ronan took out his phone.

Mason stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Inviting my uncle to dinner."

"That is your plan?"

"He expects me to react like a criminal."

"You are a criminal."

Frank, standing by the door, winced.

Ronan looked at Mason.

"Allegedly."

Then he dialed.

Sebastian answered on the second ring.

"Ronan."

Warm voice.

Easy confidence.

The voice of a beloved uncle.

"You free tonight?" Ronan asked.

A pause.

"Depends. Are you feeding me?"

"You complain about my chef every time you come."

"And I keep coming. That is family."

Ronan looked at Nate.

"Seven."

"Make it seven-thirty. I have a board call."

"Done."

The call ended.

Mason stared.

"You did not tell him anything."

"If he is innocent, I lose nothing."

"And if he is not?"

Ronan slipped the phone into his pocket.

"Then I want to see his face when he realizes I know."

Sebastian arrived at 7:28 p.m.

He came alone in a dark Bentley and walked through the front doors carrying a bottle of wine older than Mason.

At sixty-two, Sebastian Vale had silver hair, a tailored charcoal suit and the effortless charm of a man who had spent his life entering rooms that already belonged to someone else and leaving with the keys.

He kissed Ronan's cheek.

"You look terrible."

"Good to see you too."

Sebastian handed the wine to a servant.

Then he saw Mason.

Nothing happened.

That was what gave him away.

No surprise.

No curiosity.

Not even the quick glance wealthy men usually gave employees standing too close to family conversations.

He knew exactly who Mason was.

"And you are?" Sebastian asked anyway.

"Mason Cole."

"Groundskeeping?"

Mason smiled without warmth.

"Among other things."

Sebastian's gaze moved to Atlas.

The dog stood beside Emily at the foot of the staircase.

His entire body went rigid.

A growl began so low it was almost vibration.

Sebastian stopped.

Ronan watched.

"Still vicious," Sebastian said.

Emily frowned.

"He is not vicious."

Sebastian looked down at her.

"And who is this?"

"Emily."

"Ah. The famous driver."

Ronan's head turned slightly.

Mason did the same.

Emily's ride had happened that afternoon.

There had been no guests.

No public photographs.

Sebastian saw the mistake at once.

He smiled.

"Frank sent me a picture."

Frank was standing ten feet away.

He did not blink.

"No, I did not," he said.

The hallway went silent.

Sebastian's smile faded by half a degree.

Ronan slipped both hands into his pockets.

"Funny thing about families," he said. "Everybody thinks they know who will lie for them."

Sebastian looked at Frank.

Then at Ronan.

"What is this?"

Emily walked closer.

Before Mason could stop her, she pointed at Sebastian's keys.

A black metal bead hung from the ring.

Hollow square.

Diagonal slash.

The Black Hollow symbol.

"Daddy," she said, "that is the same little picture."

Sebastian's fingers closed around the keys.

Mason's blood turned cold.

Ronan's voice became almost gentle.

"Take your hand out of your pocket, Uncle."

Sebastian laughed.

"Do you think I came armed to dinner?"

"I think you came armed to my baptism."

For one moment, uncle and nephew looked at each other as two men who knew exactly what the other was capable of.

Then Sebastian slowly raised both hands.

"All right. Something has clearly happened."

"Nate Brooks happened."

This time Sebastian's reaction was real.

Tiny.

A flicker in the eyes.

Ronan saw it.

"He says you hired him."

"Then he is lying."

"He says Black Hollow belonged to you."

"I invested in many companies."

"He says you ordered him to watch Mason's daughter."

Sebastian's expression hardened.

"Careful, Ronan."

"You do not warn me in my house."

Atlas growled again.

Sebastian looked at the dog.

Something like hatred flashed across his face.

Mason saw it.

"He remembers you," Mason said.

Sebastian's eyes returned to him.

"Dogs remember pain," Mason continued. "Better than people sometimes."

The room went still.

Sebastian smiled.

"And grieving men remember what they want."

Mason moved.

Ronan caught his chest with one arm before he reached Sebastian.

"Sarah was driving too fast," Sebastian said softly.

Mason stopped fighting Ronan.

The words were ordinary.

They were also impossible.

The accident report had never been public.

Sarah's speed estimate had been sealed after Mason challenged the investigation.

Sebastian realized what he had done.

Too late.

Mason's face emptied.

"How do you know that?"

Sebastian said nothing.

Ronan released Mason and stepped between them.

"Dinner is canceled."

Sebastian adjusted his cuff.

"You are making a serious mistake."

"Probably. I make one every time I trust family."

"You have no proof."

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

Sebastian's gaze moved toward Emily.

Only for a second.

Atlas lunged forward with a roar.

Mason caught his collar.

Sebastian stepped back.

The charming uncle vanished.

What remained was older, colder and furious.

"Control your animal."

Mason held Atlas close.

"He is controlled. If he were not, you would know."

Ronan opened the front door himself.

"Leave."

Sebastian walked past him.

At the threshold, he paused.

"Your father understood something you never did," he said. "Fear is expensive to build and cheap to lose."

Ronan looked at Emily, who had moved behind Mason's leg.

Then he looked back at his uncle.

"Maybe that is why I do not intend to keep paying for it."

Sebastian left.

The Bentley disappeared through the gates.

The front doors closed behind Sebastian with a heavy final sound.

For several seconds nobody in the foyer moved.

Then Ronan turned to Frank.

"Double the outside teams. Nobody enters without my approval. Not a courier, not a priest, not the governor."

Frank nodded. "What if the governor is a priest?"

Ronan stared at him.

"I am trying to keep the mood from becoming unhealthy."

"Go."

Frank went.

Mason remained near the staircase, fists clenched so tightly the tendons stood out along his wrists.

"He knew about Sarah's speed."

"I heard him."

"That detail was sealed."

"I heard you."

Mason looked toward the door as if he could still see Sebastian through it.

"I could have killed him right there."

Ronan's voice became quiet. "That is why I stood between you."

"You protecting him?"

"No. I was protecting you from doing exactly what he wanted."

Mason's eyes hardened.

Ronan continued, "Sebastian has survived forty years by making angry men act before they think. If you had attacked him in my foyer, he would have become the victim and you would have become the unstable widower with a grudge."

"He murdered my wife."

"I believe he may have."

"May have?"

Ronan stepped closer.

"Belief is not proof. You want him punished or dead?"

Mason opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Ronan nodded once. "Exactly."

From upstairs came Emily's laughter as Atlas chased a sock down the hall.

Both men looked toward the sound.

Ronan's expression shifted.

"Sebastian taught me how to shoot."

Mason looked back at him.

"He took me to my first baseball game. He sat beside me in the hospital when I was nineteen and my father had to leave for business. When my mother died, he was the one who told the staff to stop taking her clothes out of the closet because I was not ready."

The confession seemed to cost him more than Ronan wanted Mason to see.

"That is why this is hard," Mason said.

Ronan gave a humorless smile.

"I would prefer it if monsters had the decency to be monsters all the time."

"They never do."

Mason knew that better than most.

Ronan looked at the empty driveway through the glass.

"If he did what Nate says, I am going to tear apart everything he built."

"Including pieces of your own family?"

"If necessary."

Mason studied him.

Sarah's last warning returned to him, though Ronan did not know it yet.