“Don’t Touch the Dog!” — The Mafia Boss’s Little Girl Walked Up to His Most Dangerous Dog… Then Everyone Froze

The Cruz estate had nineteen rooms that nobody used.

They were filled with furniture covered in gray canvas drops, chandeliers wrapped in muslin like hanging corpses, and mirrors that had gathered twenty years of dust behind heavy velvet drapes. The house had been built in the twenties by a lumber baron who had lost his mind and then his money; Damian’s father, the old man Cruz, had bought it off the county steps during a tax sale in the late seventies.

It was too big for one man and a dog.

It was too big for ten men.

In the mornings, before the light cleared the tops of the black walnut trees along the lake drive, the mansion had a smell like wet slate and lime. It was cold. Even with the radiators clanking and hissing in the baseboards, the marble floors drank the warmth right through the soles of my work shoes.

By Wednesday, Sophia had established an empire in the breakfast nook.

It was an octagonal room off the kitchen that caught the first gray wash of dawn. It had a linoleum floor with an ugly pattern of green ivy, but it was three yards from the double ovens, which meant it was the only place in the house where a six-year-old’s fingers didn't turn blue while she drew her pictures.

Bruno was there every morning at seven.

He did not walk into the room; he arrived like an inevitable tide. One moment the hallway was empty, the next, his broad black head was resting on the edge of Sophia’s laminate table, his ears flat, his amber eyes following the progress of her yellow crayon across a sheet of cheap newsprint.

"Look, Bruno," she said. She held up the paper.

It was a creature with four stick legs, a tail like an electric bolt, and an enormous, round head with several dozen teeth.

"That's you," she informed him.

Bruno blinked his scarred eyelid. A drop of drool formed on his black jowl and dropped with a soft *plop* onto her sock.

"Sophia, don't encourage him," I said from the sink, where I was peeling apples for the compote Mrs. Gable had requested for Damian’s lunch. "He's a dog, not a doll."

"He likes my pictures, Mama."

"He likes the butter on your toast."

"He doesn't have any brothers," she said, leaning her forehead against the dog’s snout. Bruno didn't move an inch. He took her weight as if he were an oak stump. "He told me."

"Dogs don't talk."

"He talks with his ears."

I dried my hands on my apron and watched them. It was unnatural. That was the only word my grandmother would have used—*antinatural*. A beast that had torn the forearm off a professional handler from Kenosha, a creature whose jaws could crack a beef marrow bone like a dry twig, allowing a twenty-pound child to clean his eye-crust with her sleeve.

"Rosa."

I turned so fast the paring knife nearly slipped from my fingers.

Damian Cruz was standing in the doorway to the pantry. He wore a gray cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms—no tie today, no jacket. It was the first time I had seen him without the armor of his suits. His forearms were corded with old muscle, and on the inside of his right wrist was a dark blue tattoo: three letters—*M.P.C.*—and a date that had faded into the skin.

"Sir," I said, wiping the cutting board.

"The tea is fine," he said, though he hadn't touched the pot I left on the hall table.

He walked into the breakfast nook.

Instantly, Bruno’s posture changed. The dog didn't growl—he knew Damian’s scent better than his own—but he didn't move away from Sophia, either. He remained planted between the child and his master, his eyes watching Damian’s hands with the sharp, technical interest of a spotter in a sniper nest.

"He's guarding her from me," Damian murmured.

He sounded almost amused, but under the amusement was something dry and bitter.

"She gave him half her bacon," I said defensively. "I told her not to."

"Bacon doesn't buy Bruno, Rosa. Miller tried ribeye twice a week for four months. Bruno nearly took Miller’s hip off through his trousers when he reached for my briefcase."

Damian stopped three feet from the table. He reached out his hand—slowly, deliberately, palm down.

Bruno didn't growl, but he gave a sharp, wet sniff, his nostrils working against the wool of Damian’s sleeve. Then he looked back at Sophia.

"Victor’s car crossed the state line forty minutes ago," Damian said.

He wasn't looking at me; he was looking through the tall French windows that led out to the terrace, where the lake mist was turning the lawn into a gray sheet.

"Do you want me to take Sophia to the carriage house?" I asked.

"No," Damian said. His voice went flat. "Keep her here. Keep her where Bruno can see her."

"Mr. Cruz, if your brother—"

"My brother is a businessman," Damian said. He pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket, looked at Sophia, and clicked it shut without taking one out. "He thinks everything that eats under this roof should produce a return on investment. The dog is fifteen thousand dollars of dead weight, according to his books. You and the girl are another line item."

He turned his dark, cold eyes toward me.

"Victor has two men with him. One of them is named Garrity. Garrity doesn't look at eyes, Rosa. He looks at doors. When he comes into the kitchen, don't speak to him. Don't offer him coffee. Just keep Sophia behind the table."

"And Bruno?"