The dog had killed a man. Everyone on the Castellano estate knew that.

So when one hundred and twenty pounds of scarred black pitbull stepped out of the basement shadows, bleeding heavily from the shoulder, the laundry staff vanished instantly.

Rosalind Whittaker stayed.

She stood between two industrial washing machines with a stack of sheets slipping from her arms while Titan stared at her. A broken leather strap dragged from his collar. Blood ran down one foreleg. The growl in his chest was so low Rosie felt it through the concrete floor before she properly heard it.

Her left ear had been deaf since she was nine. Her right heard enough.

“Easy,” she whispered softly.

Titan showed his teeth, revealing razor-sharp fangs. Rosie should have backed away. Instead, she noticed something specific: the old scar behind his left ear and the way he kept turning his right side toward her. It was the exact same way Rosie had spent years positioning her good ear toward teachers, employers, and doctors.

Her fear instantly changed into understanding.

“Oh,” she whispered. “You too?”

Six weeks earlier, Rosie had been a licensed veterinary technician. Then a wealthy client demanded she falsify an animal’s medical record after severe neglect nearly killed his dog. Rosie refused. Her supervisor blamed her, the client brought in high-priced lawyers, and Rosie lost her job, her apartment, and her savings. Desperate to support her sixteen-year-old brother, Leo, she took a cash-in-hand job at the Castellano estate.

Now the estate's most lethal animal was bleeding in front of her.

Rosie filled a deep utility sink with warm water, soaked a clean cotton towel, and approached Titan inch by inch. The moment the wet fabric touched his shoulder, every muscle in his body locked. Rosie stopped breathing.

Then, slowly, Titan leaned his massive head into her side.

“Yeah,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I know.”

The wound was deep—too clean to be from another animal. As she washed away the thick blood, older scars appeared beneath his fur. Burn marks. Torn flesh. Places where hair would never grow back. Inside one ear, someone had attempted to scrape away an old identification tattoo.

Rosie’s stomach turned. “You weren’t born dangerous,” she murmured softly.

She climbed into the edge of the large utility sink beside him to clean the gash properly. She never heard the heavy iron laundry-room door swing open.

Titan did. His head snapped up.

Rosie turned her good ear toward the entrance.

A tall man in a dark tailored coat stood in the doorway with two armed men behind him. Sharp jawline, jet-black hair, and dark, unreadable eyes.

Dante Castellano.

His cold gaze moved from the bloody sink to Rosie’s wet hands, then to Titan’s head resting calmly against her hip. Something shifted in his expression. He stepped inside, his polished shoes clicking against the concrete.

“You,” Dante said, his deep voice carrying through the quiet room.

Rosie turned her right ear fully toward him, trying to catch every syllable. Dante’s sharp eyes tracked her movement. He took another step forward. Titan didn’t growl—a reaction that clearly stunned the armed guards behind Dante.

Dante looked down at her, his eyes dark with something intense and immediate.

“You’re mine,” Dante said clearly.