Chapter 1 - The Bath in the Snow
(Word count: ~800 words)
The first scream came from a grown man. The second came from Sophia Carter when she saw her three-year-old daughter kneeling beside the most feared animal on Alessandro Moretti’s estate with a washcloth in one hand and a plastic cup in the other.
“Emma, don’t move!”
But Emma was already pouring warm water over Bruno’s enormous black shoulder.
Twenty feet away, a professional dog handler stood behind an overturned metal basin, one sleeve ripped from wrist to elbow. Two security men had their hands inside their coats. A gardener had stopped in the middle of the snowy courtyard with a rake suspended uselessly above the ground.
And under the stone archway stood Alessandro Moretti.
At thirty-eight, Alessandro had the kind of reputation that changed the volume of a room before he entered it. Men who laughed loudly in Chicago restaurants lowered their voices when his name was mentioned. Yet at that moment, the most powerful man on the property could only stare.
Bruno had belonged to him for sixteen years. The massive Cane Corso had survived warehouse fires, street ambushes, two gunshot wounds, and enough winters to turn the fur around his muzzle gray. He tolerated Alessandro. Everyone else kept their distance.
That morning, one of Alessandro’s men had hired a specialist to wash mud and road salt from Bruno’s coat after the dog returned from the frozen gardens limping badly. The handler had tried to restrain him. Bruno had panicked. Now the hose lay running beside the drain, and Bruno stood soaked beneath the falling snow, his left hind leg trembling. Everyone saw his teeth.
Emma saw something else.
“You’re cold,” she whispered. She dipped her cloth into the basin and squeezed water over his shoulder.
Bruno growled. Sophia’s heart nearly stopped.
“Emma.” Her daughter looked back. “Mommy, he has an ouchie.”
“Sweetheart, come to me. Slowly.”
“But he’s dirty.”
“Emma Carter.”
That tone usually meant the discussion was finished. Emma considered it. Then Bruno’s injured leg buckled. The huge dog dropped several inches before catching himself. Emma forgot her mother completely.
“Oh, Bruno.” She put down the plastic cup, scooted closer, and pressed the cloth to his wet fur. “Bad man scared you.”
The handler, halfway to the gate, looked offended but wisely said nothing.
Alessandro stepped forward. “Everyone away from the dog.”
His voice was quiet. People moved anyway. Sophia didn’t.
“That includes you, Mrs. Carter.”
“My daughter is beside him.”
“I can see that.”
“Then do something.”
Several men looked at Sophia as though she had just slapped Alessandro across the face. Sophia was twenty-nine, widowed, exhausted, wearing a housekeeper’s gray dress under an unbuttoned coat. She had worked at the estate for four months and had never asked Alessandro for anything. Now she looked ready to fight him with her bare hands.
Alessandro glanced back at Emma. The child was humming a wandering little melody. She wiped Bruno’s neck, then lifted a second cup of warm water and poured it over his back.
“There. Bath.”
Bruno’s growl stopped. His enormous head turned toward her. Emma held out the washcloth. “You can smell.”
Bruno sniffed it. Soap. Warm water. Oatmeal from Emma’s breakfast. And no fear. Slowly, astonishingly, the dog lowered himself onto the wet stone and placed his huge head directly across Emma’s lap.
Someone behind Sophia whispered, “Oh my God.”
Alessandro said nothing. He had seen Bruno charge armed men. Now the same animal closed his eyes while a three-year-old wiped water from his ears.
Emma smiled. “See, Mommy? He’s nice.”
Sophia’s knees nearly failed. Alessandro crouched several feet away. “Bruno. Come.”
The dog opened one yellow eye and closed it again.
Emma patted the dog’s head. “He’s busy.”
Alessandro looked at her. “With what?”
“Bath.”
For one impossible second, something almost like amusement moved through his face. “Apparently.”
By the next morning, Bruno lay outside Sophia's cottage door, refusing to leave Emma. Within a week, the giant beast became her shadows. Within two weeks, Alessandro called Dr. Richard Hale, who finally diagnosed Bruno’s old, unhealed fracture and severe arthritis.
That night, Bruno refused to leave the Carters’ small apartment. Alessandro came for him himself.
He stepped inside. “Bruno. Come.” The dog didn't move.
Emma woke up from the rug, walked over to the most feared mob boss in Chicago, and wrapped her tiny fingers around two of his.
“Sit,” Emma whispered.
Alessandro looked down. “What?”
May you like
“He likes stories,” Emma explained matter-of-factly, tugging his fingers toward the floor.
Sophia stood frozen near the kitchen counter, terror locking her throat. But Alessandro Moretti, a man who answered to no one, slowly lowered his six-foot-two frame onto the small woven rug.
