The silence inside the funeral home was not the kind that brings peace. It was heavy, sour, and thick with betrayal.

I didn't kill Victor Harlan on the pier. Death was too clean, too fast for a man who bought corrupted coroners and kidnapped small girls for property deeds.

Instead, we brought him to the basement of the old icehouse near the tracks—a place where the concrete walls were four feet thick and no sound ever reached the street. Marco was strapped to a metal chair in the corner; Harlan was zip-tied to a pillar in the center of the room.

Tony tossed a heavy leather ledger onto the table between us. We had pulled it from Harlan’s safe inside the dock office while the ship was being impounded by my men.

"Look at this, Don," Tony said, his face dark with disgust. "It’s all here. Names, dates, bank accounts in the Caymans. He wasn't just trying to take the Vasquez restaurant. He’s been buying up half the borough using fake debt claims and poisoned distribution lines."

I flipped through the crisp pages. The entries were neat, written in fine blue ink.

Item 44: St. Jude's Coroner - $50,000. Item 48: Queens District Precinct - $120,000. Item 52: Vasquez Lease Transfer - Pending.

"You're a businessman, Harlan," I said, leaning against the wooden table. "So let's talk math. You spent two hundred thousand dollars to stage the death of a seven-year-old girl."

Harlan spat blood onto the floor. "You think you're a saint, Moretti? You run numbers! You take protection money! You're a criminal just like me!"

"I run a union of men who protect their own," I replied coldly. "I don't war with children. And I don't buy judges to bury innocent people alive."

Bruno sat near the doorway, his head resting on his paws, watching Harlan with cold, intelligent eyes. Every time Harlan raised his voice, Bruno’s ears would prick up, a low rumble echoing from his ribcage.

"The doctor," I said, stepping closer to Harlan. "The one who mixed the toxin. Give me his name."

"Go to hell," Harlan sneered.

I didn't raise my voice. I didn't strike him. I simply unhooked Bruno's leash.

"Bruno," I whispered softly. "Speak."

The dog stood up. He walked slowly across the cold floor, his heavy paws echoing in the damp air. He didn't rush. He stopped three inches from Harlan’s knee, opened his jaws, and laid his bare teeth gently against the fabric of Harlan's trousers. He didn't bite—he just held him there, feeling the pulse through the cloth, waiting for the word.

Harlan went rigid. Sweat broke out across his nose in greasy beads. "Dr. Julian Vance!" he screamed, his bravado instantly collapsing. "14th Street Clinic! He has an office in the back! He’s the one who supplied the paralytic! He keeps the antidote in his lab safe!"

Tony looked at me instantly. "The antidote? The girl might still need it if the hospital can't flush the poison completely."

"Get the car," I told Tony.

I looked back at Marco sitting in the corner, tears streaming down his bruised face. "What about him, Boss?" Tony asked from the doorway.