Chapter 13 - Mara Comes Home
Warden hit Damon hard enough to drive him backward into a steel kennel.
Air left his lungs.
His shoulder struck metal.
The dog's jaws opened inches from his throat.
Victor laughed.
Damon did the only thing Mara had taught him without ever speaking directly to him.
He tapped the kennel rail.
Once.
Warden snarled.
Twice.
The dog's weight crushed Damon's chest.
Three times.
Pause.
Damon's fingers shook.
Tap.
Tap.
Warden froze.
The growl did not stop immediately. It broke apart, rough and confused, then collapsed into a whine.
Victor's smile disappeared.
He raised the whistle again.
Damon tapped faster.
Three. Pause. Two.
Warden's eyes shifted away from Damon's throat.
Victor blew.
The dog flinched but did not move.
"Attack," Victor ordered.
Warden stood over Damon.
No attack.
Victor's face twisted.
"Attack!"
Damon pushed himself upright slowly.
"He heard you."
Victor backed up.
"Carlo trained that animal's bloodline before you learned how to tie a tie."
"And Mara gave him a choice."
"It's a dog."
"That is why he learned faster than we did."
Victor drew a pistol.
Warden moved before Damon could.
Not at Victor's arm.
At the whistle.
The dog snapped it from Victor's hand and crushed the brass tube between his teeth.
Victor fired.
The shot struck a kennel door.
Damon slammed into him.
They hit the floor together.
For once there was no boardroom distance, no security detail, no clean intermediary. Damon smelled Victor's expensive cologne and stale coffee. He felt the older man's elbow catch his jaw. Saw the gun skid under a training platform.
Victor drove a thumb into Damon's injured shoulder.
Pain flashed white.
"Your father begged," Victor hissed.
Damon stopped fighting for half a second.
Victor smiled.
Wrong choice.
Damon head-butted him.
Cartilage cracked.
Victor reeled.
Damon rolled, grabbed the pistol, and came up on one knee.
The muzzle centered on Victor's chest.
There it was.
The family solution.
Simple.
Final.
Victor spread his hands.
Blood ran from his nose.
"Go on."
Damon's finger rested along the trigger guard.
"You think this makes you different? Your father thought he was different too. He moved money. He signed papers. He ate at my table and told himself he wasn't responsible for what happened at the docks."
Damon heard his father's letter.
I spent too long believing I could stay near them without becoming part of what they were.
Victor took one step closer.
"You built your fortune with the same money. You just washed your hands better."
Damon knew the line was meant to provoke him.
That did not make it false.
Victor took another step.
"Shoot me. Then spend the rest of your life calling it justice."
Damon lowered the gun.
Victor lunged for it.
Warden hit him from the side.
The dog pinned Victor to the floor, jaws around the sleeve of his coat, not flesh.
Controlled.
Restrained.
Choosing.
The freight door rattled behind them.
Mara's voice came through the gap.
"Damon!"
He dragged the emergency release.
The door rose eighteen inches.
Mara crawled under first, followed by Elena and Diego.
Mara saw Victor beneath Warden and stopped.
Three years of disappearance passed across her face without becoming triumph.
Victor looked up at her.
"You ruined a great deal of work."
Mara wiped blood from her lip.
"You always confused work with damage."
Sirens sounded outside.
Victor's head turned.
"Police?"
"Federal task force," Elena said. "And port authority. And enough press to make your hair look bad from space."
Victor looked at Damon.
"You called them?"
"I called everyone."
For the first time, Victor looked old.
Not weak.
Just surprised that the future had arrived without asking him.
Agents breached the upper floor minutes later.
Damon surrendered the gun before anyone ordered him to.
He also surrendered his phone, the ledger copies, and the memory card containing Carlo's recording.
An agent named Walsh looked at him with open suspicion.
"Mr. Castellano, are you requesting counsel?"
"Eventually."
"Do you understand that anything you provide may implicate you?"
"Yes."
"And you're still providing it?"
Damon glanced at Victor being handcuffed against a steel kennel.
"Yes."
Mara looked at him carefully.
"That will cost you."
"I know."
"A lot."
"I know."
She smiled faintly.
"Good. You're becoming less annoying."
Elena laughed once, then covered her mouth as if the sound surprised her.
Warden sat between the three of them.
The dog had blood on one paw, none of it his.
Damon crouched beside Mara.
"Why send Sophie into the estate?"
Mara's expression hardened.
"Because every other route was compromised. Victor found our Chicago chain. He had Haines. He had Salvo. Adrian was laundering access. I had forty minutes before they took me."
"You sent a child through an armed perimeter."
"I sent her to Warden."
"That is not better."
"No," Mara said. "It isn't."
The lack of defense surprised him.
She looked toward the river.
"I made the least terrible choice I could see. That doesn't make it a good choice. Sophie gets to be angry about it for as long as she wants."
Damon nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me she was mine?"
Mara looked at him.
"Because seven years ago you would have used every resource you had to find her. Victor knew that. Your love would have been a tracking device."
"And three years ago?"
"You had become harder to track, harder to manipulate, and much better at pretending your empire was clean. I needed to know which version was real."
"So you tested me."
"For three years."
Damon stared.
"I dislike you."
"Good. I was worried captivity had made me charming."
An agent approached.
"Mr. Castellano, we need to move you."
Damon looked at Mara.
"Sophie is waiting."
Mara's face changed instantly.
The strategist vanished.
The mother remained.
"Where?"
"Estate. Teresa."
Mara closed her eyes.
Three seconds.
Then two.
When she opened them, they were wet.
"Take me home."
They returned under federal escort shortly before dawn.
The estate gates stood open for the first time in years.
Sophie waited in the East Wing courtyard wearing the same yellow raincoat.
When Mara stepped from the car, Sophie ran.
She stopped six feet away.
Mara stopped too.
Neither moved.
Sophie held up the red hair clip.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pause.
Tap. Tap.
Mara answered by tapping two fingers against her own wrist.
Three.
Pause.
Two.
Sophie crossed the distance and hit her.
A small fist against Mara's stomach.
Then again.
"You lied!"
Mara took it.
"Yes."
"You left me!"
"Yes."
"You said you'd come back!"
"I know."
Sophie hit her once more, then collapsed into her arms.
Mara held her so tightly both of them shook.
Elena stood near the gate, crying silently.
Damon remained several steps back.
Sophie looked over Mara's shoulder at Elena.
Then at Damon.
"Nobody leave," she said.
It was the first command Damon had heard all night that everyone obeyed.
Behind them, Warden walked into the courtyard and lay down at the little girl's feet.
May you like
Then a federal agent stepped beside Damon and quietly said, "Mr. Castellano, we found something else in Room Seventeen. Something with your signature on it."
The Mafia Boss's Dog Showed No Mercy - 15-Chapter Full Edition
