The mafia boss brought his deadliest dog to a seven-year-old girl’s funeral—but when Bruno began scratching her coffin, everyone realized the child might not be dead.

For the first time since Tomas opened it nineteen years ago, no garlic warmed in the kitchen, no salsa music played from the old speaker near the register, no schoolchildren pressed coins against the glass case for sweet bread after class.

The windows were covered from inside.

Candles and flowers lined the sidewalk.

Purple sneakers hung from the door handle.

Someone had tied them there with a white ribbon.

Elena was alive, but grief had already visited this place and left decorations.

I stood across the street and stared at the alley where she had run for her life.

Noon sunlight fell too brightly on brick walls. New York has no respect for sorrow. It will shine on a crime scene the same way it shines on a wedding.

The envelope in my hand held paper.

Not the notebook.

Not Matteo’s recording.

Not anything Harlan truly wanted.

But enough to make him come close.

My phone buzzed.

A text from Price.

We see you.

Good.

I did not reply.

Harlan had said come alone. He had not said no one could watch from three rooftops, two delivery vans, a closed bakery, and the upstairs apartment of a retired woman who owed my mother a favor from 1983.

Price knew about most of them.

Not all.

I was improving, not becoming a saint.

The alley smelled of rain, garbage, and old tomatoes. Halfway down, near the back door of La Estrella, a chair had been placed.

On it sat Dr. Nathaniel Cross.

Hands tied.

Face bruised.

Alive.

A black cloth covered his mouth. His glasses were cracked. When he saw me, he began to shake his head violently.

Warning.

Not pleading.

I stopped.

“Victor,” I called.

A door opened at the far end of the alley.

Harlan stepped out with two men.

Silver hand glinting.

He looked rested. That offended me.

“Dominic,” he said. “You followed instructions.”

“Mostly.”

His eyes moved over windows, rooftops, shadows.

“Mostly,” he repeated.

I lifted the envelope. “Cross first.”

He smiled. “Evidence first.”

“Do I look new?”

“You look old, actually. This night has aged you.”

“It made me patient.”

Harlan laughed. “No. A child made you patient. That is worse.”

One of his men moved behind Cross and pressed a gun low against the doctor’s back.

Cross squeezed his eyes shut.

Harlan extended his human hand. “The notebook.”

I tossed the envelope halfway between us.

He nodded to his second man.

The man approached carefully, picked it up, opened it.

His face changed.

“It’s copies.”

Harlan sighed.

“Dominic.”

“You didn’t ask for originals.”

His smile vanished.

There.

The first honest moment.

I continued, “The originals are with police. So are scans. So are backups. So is a statement from Isabella. So is testimony from Miles Grant. So are warehouse ledgers. So is Elena Vasquez, breathing.”

At Elena’s name, Cross began to cry.

Harlan’s eyes hardened.

“Children wake up confused,” he said. “Memories change.”

“Dogs don’t.”

A sound came from behind him.

Low.

Deep.

Impossible.

Harlan turned.

Bruno stood at the far end of the alley.

Tony held his leash.

Harlan’s face flashed with rage. “I said no dog.”

“You said if he was with me.”

Tony smiled slightly. “He’s with me.”

Price’s voice thundered from a speaker. “NYPD! Weapons down!”

The alley exploded into movement.

Harlan’s men raised guns. Police shouted. Bruno lunged. Tony released him.

I dove toward Cross.

A shot cracked against brick above me. Dust filled my eyes. Cross toppled sideways as I grabbed the chair and dragged him behind a dumpster. Harlan’s first man fired once before Bruno hit him like a freight train, taking him to the ground and pinning his arm without tearing his throat out.

Good dog.

The second man ran.

Police tackled him near the alley mouth.

Harlan did not run backward.

He ran into La Estrella.

Of course.

Into the restaurant of the man whose daughter he had tried to erase.

I cut Cross’s ties with a piece of broken glass.

“Stay down.”

He sobbed, “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

Then I ran after Harlan.

Inside La Estrella, the air was stale. Chairs rested upside down on tables. Elena’s drawings still covered one wall—horses, stars, a crooked Bruno with a crown.

Harlan moved through the kitchen.

I followed.

He shoved over a rack of pans. Metal crashed everywhere. I slipped, caught myself, and saw him disappear through the back storage room.

The basement.

Tomas had once shown me that basement. Old wine racks. Flour sacks. A second exit into the building next door.

Harlan knew too much.

I reached the stairs and stopped.

Dark below.

Too quiet.

My phone buzzed.

Price: Don’t go down alone.

I went down alone.

Some mistakes are not mistakes until they fail.

The basement smelled of damp stone and onions. Light came from a single bulb swinging near the old freezer. Harlan stood beside it, breathing hard, one hand on a shelf.

“You still chase like a young man,” he said.

“You run like a guilty one.”

He smiled faintly.

“I offered Marco money. He took it. I offered Isabella safety. She wanted it. I offered Cross status. He signed. I offered your brother a partnership.”

My chest tightened.

“He refused.”

“Yes,” Harlan said. “Eventually. But not at first.”

I froze.

Harlan saw the hit land.

“There it is. The thing Isabella didn’t write. Matteo listened. He met me twice. He thought he could control the information, use me against Marco, protect you from rot inside your house.”

“Lie.”

“Ask Adriana what Matteo was like. He always believed he could save doomed men.”

I stepped closer.

Harlan lifted his silver hand.

In it was a small device.

A detonator.

My eyes moved.

Wires ran from beneath the freezer door.

“You brought a bomb into a restaurant?”

“I brought insurance.”

“Children live above this building.”

“Then stop walking.”