Chapter 4 - The Interrogation in the Cold Room
One hundred and fifty-eight pounds of Cane Corso hit Leo Danvers like a freight train, driving him backward into the stone retaining wall with a sickening crunch of masonry and bone.
The backup pistol went spinning across the frozen snow, clattering against the edge of the drain. Bruno pinned Leo’s right arm beneath his massive forepaws, his teeth hovering half an inch from the guard's carotid artery, hot breath steaming in the frigid air.
"Bruno. Basta," I commanded softly.
The dog didn't bite. He pressed harder, his amber eyes locked on Leo’s dilated pupils, waiting for the slightest twitch of resistance.
Marco Bellini and three security operatives appeared from the archways, their weapons drawn, surrounding the downed guard.
Marco knelt beside Leo, reached into the right cargo pocket of the parka, and pulled out an object wrapped in a microfiber cloth:
A spring-loaded veterinary biopsy punch, identical in gauge to the barbed wire Dr. Paulson had extracted from Bruno’s hip eight hours earlier.
Beside the punch was a sealed, encrypted satellite transponder.
"Take him to the sub-basement," I ordered, not looking at Leo as Marco snapped heavy steel zip-ties around the traitor's wrists. "And clear the courtyard."
I turned toward the carriage house door.
Sophia had fallen to her knees in the snow, her arms wrapped tight around Emma, burying her daughter's face in her neck so the child wouldn't see the blood on the stones. She was weeping, her body shivering uncontrollably in the morning freeze.
I walked over to them.
Bruno trotted behind me, the fury completely drained from his posture, his gait smooth and easy. He approached the kneeling mother and child, leaned down, and gently nudged Emma’s shoulder with his cold nose.
Emma pulled her face away from her mother’s collar.
She looked at Bruno, saw the snow on his whiskers, and reached out her bare hand to pat his heavy forehead.
"Good boy, Bruno," Emma chirped, her voice bright and untroubled. "You chased the bad man."
Sophia looked up at me, tears freezing on her eyelashes, her face pale with an agony of confusion and fear. "Mr. Moretti... what is happening here? Who was that man?"
I extended my hand down to her.
Sophia hesitated for two seconds. Then her cold, rough fingers slipped into my leather-gloved palm, and I pulled her to her feet with steady, gentle force.
"That man was paid to turn my dog into a monster so he could kill me," I said, holding her gaze until the trembling in her shoulders began to subside. "And your daughter saw through his pain before my best security men could spot the wire."
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I looked down at Emma, who was now feeding Bruno a broken piece of breakfast biscuit from her coat pocket.
"Come inside, Sophia," I said quietly. "We have things to talk about. Starting with your husband."
