Her Puppy Chose the Mafia Boss… And Exposed a Hidden Truth

Chapter 4

“Tommaso approved them all. The payment cleared the same day.” I paused. “Thank you. That was fast.”

“You earned it. The quality was excellent.” He glanced at me, then away. “Have you always wanted to be a photographer?”

“Not always.” I watched Milo investigate a particularly interesting tree. “I studied marketing. Photography was a hobby — something I did to relax between classes.” The words came out easier than I expected. “After my parents died, I needed something that felt meaningful. Capturing moments people want to keep. Preserving memories. It helped me process losing them.”

“How long ago?”

“Three years. Car accident. They were driving home from visiting me in Boston.” The familiar weight settled in my chest, patient as ever. “They were supposed to stay one more day. My mom had a doctor’s appointment she didn’t want to miss. If I’d just—”

“That’s not your fault.” His voice was gentle, but firm. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for timing and circumstances beyond your control.”

“Logically, I know that. But logic doesn’t always override guilt.”

Recognition flickered across his face, and I realized I’d handed him his own words from the wedding. He heard them. He heard himself in them.

“With Argus,” I said quietly. “You understand that, don’t you?”

He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze somewhere past the trees. “Yes,” he said. “I understand exactly.”

We had reached a more secluded part of the park, where the canopy filtered the light into dappled patterns and the city noise fell away. Dante pulled a tennis ball from his jacket pocket, and Milo’s attention snapped to it like a compass finding north.

“You came prepared,” I said.

“I told you. I had a golden retriever. I remember what they love.”

He threw the ball down the path, and Milo took off like a shot. And then something happened that would have been funny if it hadn’t been so telling. Milo retrieved the ball perfectly — and ran straight past me, straight to Dante, and dropped it at his feet, tail wagging.

“Milo. Bring it here.” I held out my hand. He looked at me. He looked at Dante. He nudged the ball closer to Dante’s shoe.

“Traitor,” I muttered.

Dante picked it up. Threw it. Same result. Four more throws. Four more times, Milo returned to Dante exclusively, like I wasn’t standing ten feet away holding the leash.

“I’m sorry,” Dante said, clearly trying not to smile. “I’m not deliberately stealing your dog’s affection.”

“Aren’t you, though? You brought a ball. You do that thing with his ears. You’re basically the golden retriever whisperer.”

I took the ball and threw it myself, harder, out of spite. Milo chased it, brought it back, and deposited it at Dante’s feet again. I threw my hands up.

“Unbelievable. I have fed this dog for six months. I have cleaned up after this dog. I have slept on my floor next to this dog’s crate. And you throw one ball.”

Dante crouched down to Milo’s level, and his whole guarded face — the one that ran companies and had men who reached for their jackets — softened completely. “I don’t understand it either,” he said. “But I’m not complaining.”

Watching them together, I felt something shift in my chest that I was not ready to name. A golden retriever who’d been abandoned once, and a man who’d spent his whole life since fifteen afraid to love anything again. And the dog — with the instincts dogs are supposed to have — had walked right up to the one person in all of New York who needed him most.

“A dog’s instincts about people,” I said, “are rarely wrong. You told me that the night we met.”

“I did.”

“So maybe Milo knows something I don’t.”