She Was Only a Dog Trainer Trying to Heal a Traumatized Shepherd — Then the Mafia Boss Who Owned Him Made Her the Key to Surviving a Deadly Betrayal

Chapter 6

Roman’s penthouse wasn’t what I expected. I’d braced myself for ostentation — marble, original art, the kind of wealth that screamed *look at what I own*. Instead, the space was clean, modern, almost austere. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park. Furniture that prioritized function over flash. Shades of gray and black and dark wood.

The only personal touch was a framed photograph on the side table. Roman, younger, standing next to an older man with the same severe features and the same dark eyes. His father, I guessed.

Roman was on the phone when I entered, his back to me, looking out at the park. He was in shirtsleeves, no jacket, and I could see the way the fabric pulled across his shoulders as he moved. I looked away, forced myself to focus on Luna, who had gone straight to a large cushion near the windows and settled there like she owned the place.

Luna wasn’t the only one who’d claimed this space. The penthouse had that particular stillness of a room lived in by someone who’d had everything arranged for him and had stopped noticing the arrangement. A single coffee mug in the sink. A book face-down on the arm of the couch, spine cracked. No clutter, no photographs scattered — just the one, on the side table, angled toward the windows like it was meant to be the last thing he looked at before the light failed.

“Understood,” Roman said into the phone. “I want names and addresses by noon.” He hung up and turned.

His gaze landed on me, and I felt that same unwanted jolt of awareness. The way my body woke up under his attention.

“Sophie says you spotted four.”

“Four confirmed. Possibly a fifth, but I only saw him once, so I can’t be sure it’s a pattern.”

“Show me.”

He gestured to the dining table, where a laptop was already open with a map of the Upper East Side on the screen. I walked over, hyperaware of him moving to stand beside me — not touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat of him, smell that damned cedar scent.

“Navy jacket, coffee cup. Here at 8:47 this morning. I saw him in the same spot yesterday at 8:52.”

Roman typed, and a photograph appeared on the screen. Same man. Different angle.

“That’s him.”

“Keep going.”

I walked him through all four sightings, and with each one, Roman pulled up surveillance photos — his own people documenting the same patterns I’d noticed. The navy jacket turned out to be a former police officer on Klov’s payroll. The stretch-and-stretch woman had done six months for wire fraud. The baker at the corner bodega I’d thought was just friendly. The doorman across the street who never seemed to have a key in his hand.

“You caught them faster than my security team did.” His voice was neutral, but I heard the approval underneath. “They’ve been on this route for six days. You identified the pattern in two.”

“I’m used to watching for behavioral repetition. It’s the same skill set.”

“It’s more than that.” He turned to face me fully, and suddenly we were too close. “My people were looking for threats. You were looking for anything that didn’t belong. There’s a difference.”

I swallowed hard. “What happens to them?”

“They get a message delivered. Non-lethal, but clear. Klov needs to understand that watching you is expensive.”

“And the walk tomorrow?”

“Same route. Same time. But now we know who’s watching. We control what they see.”

Roman moved away, and I could breathe again. He poured coffee from a carafe I hadn’t noticed and handed me a cup. “You did well, Odessa. First task, first win that matters in this world.”

“In your world, you mean.”

“Your world now, too.” He sat on the edge of the desk, watching me. “How does that feel?”

“Terrifying. Exhilarating. Like standing at the edge of a cliff I can’t see the bottom of. Like I’m in over my head.”

“Good. People who think they understand everything get killed fast. People who know what they don’t know survive longer.”

The surveillance got worse that week. Not more obvious — more aggressive. I spotted the tail three blocks from my apartment: a younger man this time, with the kind of casual arrogance that suggested he didn’t care if I noticed. He stayed exactly half a block behind me the entire walk to Roman’s building. And when Sophie moved to intercept, he just smiled and walked away.

“They’re testing boundaries,” Sophie said as we entered the building. “Seeing how close they can get before we respond.”

“How close is too close?”

She looked at me like I’d asked a stupid question. “They’re already too close. But Mr. Kyodori wants to see Klov’s endgame before he moves.”