The Mafia Boss Expected His Dog to Run Back to Him — But the Dog Chose Someone Else

Chapter 5

He went to the shelter the next afternoon.

Claire was in the back dealing with a kitten crisis. Danny was at the front desk. Titan — who now had a permanent dog bed in the corner of the reception area — was lying on it, watching the door with the relaxed attention of an animal who had finally learned that not every arrival required a response.

Adrien sat in one of the mismatched plastic chairs and waited.

This was — he noted quietly to himself — something he had not done in years. Waited in a room without working. Without his phone. Without orchestrating anything. Just sat.

After twelve minutes, Claire emerged from the back with a kitten on each shoulder and a scratch on the back of her left hand that she hadn’t bothered to treat yet.

“They hid in a box of paper towels,” she told Danny, transferring the kittens to his waiting arms. “Check the supply closet lock — the latch is loose.”

She turned, saw Adrien, and said: “You’re early.”

“I didn’t know we had scheduled times.”

“We don’t,” she agreed. “But you’ve been coming at ten and two. So when you showed up at one-fifteen, I thought something might be wrong.”

She moved toward the small bathroom behind the desk to run water over the scratch. She did not ask him to follow. She simply left the possibility open.

He followed.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I had a gap in my afternoon.”

She ran cold water over her hand, examined the scratch with the brisk practicality of someone who regarded minor injuries as administrative inconveniences.

“Titan ate this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She dried her hand on a paper towel.

“He was playing with the orange tabby earlier. The one who lives on the desk. His name is Cromwell, by the way, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You kept looking at him.”

Adrien paused. “I was trying to figure out how a cat ends up owning a desk.”

Claire almost smiled. It was the *almost* that he noticed — the way she kept her amusement slightly private, like she wasn’t going to give it away all at once.

“He came in two years ago completely feral. Hated everyone. Then one day he just decided the desk was his, and no one was going to move him. We figured — at that point, who were we to argue with a cat’s sense of ownership?”

“There’s a metaphor in that.”

“Probably. I try not to overthink the cats.”

He watched her toss the paper towel into the bin. And then — without planning to, without running it through the usual risk assessment first — he said:

“Your heating system cycles off between two and four in the morning.”

She went still.

“I had someone check the building systems. For the animals. The temperature drop is significant enough to be a welfare concern.”

Claire was quiet for exactly four seconds. He counted.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get the landlord to fix it for eight months. He keeps saying he’ll send someone.”

“I’d like to send someone. I have an HVAC contractor who can look at it this week.”

“Adrien —”

“It’s for the animals.”

She looked at him. Her eyes were a specific shade of brown — not dark, not light, the color of something warm. She had a way of looking at a person that felt like she was reading something he hadn’t handed her.

“You can’t fix everything,” she said.

“I can fix the heating system. That one is specifically fixable.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“I know.”

They looked at each other across the small bathroom. The fluorescent light hummed. Cromwell, somewhere behind them, made a sound of profound feline indifference.

“I know you can’t fix everything,” Adrien said. “But you can fix the heating system. And the animals will be warm. And that’s something.”

Claire looked at him for another moment. Then she nodded — a small nod, barely visible, like a door opening a crack.

“Okay,” she said. “Send someone.”

—

Two days later, the HVAC contractor showed up and fixed the system in four hours. The next morning, Claire sent a text from the shelter’s number:

*Animals slept through the night. All of them.*

Adrien read it three times. Then he set his phone face-down and picked up a document he needed to review. Then he put it down again. Picked up his phone. Read it a fourth time.