The Mafia Boss’s Last Wish Before His Execution: Meeting the Dog — What Happened Was Unbelievable
Chapter 3
Gerald Whitlock had perhaps decided this peculiar moment needed to be smothered with a show of calm composure. He slipped a hand into his breast pocket and drew out a gleaming silver case, flicking the lid open with his thumb in the unhurried manner of a man who wanted every lens aimed at him to see that the growl of an old dog couldn’t shake a man of his power. He took out a dark brown cigar, lifted it to his lips, and sparked the lighter.
The first breath of smoke curled into the freezing air as a faint blue ribbon drifting slowly across the yard.
That smell — that sharply sweet, deeply pungent scent belonging to a rare kind of leaf that only a handful of people in this city had the money and the taste to smoke — spread through the sea wind and slid toward the dog.
What happened next came so quickly that afterward no one in the yard could tell the story in quite the same way.
Duke exploded.
There was no waiting growl anymore, only a straightforward lunge with every last bit of strength left in that old body. The leather leash slipped from the young officer’s sweaty hand as if it had never been held at all. The officer stumbled forward with a frightened cry trapped in his throat, but it was already too late.
The dog had crossed the yard in limping strides that were still astonishingly fast, and within an instant it was right in front of Whitlock.
The crowd screamed. Several reporters staggered back. A camera fell onto the concrete and cracked open. But what made everyone freeze after that first burst of panic was that the dog didn’t tear at him madly. It didn’t aim for the man’s throat or his face. Instead, its entire body drove toward one single point — Whitlock’s right hand, the hand that had just lifted the cigar to his mouth.
Duke clamped down on that wrist. Not grinding. Not shaking. But holding it with a deliberate ferocity so chilling it seemed as if for seven years the dog had been waiting to seize that exact hand.
Whitlock screamed, the cigar flying from his mouth and rolling across the concrete while still half-lit. He tried to wrench his hand free, but the dog held tight. In the struggle, the sleeve of his gray suit jacket was dragged up past his wrist, revealing his clenched hand — and on the ring finger of that hand was a gold signet ring darkened with age, its face carved with an old crest that the pale November morning light caught for one brief instant.
Two officers rushed in, slid their arms beneath the dog’s belly, and pulled hard. It took several seconds of effort before they managed to pry Duke away and pin it to the ground. The dog still didn’t take its eyes off Whitlock. Still growled low and deep in its throat. Its brown gaze burned with something no one in the yard could name.
Whitlock staggered back several steps, clutching his wrist, his face bloodless, every trace of his television smile gone.
And for those few brief seconds, the man who had remained calm before every camera for so many years revealed something far more naked — a primal fear flashing through the depths of his eyes before he managed to cover it with outrage.
Raphael didn’t see that fear.
Raphael no longer saw anything except the ring.