Chapter 6 - The Long Island Account
On the twenty-second of December, three cars arrived from the city.
They were not the sleek black sedans that Matteo used for his daily trips to the shipping offices downtown. They were long, heavy, armored limousines with dark tinting on the side windows and mud-splattered license plates from New York and Ohio.
Eight men got out of the cars.
They were older than Matteo’s regular guards—men in their fifties and sixties, wearing expensive woolen coats with velvet collars, carrying small leather attache cases. They moved with the quiet, careful weight of men who had spent thirty years giving orders that ended people’s lives in dockyards, restaurants, and basement offices across four states.
The Commission had arrived.
The meeting took place in the main dining room on the first floor—a thirty-foot room with high oak wainscoting, two stone fireplaces, and a long table of polished mahogany that could seat twenty-four people.
Clara had been instructed by Mrs. Gable to stay in the west wing until six o'clock.
"Do not go near the terrace," the old housekeeper had warned her, her gray face unusually pale as she handed Clara a fresh linen sack of dry oats. "Do not let the dog bark. If those men from New York see a dog in the yard, they will shoot it just to see if the guards are paying attention."
By four in the afternoon, the light had failed completely, replaced by a dark, bruising purple that settled over the lake.
Clara sat in the harness room, reading an old book of poems she had found in the tack shop chest. Bruno lay at her feet, his head resting on her left boot, his ears twitching occasionally at the distant sound of doors slamming in the main house.
At four-thirty, the low wooden door of the harness room opened.
It was not Luca. It was Gianni.
Gianni was twenty-two, the youngest of Matteo’s personal guards, with a narrow face and a wide scar across his left eyebrow that he had earned in a fight outside a warehouse in Gary. He was trembling so hard his black leather jacket rattled against his belt buckle.
“Clara,” Gianni whispered, his voice cracking. “Get up.”
Clara set her book down on the table. Bruno stood up instantly, his tail dropping, his lips pulling back an inch.
“What’s wrong?” Clara asked.
“Mr. Moretti wants the dog,” Gianni said.
Clara froze. “Why?”
“The man from New York—Don Saleri—he brought his own dog,” Gianni stammered, wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. “A German Shepherd from Brooklyn. A brute. He’s been bragging all afternoon about how his dog can take down any guard in the Midwest. He... he saw Bruno’s papers in the office cabinet and demanded to see him.”
Clara’s blood went cold as ice water.
“No,” she said.
Gianni stepped into the room, his hand reaching out to grab her arm. “Clara, you don't understand! Saleri is eighty years old. He controls the docks in Jersey! If Mr. Moretti says no to him over a dog, it looks like a sign of weakness! The whole meeting is about to go sideways!”
Bruno took one step forward, his broad snout coming within two inches of Gianni’s thigh. A growl started in his chest—low, dry, and lethal.
Gianni pulled his hand back as if he had touched a high-voltage wire. “Clara! Please!”
Clara looked at the window. Through the glass, she could see the bright, yellow lights of the main dining room shining out onto the snow of the terrace.
She picked up her dark wool coat from the back of the chair.
“Where is the leather rope?” she asked.
“On the hook,” Gianni said, his voice shaking.
Clara slipped the soft cotton hemp rope over Bruno’s broad neck, sliding the wooden toggle into place with a soft click.
“He stays on the rope,” Clara said, looking straight into Gianni’s panicked eyes. “And I hold it.”
“Clara, women aren't allowed in the dining room during—”
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“Then Mr. Moretti doesn't get the dog,” Clara said.
She pushed past Gianni, her heavy mended boots clicking down the pine stairs, with Bruno’s broad black shoulder pressed firmly against her right hip.
