Chapter 10 - The Five-Footed Dog
Five years later, on a bright, crisp September afternoon, seventeen-year-old Sophia Castillo stood in the center of her second-floor bedroom in the Moretti mansion.
Two heavy leather suitcases sat open on the bedspread, packed with wool sweaters, college textbooks, and framed photographs.
In two hours, a car would take her to Logan Airport, where she would board a flight to England to begin her freshman year at Oxford University, studying veterinary medicine and animal behavior.
Elena stood by the tall window, folding a white silk scarf into thirds with the calm, effortless precision she had learned twenty years ago in a South Boston laundry. She was forty-two now, her dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, her face serene, confident, and deeply loved.
A knock came at the open door.
Dante Russo walked into the room, wearing a tailored navy suit, carrying a brand-new leather passport wallet stamped with Sophia’s initials.
“The car is at the gate, kiddo,” Dante said softly. His hair was entirely white now, but his eyes were as sharp and clear as the day he had blocked the study doorway with his arm.
“Is Barnaby downstairs?” Sophia asked, pulling the zipper closed on her main suitcase.
“He’s on the terrace with Adrian,” Dante smiled.
They walked down the grand marble staircase together—the four-foot-wide stairs that had once seemed like an insurmountable mountain to a five-year-old girl in red sneakers.
The terrace doors were open to the pale autumn air.
Sitting on the broad stone patio, wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, was sixteen-year-old Titan. He was very old now for a Cane Corso, his short slate coat almost entirely turned to silver, his breathing slow and deep, but his eyes were bright as he heard the squeak of Sophia’s shoes against the stone.
Sophia dropped to her knees on the cold flagstones beside him.
She laid her head directly against his broad, warm shoulder, her long dark hair spilling across his gray fur, exactly as she had done on the floor of the master study twelve years ago.
“Hey, old boy,” Sophia whispered into his soft ear.
Titan did not bark. He let out a long, shuddering breath through his nose, raised his heavy head three inches, and licked the side of her chin with one slow, gentle swipe of his pink tongue.
Adrian Moretti stood three feet away, leaning on his ash-wood cane, watching them with a quiet smile.
From her coat pocket, Sophia pulled out a worn, yellowed piece of paper that had been tucked into the back of her leather notebook for twelve years.
It was the page from the discarded ledger book from the linen closet.
On it was a drawing—faded now, the red wax slightly smeared by time—of a massive gray dog with five legs, running across a green field under a purple sun.
Sophia laid the drawing gently on Titan’s blanket, right beside his broad, scarred shoulder.
“Look, Barnaby,” Sophia whispered, her voice cracking with a small, sweet tear that fell onto his gray coat. “He’s still running. He’s running all the way to Oxford.”
Titan looked down at the drawing. He let out a low, content huff, closed his dark eyes, and rested his chin comfortably on the child’s knee.
Elena walked out onto the terrace, stopping beside Dante and Adrian. She reached out her hand, taking Adrian’s arm on her right and Dante’s sleeve on her left.
The lemon polish was gone from her hands.
May you like
The fear was gone from her heart.
And as the autumn wind blew in from Massachusetts Bay, carrying the clean, wild scent of the ocean over the gray stone house on the cliff, Elena Castillo watched her daughter smile down at the beast who had saved them all—a girl, a dog, and a life that had begun with twenty-four crayons and a single step into the dark.
