Everyone Was Forbidden From Approaching the Unconscious Mafia Boss—Until His Guard Dog Picked a Poor Nurse

The lights in the safe house went out all at once.

The sudden darkness was absolute, broken only by the orange glow of the dying embers in the study fireplace.

Maya leaped up from the rug with a sharp yelp, while Nero surged to the center of the room, his deep, thunderous barks echoing off the high cedar ceiling.

"Danny didn't clear the pier," Alice said instantly, dropping to her knees beside her greyhound.

"No," Stefano said, his voice completely calm in the dark. He reached into the desk drawer, pulled out a heavy black Glock 19 with an integrated red-dot sight, and racked the slide with one smooth motion of his good hand. "Borisov knew about the Greenwich house. Carmine wasn't the only leak."

He stepped over to Alice, caught her by the arm, and pulled her toward the heavy oak bookcase on the north wall.

He reached behind the third shelf, pressed a hidden steel catch, and a six-foot section of the wall swung inward with a soft, hydraulic hiss.

"Inside," Stefano ordered. "Take the dogs."

"What about you?" Alice demanded, her hand locking onto his forearm. "You have fifteen rounds in that mag and one functional arm! You can't clear a four-man breach!"

"I don't need to clear them," Stefano said, leaning close to her in the dark. "I just need to hold the hallway until Danny gets back from the road."

"No," Alice snapped.

She grabbed Nero by his thick collar, shoved Maya into the dark secret chamber, and then looked Stefano dead in the eye.

"Nero," Alice commanded, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp frequency. "Guard the door."

The mastiff didn't hesitate. He stepped into the threshold of the secret room, his massive body filling the opening, his eyes locked onto the outer hall.

Alice grabbed Stefano by his good lapel, pulled him into the chamber behind her, and hit the hydraulic release on the inside wall.

The oak bookcase swung shut just as the heavy glass windows of the study exploded inward under a hail of suppressed automatic fire.

The dark chamber was small—six feet by eight feet—lined with gray soundproofing foam and illuminated only by the green standby lights of two emergency air scrubbers.

Through the thick wood of the secret door, they could hear the heavy boots of four men moving through the study. Shattered glass crunched under rubber soles.

"Clear the desk!" a harsh voice with a thick Russian accent shouted outside. "Find the book!"

Stefano stood pressed against the foam wall, his Glock raised, his breathing slow and silent. Sweat ran down his temple from the pain in his side, but his hand was steady as an iron bar.

Beside him, Alice held Maya’s snout with both hands, keeping the trembling greyhound silent in the dark.

Nero stood at the front of the chamber, his heavy nose pressed against the two-inch gap at the base of the secret panel. He didn't make a sound. His entire one-hundred-and-fifty-pound frame was coiled like a steel spring, waiting for the wood to give way.

Outside, a heavy body slammed against the bookcase.

"It’s a false wall!" the Russian shouted. "Get the breacher charge!"

Stefano looked at Alice in the green light.

"When the charge goes," Stefano whispered, leaning his head near hers, "take the dog and run down the lower tunnel. It comes out three hundred yards south in the drainage culvert."

"I'm not leaving you, Stefano," Alice whispered back, her gray eyes flashing with a cold, fierce light.

"Alexandra—"

"Shut up," she hissed.

She reached into her scrub pocket, pulled out a three-inch stainless steel tracheotomy needle from her emergency kit, and held it between her fingers like a scalp blade.

"If they break that door," Alice said, her voice entirely devoid of fear, "you take the front two. I'll take the one with the charge."

Stefano looked at her—at the pale, beautiful face of the woman holding a surgical needle in a dark box while four armed men prepared to blow the wall down—and a genuine, low laugh escaped his throat.

"My God," Stefano murmured. "Your father really was a madman."

Before the Russian could set the charge, the heavy, rhythmic thrum of three high-horsepower engines roared through the trees outside.