Chapter 1 - The Dog in the Rain
Bear lunged before Vincent Moretti could touch the girl.
The German Shepherd forced his thin body between them, teeth exposed, mud dripping from his ribs. One injured leg trembled beneath him, but he refused to retreat.
Vincent stepped back through the rain.
The armed guard standing near the alley entrance reached inside his jacket.
Vincent raised one tattooed hand.
“No.”
The guard stopped.
The girl pushed herself upright against the dumpster. She could not have been older than eight. Her torn mustard sweater clung to her narrow shoulders, and dirty water ran from her hair onto the cardboard beneath her.
“Touch him,” she whispered, “and he will tear your throat out.”
Bear growled as though agreeing.
Vincent removed his coat slowly.
The child watched every movement.
“I am giving this to you.”
“I do not want anything.”
“You are freezing.”
“People give things before they take something.”
The sentence made Vincent pause.
Children did not learn distrust that precise without practice.
He placed the coat on the ground rather than approaching her.
She stared at it.
Bear sniffed the fabric, then looked at her.
Only after the dog relaxed slightly did she pull the coat over her shoulders.
“What is your name?” Vincent asked.
“Emma.”
“Emma what?”
She hesitated.
“Just Emma.”
A sound moved beyond the alley.
An engine.
Too slow to be ordinary traffic.
Vincent looked toward the street.
Emma reached beneath her sweater and pulled out a silver locket.
The symbol engraved on its face struck him harder than a bullet.
A winged lion beneath a broken crown.
He had commissioned that design twelve years earlier.
Only two lockets existed.
One remained inside his private safe.
The other belonged to Elena Rossi.
The woman who vanished after promising to meet him at the old railway station.
Vincent crossed the space between them before caution could stop him.
Bear snapped.
Emma gripped the dog’s collar.
“Stay.”
Vincent took the locket from her hand and opened it.
An old photograph filled one side.
Elena stood beside him on the balcony of a summer house near the coast. Vincent looked younger, almost careless.
The other side contained a narrow line of blue writing.
Her father lives.
Vincent looked at Emma again.
The shape of her jaw.
The dark eyes.
The stubborn silence.
Elena existed inside all three.
“Where did you get this?”
“My father.”
“Who is your father?”
“He said not to tell anyone unless I found you.”
“You found me.”
Emma tightened her hold on Bear.
“He said only the monster everyone fears could save me.”
Vincent crouched.
The dog pressed closer to her.
“What name did he give you?”
Emma whispered:
“Gabriel Voss.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
Gabriel Voss had been his closest friend.
Six years earlier, Vincent identified Gabriel’s burned body after an explosion destroyed a warehouse near the river.
He attended the burial.
He placed a black rose on the coffin.
He killed two men believed responsible.
Now an eight year old girl claimed Gabriel had sent her.
“What happened at your house?”
“Men came.”
“How many?”
“I heard four downstairs. More outside.”
“Where was Gabriel?”
“In the kitchen. He pushed the key into the locket and told me to run through the cellar.”
“What key?”
Emma opened a hidden compartment beneath the photograph.
A small brass key fell into her palm.
Dried blood darkened one edge.
She pressed it into Vincent’s hand.
“They are not hunting me,” she said. “They are hunting what this opens.”
Headlights flooded the alley.
Three black vehicles stopped at the curb.
Vincent pulled Emma behind him.
Bear charged toward the entrance.
Doors opened.
Men in dark suits stepped into the rain carrying weapons.
One of them shouted:
“Hand over the street rat, Moretti.”
Vincent drew his pistol.
His guard moved beside him.
“Seven men visible,” the guard said.
“More inside the vehicles.”
Vincent kicked a metal trash bin onto its side and pushed Emma behind it.
“Stay low.”
“I am not leaving Bear.”
“Neither is he.”
The first gunshot struck the wall above Vincent’s shoulder.
He fired once.
The nearest attacker dropped behind a car.
Bear raced forward through the rain, forcing another man to turn away from Vincent.
Emma screamed the dog’s name.
Vincent caught Bear by the collar as the animal returned and pulled him behind cover.
The attackers moved carefully.
They were not trying to kill Emma.
Every shot avoided the dumpster.
They needed the key intact.
Vincent pressed his phone.
“North alley. Bring everyone.”
A voice answered:
“Two minutes.”
“We do not have two minutes.”
A vehicle accelerated toward the entrance.
Vincent fired into the front tire.
The car twisted, struck a lamppost, and blocked the narrow street.
The armed men scattered.
Emma reached inside Vincent’s coat.
“What are you doing?”
“My father gave me another thing.”
She removed a folded photograph hidden beneath the lining of her sweater.
The image showed Gabriel Voss standing beside Elena.
Both were alive.
A newspaper on the table carried a date from three weeks earlier.
Vincent’s attention shifted for one dangerous second.
An attacker rushed around the car.
Bear launched himself at the man’s arm.
The weapon fell.
Vincent struck the attacker and pulled the dog away before another shot hit the pavement.
Moretti vehicles entered from both sides of the street.
Vincent’s men emerged.
The attackers retreated into the two vehicles still functioning.
One man remained behind.
He looked directly at Emma.
“Your father should have burned the key.”
Emma raised her chin.
“He should have burned you.”
The man smiled.
“He tried.”
Then he disappeared behind the vehicle.
The cars sped away.
Vincent stood in the rain with the bloody key inside his hand.
His men secured the street.
Bear returned to Emma and pressed his wet body against her legs.
Vincent looked at the photograph again.
Gabriel lived.
Elena lived.
Someone had hidden both from him.
“Where did your father tell you the key belongs?”
Emma pointed toward the locket.
A set of numbers had been scratched beneath the photograph.
Vincent recognized the first four.
They belonged to the old Moretti bank beneath Saint Victor Square.
The bank his father closed after the Moretti civil war.
No account had been opened there for twenty years.
The key could reach a vault no living employee was supposed to know existed.
Vincent placed the locket around Emma’s neck.
“You are coming with me.”
“I do not trust you.”
“You should not.”
“Then why should I go?”
“Because those men will return, and the person who sent them knows your father survived.”
Emma looked toward Bear.
The dog stared at Vincent.
Vincent opened the rear door of his car.
“Bear comes too.”
Emma climbed inside.
Before Vincent could follow, his guard handed him a phone taken from the attacker Bear had brought down.
A message remained open on the screen.
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Recover the child before Moretti learns she is not Elena’s daughter.
Continue to the next part: Vincent must determine why Emma carries Elena’s locket if the men hunting her insist she belongs to someone else.
