Chapter 3 - The Protocol of the Beast
By the following week, the ecosystem of Hawthorne Ridge had undergone a seismic, terrifying shift.
The staff walked on eggshells, casting wide, paranoid glances toward the east service wing whenever their duties took them near it. There, sprawled across the heated cobblestone path just outside Sofia’s door like an oversized obsidian gargoyle, lay Bruno.
The beast no longer patrolled the perimeter gates or growled at the shadows. His entire universe had contracted to a radius of twenty feet around the maid’s apartment. When the morning shift change occurred and the security guards marched past in their polished black boots, Bruno didn't rise to challenge them; he merely opened one lazy, baleful eye, watched them with supreme contempt, and went back to sleep.
Except when Emma opened the door.
At precisely 8:00 AM every morning, wrapped in her oversized red wool coat, Emma would step out into the crisp air with the casual confidence of a queen inspecting her royal guard. Bruno would instantly spring to life—a twelve-stone explosion of muscle and motion—trotting over to her with his tail wagging in slow, heavy thuds against the stone wall.
And Adrian Mercer watched every single second of it from his second-floor gallery.
Standing with a cup of black coffee in hand, hidden behind the leaded glass panes, Adrian observed the ritual with the intensity of a general reviewing troop movements. He watched as Emma patted the dog’s massive head, fed him a stale piece of toast she had smuggled from breakfast, and patted his scarred flank.
For the first time in over a decade, Adrian felt something inside his chest unclench. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible shift, but it was there—a tiny fracture in the armor he had spent a lifetime forging.
“Sir.”
Adrian didn’t turn around. He didn't need to. The soft, discreet tread on the Persian carpet belonged to only one man.
Victor Vance, Adrian’s longtime head of security, fixer, and shadow, stepped up to the gallery railing. Victor was a man built like a brick wall—wide shoulders, broken nose, permanent scowl, and a mind like a razor-sharp ledger. He looked down at the courtyard, watching the little girl and the monster with an expression of profound, unadulterated disbelief that he had carried all week.
“The shipment from the docks cleared customs this morning,” Victor reported, his voice a low gravel rasp. “No interference from the North Side crew. They heard about the dog.”
Adrian took a slow sip of his coffee. “They heard about the dog?”
“Word travels fast in the syndicate, boss,” Victor said, a rare, dry twitch of humor touching his lips. “Word on the street is that Mercer imported a demonic beast from Sicily, and then tamed it by feeding it a little girl as a blood sacrifice. The boys on Division Street are genuinely terrified to come within five miles of the estate.”
Adrian didn’t smile, but his eyes glinted with cold amusement. “Let them stay terrified. Fear is cheaper than bullets.”
“True,” Victor muttered, his tone shifting slightly as he looked back down at Emma, who was now attempting to tie a pink ribbon around Bruno’s collar while the beast sat there with the patience of a saint. “Speaking of the girl... the mother, Sofia Carter. She’s been pulling double shifts in the grand dining hall this week. Refuses the extra pay I authorized per your orders, says she wants to earn every cent.”
“Let her work,” Adrian said quietly. “Pride is hard to break. Don't push her.”
“That’s not all, boss,” Victor hesitated, adjusting his cuffs. “We ran a background check on her when she was hired eight months ago, standard protocol. But after... well, after what happened with Bruno, I dug a little deeper into her late husband. Ethan Carter.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed slightly. He turned his head to look at his head of security. “Ethan Carter? The accountant who died of a sudden aneurysm?”
“That’s what the death certificate said,” Victor replied, stepping closer and lowering his voice. “Official cause: natural cardiac arrest. Case closed by Chicago PD two years ago. But Ethan wasn't just any accountant. He worked as an independent forensic auditor for a few shell companies tied directly to Vincent Moretti’s syndicate.”
Adrian’s coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth. The air in the gallery grew noticeably colder. Vincent Moretti was Adrian’s primary rival—a ruthless, unpredictable animal who controlled the docks, the unions, and half the corrupt politicians in Cook County. Moretti and Adrian had maintained a fragile, armed neutrality for five years, a cold war balanced on razor wire.
“Go on,” Adrian said softly, his voice dangerously low.
“Ethan discovered something in Moretti’s books,” Victor continued, his face grim. “Embezzlement, money laundering, offshore routing—enough to put Moretti away for three consecutive life sentences. Ethan tried to walk away, tried to go to the feds with a thumb drive. Two days later, he dropped dead on a public sidewalk of a massive heart attack at age thirty-two. Perfectly clean tox screen. No signs of struggle.”
Adrian stared at the glass panes, his jaw tightening until the muscles stood out like iron cables.
“Moretti,” Adrian whispered.
“We can’t prove it directly—Moretti’s cleaners are too thorough,” Victor said. “Ethan’s widow, Sofia, had no idea what her husband was mixed up in. When he died, Moretti’s men stripped their home clean, seized their bank accounts under the guise of ‘unpaid business debts,’ and left Sofia and her infant daughter with literally the clothes on their backs. She didn't even know Ethan had a thumb drive.”
“And Moretti?” Adrian asked. “Does he know where she is?”
“No. We scrubbed her personnel file the day she applied here. She used her maiden name for the initial application; we brought her on under ‘Carter’ only after background vetting inside the estate. To Moretti, Sofia and her daughter vanished into thin air two years ago.”
Adrian turned away from the window, setting his coffee cup down on a mahogany side table with a sharp, echoing clack. He walked over to his desk, picking up a silver fountain pen, rolling it between his fingers with rhythmic precision.
The courtyard below was quiet. Through the leaded glass, he could still see Emma patting Bruno’s massive black snout, laughing at something only she could hear.
Moretti was a cancer. A violent, unpredictable tumor on the city that Adrian had tolerated only because removing him would disrupt the shipping lanes. But that calculation had just changed.
“Victor.”
“Boss?”
“Double the detail on the east wing,” Adrian ordered, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, and carrying the icy chill of a death sentence. “Install thermal cameras, reinforced glass, and silent alarms linked directly to the armory. No one—do you understand me? No one—gets within a hundred yards of that apartment without my explicit authorization.”
“Consider it done,” Victor said. “And Moretti?”
Adrian looked up, his dark eyes flashing with a sudden, devastating fury that made even his veteran security chief take an involuntary half-step back.
“Moretti thinks he owns the docks,” Adrian said softly. “He thinks he can bleed this city dry and bury the truth with clean death certificates.”
He dropped the pen onto the desk.
“Find out where Moretti is keeping his primary ledger books. The physical ones. The ones he keeps off the digital grid.”
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Victor’s eyes widened slightly. “You’re going to hit him?”
“No,” Adrian said, a cold, predatory smile cutting across his face. “I’m going to ruin him. And then, when he has nothing left, I’m going to remind him of what happens when you leave widows and orphans in your wake.”
