Section 41
Leash
Lucky
Red looks wrong from the back alley. Their neon sign flickers the same way it always has, but the heartbeat of the place feels off-rhythm, like someone’s fiddled with the wiring.
I kill the engine on my bike but stay astride, watching as one of Frank’s men—guy with a neck thicker than my thigh and a gun he doesn’t hide well—nods at another patron entering through the rear door. Wrong guy, wrong checkpoint. Two days, and Frank’s already rewritten the security protocols.
Frank’s men have been methodical. Efficient. I’ll give them that much. They’ve stripped away Gia’s symbols faster than I would have thought possible.
Two nights ago, this was Gia’s kingdom. Now it’s Frank’s playground. It makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little, but helmet plus vomit equals shit show. Or, you know, puke show. Anyway, I digress…
I tighten my grip on the throttle, not enough to rev the engine, just enough to feel something solid in my hands. My jaw aches from clenching. I should leave. There’s nothing here for me now except memories and mistakes. But I can’t seem to make myself turn the key.
I keep seeing her face. Not the one from that morning, soft with sleep and trust before everything unraveled.
Not the one from the meeting, controlled and cold while Frank laid my history out like a crime scene.
I see her face from the first day I walked into Red, when she measured me with a look that could cut glass and decided, for reasons I still don’t understand, to take a chance.
She never flinches. She absorbs the hit and recalculates, while the rest of us are still reeling from the impact.
And now she’s gone silent. My phone stays dead. Not even a fuck you for keeping secrets. And somehow that’s worse than any rage she could’ve thrown my way.
A bouncer I don’t recognize steps outside for a smoke, his eyes skimming over me without interest. Maybe this is who Frank’s replaced my name on payroll with.
I feel it rise again in my throat—something bitter and hot that tastes like acid. The kind of fury that comes when you watch something beautiful get dismantled by greedy hands.
My fingers find the scar tissue along my collarbone, a reflexive gesture I’ve never quite shaken. Old wounds always speak the loudest when you’re trying to decide what kind of man you want to be.
I think about Diablo. About the way he planted himself between Gia and any perceived threat, no hesitation, no calculation of risk versus reward. Just pure, simple loyalty. The kind that doesn’t ask questions or make excuses or hide behind helmets.
I’ve spent so much time being careful. Calculating the angles. Measuring my words. Hiding my face because it was easier than owning my history.
Look where that got us.
I tighten my grip. I could drive away. Find another city. Start over with a different name and a different story and hope this time it sticks.
Or I could stop running.
My gaze drifts back to the club.
Gia’s office has been turned inside out. Furniture shifted. Drawers emptied. Even from out here, I can tell he’s not just redecorating. He’s looking for something.
Gia once told me her father never kept important things where anyone would think to look.
She’d said it with the kind of affectionate annoyance reserved for impossible parents.
At the time, I’d assumed it was just another one of those mafia lessons that sounded more like a riddle than practical advice.
Frank knows it too.
Which means he also knows he hasn’t found whatever Daddy Serrano left behind.
Frank’s searching blind.
I’m not.
I don’t have to stop him forever.
I just have to buy Gia enough time to get back what belongs to her.
I’ve spent enough mornings relieving the night shift to know dawn is when the guards change shifts.
When the night crew is tired and the day crew isn’t fully alert.
When the cameras reset and the systems reboot and for exactly six minutes, there’s a gap in the coverage that Frank thinks nobody knows about.
I’m going to walk straight through that gap and risk everything.
Not because I think I can save her.
Because she deserves the chance to save herself.
The engine comes alive beneath me, a low growl that matches the one building in my chest. I lean into the curve as I pull away, the back alley disappearing in my mirrors.
I have five hours until dawn.
Five hours to earn the trust Gia Serrano had already given me.
Four of them go to preparation—the kind Valenti used to call homework.
The fifth one goes to sitting in a parking lot working up the nerve.
The Lussari estate walls rise like a promise in the pre-dawn dark—solid, old, uncompromising.
I idle the bike at the edge of the security perimeter, engine barely a whisper against the chirping crickets and distant traffic.
Diablo shifts in the makeshift carrier I’ve rigged to the back of my motorcycle, eager to be free after the journey.
He doesn’t understand why we’re here, or why he’s dressed up as a canine backpack.
He doesn’t know that I’m returning him to the only person who matters to both of us.
My hands tremble slightly as I kill the engine. Not from cold, though the air bites with winter’s first real teeth.
I unstrap the carrier and help Diablo down.
He shakes himself once, twice, muscles rippling beneath his sleek coat.
His eyes find mine through my visor, questioning.
Waiting for instruction. He’s been mine since the night she walked out of my apartment and didn’t take him with her—three days of him sleeping against my door like a sentry with abandonment issues. We’ve become a team.
“Come on, buddy,” I whisper, clipping his leash on. He presses against my leg as we move toward the gate, his body warm against my cold jeans.
The iron gate is a masterpiece of old craftsmanship and modern security. Cameras track our approach, pivoting with mechanical precision. I step deliberately into their view. No helmet tricks tonight. I want them to see me.
Diablo whines softly, sensing my tension.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, kneeling down on the damp ground. “You’re going home.”
I pull a folded piece of paper from my jacket pocket. My penmanship is terrible—always has been—but I’ve tried to make this legible. Some things shouldn’t be misinterpreted.
Gia,
I should have told you. I thought I was protecting something by waiting, but I was just protecting myself. I’m sorry.
Take care of our kid.
- L
I fold the note with careful precision and tuck it securely beneath Diablo’s collar. He sits patiently, watching me with those amber eyes that see straight through pretense.
“Stay,” I tell him, running my hand along his broad head. “Stay here.”
The words feel inadequate. Like trying to explain nuclear physics with crayon drawings. But he understands something is wrong. His ears flatten slightly, his body tenses.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say, more to myself than to him. “She’s going to be okay.”
A shadow detaches itself from the deeper darkness near the gate. I tense, hand moving instinctively to my waistband.
“That’s close enough,” says a voice like gravel over steel.
Dante Lussari steps into the faint glow of the security lights. He’s dressed in what I assume is casual for him—slacks and a dress shirt with no tie, no jacket. His posture is deceptively relaxed, but then again he’s accessorized with double gun holsters.
“I’m not here for trouble,” I say, raising my hands slightly. “Just returning the dog.”
Dante’s eyes shift to Diablo, then back to me. “Gia’s?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re the man in the helmet.” Not a question.
I nod once. No point denying it now.
Dante approaches slowly, like a man accustomed to people backing away from him. When he’s close enough, he crouches down, extending his hand to Diablo. The dog sniffs, then allows a brief touch.
“And now you’re here, at my gate, before dawn.” His eyes lift to mine. “Why?”
I gesture to Diablo. “He belongs with her.”
Dante reaches carefully for the dog’s collar, fingers finding the folded note. He extracts it with the delicacy of someone defusing a bomb. Unfolds it. Reads.
His expression doesn’t change. His eyes recalculate.
Diablo whines again, louder this time. He looks from me to the gate and back, confusion evident in every line of his body.
“Go with him,” I say softly, stroking his head one last time. “Go find her.”
The gates begin to open with a mechanical hum. Diablo barks once, sharp and distressed. He plants his feet, refusing to move forward without me.
“Tell her… tell her I’m sorry. For keeping secrets.”
Dante looks at me like he’s never seen a dude this handsome before. “You’re either very brave,” he says finally, “or very stupid.”
“Both, probably.”
It must be a trick of the light, because I can’t have seen a hint of a smile just now.
“I know someone just like that, and she’s got a way of making things work themselves out.”
Diablo resists initially, then follows Dante through the gates with one final backward glance that nearly breaks me.
I swing onto my bike, heart hammering against my ribs. The gates close behind them with the same mechanical precision. Diablo disappears into the shadows of the estate. Safe.
I turn the key, and the bike rumbles to life beneath me. The sky to the east is lightening, turning from black to deepest blue. Dawn approaches.
I’m about to do something incredibly reckless, and I don’t know if she’ll love or hate me for it.