Chapter 9 - The Night Nero Chose AgainLeonard Voss disappeared before investigators reached him.
His apartment was empty.
Phone abandoned.
Bank account untouched.
That worried Alice more than if he had run with money.
People fleeing consequences took resources.
People following instructions sometimes did not.
The foundation’s annual dinner was scheduled nine days later.
Elias wanted to cancel.
Carmine wanted to cancel.
Danny wanted to move it.
Stefano wanted to turn the building into a fortress.
Alice wanted none of those things.
“If we cancel every public event because Pierce frightens us, we teach every resident exactly what?”
“That we’re alive?” Carmine suggested.
Alice looked at him.
“That fear makes decisions.”
Carmine sighed.
“You and Stefano deserve each other.”
Stefano looked offended.
“I was in favor of cancellation.”
“Only because your solution involved forty guards.”
“Thirty-two.”
“That is not better.”
They compromised.
The dinner remained.
Attendance was reduced.
Security increased discreetly.
No protected residents attended.
No current housing information existed anywhere in the building.
Ruth came anyway.
So did Evan, now eleven years old and tall enough that Alice barely recognized the frightened child Danny had once carried through the Vermont snow.
“You got old,” Evan told Nero.
The mastiff opened one eye.
Alice laughed.
“That was rude.”
“He knows I love him.”
“Apparently that excuses everything at eleven.”
Stefano watched them from across the hall.
Alice caught him smiling.
Not the small reluctant expression he used years ago.
A real smile.
She crossed the room.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m looking.”
“With approval?”
“Yes.”
She touched his tie.
“You’ve come a long way.”
“I still dislike your calendar.”
“Progress has limits.”
The dinner began at seven.
Stefano spoke for eight minutes.
Shorter than Elias expected.
Longer than Stefano wanted.
He talked about Sal.
Not his death.
His habits.
The coffee.
The pastries.
The way he kept blankets in vehicles.
How he believed helping someone did not require making them feel indebted.
Alice watched Carmine wipe his face angrily.
At 8:37, the lights went out.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then emergency lighting activated.
Carmine’s voice came through Alice’s earpiece.
“Remain in place.”
Stefano was already moving toward her.
Alice shook her head.
“Ruth.”
He understood.
They separated.
Stefano went toward Evan.
Alice reached Ruth.
Security directed guests toward two internal exits.
No panic.
Not yet.
Then smoke appeared near the kitchen corridor.
Not heavy.
Enough to trigger alarms.
Enough to make people run.
Alice’s stomach dropped.
A distraction.
“Carmine.”
“I know.”
Nero stood suddenly.
Too quickly.
His rear legs almost buckled.
“Nero,” Alice said.
The dog ignored her.
He stared toward a service hallway.
Evan was ten feet away.
Nero walked directly to him and pressed his body against the boy.
“Hey,” Evan said.
The mastiff pushed again.
Toward Alice.
“Stefano.”
He saw it.
Nero was doing what he had done years earlier.
Moving someone.
Protecting.
Alice took Evan’s hand.
“Come with me.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Right there.”
Ruth joined them.
A fire door slammed open.
Leonard Voss stepped through.
Alice recognized him instantly.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
He held no syringe this time.
Only a small black device.
Stefano moved between Voss and Alice.
Voss stopped.
“You should have died the first night.”
Stefano’s face became still.
“You should have told the truth the first time.”
Voss laughed.
“You think Pierce made me do this?”
“Didn’t he?”
“Pierce understood what you destroyed.”
“Rocco said the same thing.”
“Rocco was sentimental.”
Alice glanced toward the device in Voss’s hand.
Not a weapon she recognized.
Perhaps a remote.
Perhaps nothing.
She did not intend to discover which.
“Everyone back,” she said.
Voss looked at her.
“The nurse.”
Alice held his gaze.
“The doctor.”
His face twisted.
“You took everything from me.”
“No. You injected an unstable patient with medication that could have killed him.”
“I was told—”
“You were a physician.”
The words cut across the room.
“You knew.”
Voss’s expression collapsed into hatred.
Behind him another figure entered.
Silas Pierce.
Stefano’s attention shifted.
Pierce smiled.
“This is disappointing.”
“You expected me alone?” Stefano asked.
“I expected you angry.”
“I am.”
“Yet you called police instead of men.”
“Yes.”
Pierce shook his head.
“She really did ruin you.”
Stefano looked at Alice.
Then back at Pierce.
“No.”
His voice was almost calm.
“She made it impossible to lie to myself about what I already knew.”
Pierce’s smile disappeared.
“You think legitimacy saves you?”
“No.”
“What does?”
Stefano looked toward Nero.
The mastiff stood in front of Evan despite trembling legs.
“People who stay.”
Pierce raised the black device.
Nero barked.
Once.
The same explosive bark Alice had heard in Vermont.
Everything happened at once.
Voss turned.
Carmine entered from the opposite hallway.
Stefano moved toward Alice.
Pierce dropped the device.
Nero lunged—not at Pierce, but sideways, slamming his body against Evan and pushing the boy behind a stone column.
A violent crack sounded from the service corridor.
Then another.
Alice hit the floor.
Security rushed in.
Pierce ran.
Voss surrendered immediately, hands raised, shouting that he had not agreed to violence.
Stefano started after Pierce.
Alice saw it.
Old instinct.
The chase.
The need to finish something himself.
“Stefano!”
He stopped.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But that second changed everything.
Carmine’s team reached Pierce first.
Police officers stationed outside entered through the western doors.
Pierce was forced to the floor.
Alive.
Arrested.
Not disappeared.
Not executed.
Not turned into another family secret.
Alice looked toward Nero.
The mastiff was down.
“Nero.”
Stefano forgot Pierce instantly.
He ran.
Alice reached the dog beside him.
Blood marked Nero’s shoulder.
Not much.
But his breathing was wrong.
Too fast.
Evan knelt nearby crying.
“He pushed me.”
“I know,” Alice said.
“He pushed me.”
“I know.”
Stefano pressed both hands around Nero’s face.
“Stay.”
Alice looked at him.
The word destroyed her.
Years earlier Nero had stayed over Stefano’s wounded body until Alice arrived.
Now Stefano was asking the same thing.
“Stay.”
Nero opened his eyes.
His tail moved once.
The veterinary hospital prepared for them before they arrived.
The injury was not from a bullet.
During the chaos, Nero had struck the stone edge while moving Evan out of the way.
The wound could be treated.
The greater danger was his heart.
Stress had triggered an arrhythmia.
At his age, with his existing degeneration, the veterinarian could not promise anything.
Stefano sat on the floor of the private treatment room.
Alice sat beside him.
Neither spoke.
At 3:40 a.m., Ruth entered with Evan.
The boy carried something.
Sal’s old thermos.
Carmine had apparently taken it from the foundation display after the evacuation.
Evan placed it beside Stefano.
“Carmine said this was somebody important.”
Stefano looked at it.
“Yes.”
“Did he save people too?”
“Yes.”
Evan looked through the glass at Nero.
“Why does everybody around you do that?”
Stefano frowned.
“Do what?”
“Stay.”
Stefano looked at Alice.
For once, she had no answer for him.
So he answered himself.
“Maybe because somebody stayed for them first.”
At sunrise the veterinarian entered.
Stefano stood.
Alice could not read the woman’s expression.
“Nero’s rhythm has stabilized.”
Stefano closed his eyes.
“He’s not out of danger,” she continued. “But he made it through the night.”
Alice covered her mouth.
Evan cried openly.
Stefano sat again because his legs suddenly seemed unable to hold him.
May you like
Nero had chosen again.
But this time, for once, staying did not require dying.
