Chapter 3 - Blood Under the CollarThe arena exploded into motion.
Men shoved one another aside as Julian’s enforcers surged toward the exit. Chairs scraped. Boots pounded concrete. Someone cursed. Someone else reached for a gun and instantly found three barrels aimed at his chest.
Maisie stayed on the dirt floor with Cyrus’s head pressed against her knee.
“Don’t move,” Julian ordered.
“I’m not,” she said, though her voice trembled now.
Finn was still gripping the chain-link barrier, his face white. “Maisie, get away from the dog.”
Cyrus growled low.
Finn froze.
Maisie stroked the dog’s head with slow, careful fingers. “He doesn’t like shouting.”
“I don’t like watching my sister sit next to a murder weapon!”
Maisie’s hand paused.
Cyrus’s ears flattened.
Julian looked at Finn. “Watch your mouth.”
Finn glared at him. “Or what? You’ll hurt me? That’s already on tonight’s menu, isn’t it?”
Julian said nothing.
In the distance, a man screamed.
Then came the sound of a body hitting metal.
A minute later, Julian’s men dragged the runner back into the arena.
He was short, sweating, with thinning hair plastered to his forehead. Maisie could not see him, but she heard the frantic click of his teeth as he begged through broken breaths.
“I didn’t do nothing, Mr. Hart. I swear on my mother.”
Julian’s voice was calm. “Your mother sold you to a card room when you were thirteen, Rizzo. Pick a better saint.”
Rizzo sobbed.
Maisie’s stomach tightened.
She had heard grown men lie before. Landlords. Doctors. Her mother’s last boyfriend before he vanished with the rent money. But Rizzo’s lie had a smell in it somehow, a sharp panic that made Cyrus’s body stiffen beside her.
Julian crouched beside Cyrus.
The dog growled.
Maisie touched his ear. “Easy.”
The growl faded, but barely.
Julian examined the collar without grabbing it. “Knife.”
One of his men handed him a small blade.
Finn shouted, “Don’t put that near her!”
Julian ignored him and carefully cut the stitching under the collar.
A thin black pouch slid free.
The room changed.
Criminals knew the weight of small hidden things.
Julian opened it.
Inside was a silver drive no bigger than a fingernail and a strip of fabric dark with dried blood.
Julian’s face turned unreadable.
“Who put this on him?” he asked.
Nobody answered.
Rizzo shook his head so hard sweat flew from his chin. “I don’t know! I just transport dogs, that’s all!”
Julian looked at him. “Dogs?”
Rizzo went still.
The mistake had already left his mouth.
Maisie felt Cyrus’s body begin to shake.
Not fear this time.
Rage.
Julian stood slowly. “How many?”
Rizzo looked around as if another door might appear. “Please.”
“How many dogs?”
“I didn’t know what they were doing to them.”
Cyrus lunged.
Maisie grabbed his scruff with both hands and whispered his name.
The dog stopped with his teeth inches from Rizzo’s throat.
The crowd gasped.
Julian did not.
He was staring at Maisie’s hands.
She had not held Cyrus back by force. She could not have. The dog outweighed her several times over.
He had stopped because she asked him to.
Julian stepped between Cyrus and Rizzo. “You know, when a man says he didn’t know, he usually means he knew enough to get paid.”
Rizzo began crying.
Julian handed the drive to his closest man, Mace. “Find out what’s on it. Now.”
Mace nodded and left.
Maisie’s hand remained buried in Cyrus’s fur. Beneath the rough coat, she felt old scars. Raised lines. Missing patches. Places where pain had healed badly.
“What did they do to him?” she whispered.
Julian looked at Rizzo.
Rizzo squeezed his eyes shut. “They made them fight.”
Cyrus made a sound that was not a growl.
Maisie bent over him, pressing her forehead lightly to his. “No. Stay here. Stay with me.”
Rizzo kept talking because fear had opened him like a cut.
“Not just fighting. Testing. They wanted dogs that wouldn’t stop. Men bet high. Private shows. Rich people. Politicians. Cops sometimes. I only moved crates.”
Julian’s expression remained controlled, but every man who knew him took one step back.
“Names,” Julian said.
Rizzo shook his head.
Julian leaned closer. “Names.”
“Black Orchard,” Rizzo choked. “That’s what they called it.”
The room went dead.
Even Finn, who knew little about the underworld except the parts trying to swallow him, felt the shift.
Julian Hart was not afraid of many things.
But Black Orchard meant something to him.
Maisie heard his breathing change.
“Mr. Hart?” she asked.
Julian did not answer.
Mace returned with a laptop tucked under his arm and the silver drive between two fingers. His face was pale.
“Boss,” he said quietly, “you need to see this.”
Julian took the laptop.
The screen lit his face from below.
Maisie could not see the video, but she heard it.
Dogs barking.
Men laughing.
A metal door opening.
Then a woman’s voice, shaking but furious.
“You can kill me, but the files are already gone.”
Julian stopped breathing.
The voice continued.
“And if Julian Hart ever finds this, tell him I kept my promise.”
The laptop slipped slightly in Julian’s hand.
For the first time all night, his control cracked.
Maisie heard it in the silence.
“Who is she?” Maisie asked.
No one answered.
Then Julian whispered a name that made his men look away.
“Elena.”
Cyrus whined.
Maisie’s hand tightened in his fur.
Julian closed the laptop.
His eyes lifted to Rizzo.
“Where is Black Orchard?”
Rizzo was shaking too hard to stand.
“I don’t know.”
Julian stepped closer.
Rizzo broke.
“North. Old apple farm outside Coldwater. But you don’t want to go there. Nobody comes back from there.”
Julian’s smile was empty.
“That’s because nobody invited me.”
Then Cyrus stood.
His nose pointed toward the drive.
His body went rigid.
Maisie tilted her head.
“What is it?” Finn asked.
Maisie listened.
Cyrus was not growling anymore.
He was remembering.
And somehow, in that moment, Maisie understood.
May you like
The woman in the video had not just hidden evidence inside Cyrus’s collar.
She had trusted the dog to survive long enough to carry it home.
Related Stories
