Chapter 2 - THE DOOR BRUNO CHOSE
At 11:43 p.m., Clara heard three soft scratches against her bedroom door.
She sat upright, heart pounding. The servants’ wing was silent after midnight. No one wandered through Moretti House after the final bell, especially not toward the old east corridor.
The scratching came again.
Clara opened the door.
Bruno stood in the hallway with a strip of white towel still tied around his collar. His dark eyes fixed on hers.
“Bruno?”
The massive Cane Corso turned and walked away.
Clara glanced at the security camera above the corridor. Its red light was off.
That was impossible.
Every camera in the estate operated twenty-four hours a day.
She should have called Matteo.
Instead, she followed the dog.
Bruno moved slowly, favoring his injured hind leg. He led her past the dining room, the portrait gallery, and the locked doors of the east wing.
At the end of the corridor stood a black wooden door with no handle.
Bruno stopped and pressed his nose against the bottom.
A cold draft touched Clara’s fingers.
Something clicked behind the door.
Not a lock.
A recording device.
“What do you want me to find?” she whispered.
A deep voice answered behind her.
“Step away from the door.”
Clara turned.
Matteo Moretti stood beneath the archway, dressed entirely in black. One hand rested inside his coat.
Bruno immediately moved between them.
“Your dog brought me here,” Clara said.
“I know.”
“You were watching?”
“I watch everything in this house.”
“Then why is the camera off?”
For the first time, Matteo did not answer immediately.
Bruno growled at the door.
Matteo stepped closer. “Bruno. Move.”
The dog did not obey.
Clara noticed something beneath his paw. She knelt and reached for it.
A brass key lay on the floor.
Its head was shaped like a crown, and one edge was covered in dried blood.
Matteo’s expression turned cold.
“Give it to me.”
“Whose blood is this?”
“Not mine.”
He took the key with a handkerchief and examined the lock beneath the door.
“You should go back to your room,” he said.
“I’m assigned to Bruno now.”
“You are assigned to keep him alive, not investigate my house.”
“He brought me here.”
“And you followed him.”
“He has better judgment than most people.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed, but before he could answer, Bruno scratched again.
Matteo used a second key and opened the door.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
Clara followed anyway.
The stairs ended in a hidden corridor lined with old photographs. Some showed Anton Moretti, Matteo’s father, beside shipping containers and men whose faces had been scratched away.
Others showed Bruno as a puppy beside a younger Matteo.
At the end of the corridor was a room filled with security monitors.
Every screen displayed a different part of the estate.
One monitor showed the courtyard from earlier that day.
Gideon Shaw, the estate groomer, stood behind Bruno with a leather lead in one hand and a syringe hidden in the other.
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“He was going to drug Bruno.”
Matteo stared at the screen.
“Why?”
“That is what we are going to find out.”
Bruno scratched at a metal cabinet beneath the monitors.
Matteo opened it.
Inside were empty injection vials, a torn veterinary report, and an old photograph of a woman standing beside Bruno as a puppy.
Her face had been scratched away.
On the back, someone had written:
HE REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.
Footsteps sounded above them.
Slow.
Careful.
Coming down the stairs.
Matteo switched off the monitors and pulled Clara behind the cabinet. Bruno remained in the center of the room.
A shadow crossed the doorway.
Gideon Shaw entered holding a gun.
He looked around.
“Where is the dog?”
Bruno stepped from the darkness.
Gideon raised the weapon.
Matteo moved in front of Clara.
May you like
The shot exploded through the room.
Bruno lunged.
