A ghost car in my territory. In Queens, nothing moved without my permission, and no ghost drove down Corona Avenue unless someone turned off the streetlights first.
I reached down and rested my palm against the wide, scarred forehead of the creature standing beside my right knee.
Bruno was a Neapolitan Mastiff, a hundred and twenty pounds of dense bone, rippling muscle, and slate-gray hide scarred by the violence of a decade. I had bought him as a six-month-old pup from an illegal dog-fighting ring in Naples, putting a bullet through his previous owner's knee before cutting the wire leash from his neck. Since that day, Bruno had lived at my heels.
He had survived seven turf wars across three boroughs. He had taken a slash from a fish knife in Fulton Market and barely blinked, pinning the attacker to the blood-slicked cobblestones until my men could tie the fool to a radiator. When my cousin Carlo was ambushed behind a bakery in Astoria six years ago, Bruno had thrown his heavy frame into the driver’s window of the getaway vehicle, taking two buckshot pellets to his shoulder while tearing the driver's throat out through the upholstery.
Bruno was not a pet. He was an apex predator, a living weapon of absolute loyalty, disciplined to obey the faintest twitch of my fingers or the quietest drop in my voice.
Except today.
Today, Bruno was not standing at my right heel in the classic heel-stay posture I had spent years drilling into his instincts. His broad chest was pressed flat against the burgundy carpet, his massive paws stretched out toward the brass base of Elena’s coffin. His dark, intelligent eyes were unblinking, fixed on the white wooden panels.
A low, vibrating whistle came from his throat—a sound so thin and broken it didn't sound like it could belong to a beast that had once torn the door off an armored sedan.
"Bruno," I muttered, my voice barely louder than a whisper, not wanting to disrupt the weeping of the mother ten feet away. "Come."
The dog didn't move. His tail, thick as a length of hemp rope, lay limply against the floor.
Behind me, I heard the faint rustle of heavy wool coats as my crew adjusted their stances. Tony 'The Hammer' Moretti, my long-time street captain, took half a step forward, his eyes darting toward the funeral home entry doors.
"Boss," Tony whispered, leaning down so his mouth was an inch from my ear. "The dog's acting strange. Maybe I should lead him out to the Lincoln. People are looking."
I didn't turn my head. "He obeys me faster than you draw a weapon, Tony. When Bruno doesn't move, there is a reason."
"He's an animal, Carmine," Tony murmured, his hand hovering nervously near his armpit holster. "Maybe the smell of the formal formaldehyde is getting to his head. You know how these purebred monsters get when the air gets tight."
"Bruno is not a purebred, and he is not a monster," I said coldly. "He knows what death smells like. He's walked through three basements littered with blood and spent brass without breaking heel. He doesn't get confused by formaldehyde."