Every Dog at the Auction Ignored the Mafia Boss’s Deaf Daughter—Until the Last Cage Opened

The guest house was a small, stone cottage situated fifty yards from the main mansion, separated by a manicured lawn and a thick row of rhododendron bushes.

It was comfortable, immaculate, and entirely locked down.

Sloan stood by the window of the small living room, watching the shadow of a security guard pass by the hedge every twelve minutes.

As soon as the guard’s footsteps faded onto the gravel path, she retreated to the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the hot water tap to create a blanket of white noise.

She unbuttoned her wool coat, unclipped the tiny micro-camera from her collar, and laid it on the marble counter. She reached into her inner lining, pulled out a second, ultra-thin burner phone that Becca had slipped into her pocket before she entered Serno’s basement, and dialed.

Becca answered on the first ring.

"Tell me you're alive," Becca whispered frantically. "The feed cut out twenty minutes ago when you entered the vehicle. I lost your GPS signal near Route 128!"

"I'm alive," Sloan said, her voice barely a whisper against the hum of the running water. "I have him, Becca. I have Goliath."

A heavy sigh escaped Becca over the receiver. "Oh, thank God. Where are you? Did you buy him back?"

"No," Sloan said. "Reed Carbone bought him."

The line went dead quiet for three long seconds.

"Did you say Reed Carbone?" Becca’s voice squeaked, dropping an octave into pure terror. "Sloan! Are you out of your mind? Reed Carbone is the head of the Southie syndicate! The FBI has been trying to flip his lieutenants for three years! What are you doing in his house?!"

"He bought Goliath for his daughter," Sloan explained quickly. "The girl is deaf—or mute, or both. Goliath responded to her. Carbone thinks I’m Catherine Blake, a trainer from Manhattan. He brought me to his estate in Milton to train the dog for his kid."

"Sloan... listen to me very carefully," Becca rasped. "You need to get out of there. Right now. Climb out the window, cross the woods, and meet me at the gas station on Route 28."

"I can't," Sloan said. "Carbone sent his men to Manhattan to 'fetch my bags' from my hotel. When they realize Catherine Blake doesn't exist at that hotel, my cover is blown."

"Shit!" Becca hissed. "Shit, shit, shit!"

"Can you hack the hotel system?" Sloan asked, her tone sharpening. "Can you put a reservation under Catherine Blake’s name at the Manhattan Palace right now, drop a bag at the front desk using one of your contacts in New York, and make it look like a miscommunication?"

"Do you know how hard that is?!" Becca snapped. "I’m a freelance data broker, Sloan, not the CIA!"

"Becca, if they figure out who I am, they won't just throw me off the property," Sloan said coldly. "They’ll dig into who I am, find out my father was Neil Hartley, figure out this dog was stolen from my back yard, and assume I'm working for the Feds or a rival crew. I have until tomorrow morning."

Becca was silent for five seconds. Sloan could hear the frantic clatter of mechanical keyboard keys through the phone.

"Okay," Becca panted. "Okay. I have a buddy in Queens who owes me a huge favor. I’ll have him drop a leather suitcase with 'Catherine Blake’s' name tagged on it at the front desk of the Palace Hotel within two hours. I’ll spoof the hotel’s reservation database to make it look like a system glitch wiped your room number."

"Can you make it stick?"

"It’ll hold up against a lazy check," Becca said nervously. "But Sloan... if Reed Carbone digs any deeper—if he runs your face through a real database—he’s going to find out Catherine Blake doesn't exist."

"Then I need to get Goliath and get out before he digs," Sloan said.

She hung up the phone, removed the battery, and hid it inside the hollow bottom of her toilet tank.

She turned off the tap, walked out into the small bedroom, and pulled open the heavy linen curtains.

Across the lawn, a light was burning on the second floor of the main house.

Through the tall arching window, she could see the small figure of Mia sitting on the edge of a massive four-poster bed. Beside her, his heavy gray body curled on a velvet rug, lay Goliath.