Chapter 63 Chapter 63 - The Don And The Dalmatian
Gianni's POV
Gianni's mind was a battlefield of a thousand different priorities, each one demanding his immediate attention as he sat in the back of the car, pretending to be calm.
Il Macellaio. The fat bastard was still breathing, walking around and making threats, coordinating with the old families to firm some kind of coup or attack to strip his empire out from under him.
Last night should have ended with the insolent man's corpse being dissolved in a barrel of lye, but instead it had ended with Gianni making compromises. Showing weakness.
And Dante. After close to three hours of methodical interrogation this morning, nothing flashy that would leave permanent damage, just good, old-fashioned pain, the stubborn bastard hadn't broken. He hadn't given up a single detail about what game he was playing.
Gianni's knuckles still ached from it, with Dante's blood dried in the creases. He'd never gotten around to washing it off.
Meanwhile, Cedric was practically vibrating with excitement beside him, pointing out landmarks like a tourist, making little observations about changes in the neighbourhood, and acting like this was a pleasant drive instead of a carefully controlled visit to ensure his family's cooperation.
They couldn't be more different if they tried. Gianni's head full of murder and strategy, Cedric's apparently full of nostalgia and childish---
"Oh my God, Gianni, stop the car!"
The shout was so sudden, so urgent, that Gianni's hand went automatically to the gun in his shoulder holster.
Threat assessment, his mind supplied. Ambush. Rival family. Police.
But Cedric was just tapping frantically at the back of the driver's seat like a madman, his eyes wide and locked on something outside the window.
"Stop, stop, please stop!"
"Why?" Gianni demanded, his eyes scanning the street for whatever danger Cedric had spotted. "What's wrong? Calm down and tell me..."
But Cedric wasn't listening. His good hand was already fumbling for the door handle, his whole body coiled with manic urgency.
"I need to get out, let me out, please..."
"Cedric, no..."
Too late. The door swung open while the car was still rolling to a stop, and Cedric literally threw himself out onto the street, stumbling but staying upright.
"Cazzo!" Gianni was already moving, signalling frantically to the convoy vehicles ahead and behind. His security detail responded immediately, doors opening, and men emerging with hands inside their jackets where weapons waited.
But Cedric wasn't running away. Gianni realised that he wasn't making a break for freedom or diving into an alley or doing any of the escape attempts Gianni had mentally rehearsed and planned counters for.
Instead, he was running toward something in the middle of the road. Bending down, scooping it up with his good arm and cradling it against his chest.
Then he was running back toward the car, his face a mask of panic and determination.
Gianni stood on the sidewalk, his security detail forming a protective perimeter, completely baffled by what he was witnessing.
Cedric skidded to a stop in front of him, breathless and wild-eyed, holding out his arms to reveal...
A dog.
A small, bloody mess of a dog with distinctive spots visible beneath the road grime and fresh injuries. It looked to be a Dalmatian puppy, maybe six months old, its breathing shallow and laboured.
"It got hit," Cedric gasped out, his words tumbling over each other. "A car hit it and just left it there in the middle of the road and it's dying, Gianni, it's dying and we have to--there's a vet clinic three blocks from here, I used to walk past it in my way to work, they're good people and they'll help if we just--"
Gianni stared at him, then at the pathetic bundle of blood and fur in Cedric's arms, then at the genuine tears forming in Cedric's eyes.
This. This was what had made Cedric defy a direct order, risk Gianni's anger and throw himself from a moving vehicle?
A stray dog.
The puppy whimpered weakly, and Cedric's arms tightened around it protectively, mm asking soft cooing sounds to comfort it, his whole body angled like he expected Gianni to try to take it away.
"Please," Cedric said, his voice breaking. "Please, we have to help it."
Gianni felt something cold settle in his chest. This was pathetic. A ridiculous waste of time and resources on something that had no value, no use, and no sense to keep itself alive in the first place.
"No," he said flatly.
Cedric's face crumpled. "What?"
"Throw it back in the street. We're already late and I'm not making a detour for a dying stray." Gianni's voice was harsh, final. "It's roadkill. Let it die and get back in the car."
"But..."
"Now, Cedric." Gianni could feel his security detail watching and measuring his response. He couldn't show any signs of softness.
Not here, not in public, not over something so trivial, especially after last night when his men needed the assurance that their leader was someone who could still be trusted to lead them.
"Dispose of it and stop bothering me with..."
"But h's dying!" Cedric's voice rose, now raw with emotion. "He's bleeding and in pain and he's going to die if we don't help him!"
Gianni made a disgusted sound, looking pointedly away from the pathetic creature.
"There are perfectly good dogs at the compound if you want one so badly. Trained guard dogs. German Shepherds, Rottweilers. Smart, useful animals, not some mangy stray that doesn't have the sense to avoid traffic."
The look Cedric gave him was pure horror. Like Gianni had just suggested that he killed orphan children for sport or something.
"But he's dying," Cedric repeated, his voice smaller now. Lost.
"Things die every day, Cedric. It's the natural order." Gianni raised his own gun, prepared to shoot it and get that over with
Cedric's eyes went wide with horror as he stumbled back away from him, saying, "If you shoot it, you'll have to shoot me too!"
Gianni sighed deeply, holstered his gun, and gestured impatiently toward the car. "Stop wasting my time and..."
"Please."
The single word stopped him. Not because of the word itself, but because of how Cedric said it. His voice was quiet and desperate and resolved. Completely sincere.
None of the usual Cedric plotting underneath it.
"Please let me take him to a vet, Gianni." Cedric shifted his grip on the puppy, cradling it more carefully despite the blood now staining through his expensive shirt. "Please. I'm begging you."
There was a long silence. Gianni's security detail waited for orders. The driver kept the engine running. Pedestrians were starting to notice the scene, the expensive cars, the men in suits with obvious weapons.
They needed to move. Now.
"No," Gianni said again, his voice cold as ice. "Get in the car. Leave it."
Cedric's jaw clenched. His eyes were still wet but something harder moved behind them now. Now he's realised it was time to plot.
This was the same look he'd had when he'd been willing to trade his body for information, for safety, for whatever he needed.
"I'll tell you what Dante told me," Cedric said suddenly. "About the note. About everything."
Gianni went very still.
"What did you say?"
"The note I ate." Cedric's words came faster now, desperate and determined. "I'll tell you everything that was in it. Everything Dante said to me. Everything I know. If you let me save this dog."
Gianni's eyes narrowed. "Is that so?"
"He slipped me a note, remember?" Cedric tried, perhaps thinking that Gianni's questioning was because he had forgotten.
"And before that, when you were too far away to hear, he said things, told me things. I'll give you all of it, every detail, I promise. Just... please. Let me save him."
The puppy whimpered again, the sound weak and fading. Its eyes were glazed and unfocused. It had minutes, maybe less.
Gianni looked at Cedric with disbelief, at the bloodstains on his shirt, the tears on his face, the way he held that dying animal like it was the most important thing in the world.
This was what mattered to him. Not strategy, not survival, not even his own family waiting just blocks away.
A dying dog.
It was irrational. Stupid. Completely counterproductive to everything Gianni had been trying to teach him about power and priorities.
And yet...
"You'll tell me everything?" Gianni asked quietly. "No lies? No games?"
"Everything," Cedric promised. "I swear."
Gianni studied his face for three long seconds, looking for deception or signs that he was telling lies. But all he saw was desperation and hope and that same stubborn determination that had made Cedric refuse to give up Maria's name even under threat of torture.
"Fine," Gianni said finally. "Three blocks to the vet. You have ten minutes. Then we leave, with or without the animal."
Cedric's entire face lit up. "Thank you. Thank you, I—"
"Now get in the car," Gianni interrupted. "Before I change my mind."