A mafia boss put a $500,000 bounty on a retired K-9—never expecting the old cop to fight back

Chapter 2

The climb cost twenty minutes and most of Mike’s breath. He was forty-eight years old, and his lungs remembered being twenty-five the way an old soldier remembers a war — dimly, and with regret. Shadow, for all his years, barely seemed winded, picking his way up the wet rock with the economy of a professional.

From the ridge, Mike risked a backward glance. Below him, beams of light swept the forest in a slow, patient grid. Six of them. Then eight. More joining all the time, moving like people who had done this before, dividing the woods into searchable squares as if the whole wilderness were a crime scene.

His phone buzzed. A new number. This time, he answered.

The voice that came through the speaker was smooth, unhurried, carrying the faint music of an Italian accent. “Mr. Cross. This is becoming tiresome. You cannot run forever. Let me make you a better offer. One million dollars, untraceable, paid in full. You walk away. You leave the dog. You go somewhere warm and start a new life. Hawaii, perhaps. The Bahamas.”

Mike recognized the voice from a hundred news reports. Anthony Castellano Sr. — the man Forbes called a genius and everyone else called something else.

“Your son is in prison because of what he did,” Mike said. “Not because of my dog.”