He Ordered His Vicious Pit Bull to Attack a Young Waitress — Then the Mafia Boss Witnessed Something No One Expected

CHAPTER 3

The first time Nenah saw the scars up close, she was alone with Cerberus in Sebastian’s private office — leather, mahogany, the smell of old money and older secrets. Sebastian had been called away for what he termed “a disciplinary matter,” leaving her with the dog and a single instruction.

*See if he’ll trust you completely.*

She knelt on the Persian rug. Cerberus approached slowly, and when her fingers moved through his coat, she found the raised tissue of old wounds — cigarette burns along his flank, a circular scar on his shoulder that looked disturbingly like a bullet graze, ligature marks around his muzzle.

“They hurt you,” she whispered. “Someone taught you to be a weapon.”

He whined, low and unguarded, a sound that had no business coming from something the whole restaurant feared.

She started small. When he growled at a server moving too fast, she rested a hand on his skull. “Easy. Not a threat.” Within days he began checking her face before reacting, reading her calm as permission to stand down.

Sebastian watched from the doorway one evening, Cerberus’s head heavy in Nenah’s lap, the dog’s eyes half-closed in something close to peace.

“How did you do that?” His voice was rough.

“I showed him he didn’t have to be what they made him.”

Something moved across his face — recognition, or pain wearing its coat. He loosened his tie with sharp, agitated hands. “He was a bait dog when I found him. Three years old, half-starved, covered in bite wounds. I killed the men who owned him. Brought him home.” His jaw tightened. “Thought I was saving him by teaching him to be feared.”

“You did save him,” Nenah said. “Maybe he doesn’t need fear anymore. Maybe he just needs to know he’s safe.”

Sebastian crouched beside her, uncertain in a way she hadn’t seen from him before, and let his scarred knuckles finally rest on Cerberus’s head. The tail thumped once against the floor.

“Is that what you’re doing?” His eyes found hers. “Teaching me I don’t have to be what they made me, either?”

“I’m teaching Cerberus,” she said carefully. “What you learn from it is up to you.”

Sebastian’s jaw shifted, like he was deciding whether to say the rest. “There’s only one man alive Cerberus still hates more than everyone else combined. The man who trained him to be what he was.” He stood, straightening his tie, the softness of the moment folding itself away. “Some ghosts don’t stay buried. Pray you never meet that one.”

She didn’t understand what he meant. Not yet.

The peace didn’t last the week.

Victor Reigns arrived on a Tuesday, when the restaurant sat half-empty between shifts — silver-haired, immaculately dressed, with a grandfather’s face and a shark’s eyes. He had taught Sebastian everything about power and fear, and had never forgiven him for outgrowing the lesson.

Cerberus’s hackles rose the moment his shadow crossed the table.

“Sebastian.” Victor’s voice had the warm timbre of poison dressed as honey. “I heard you’d gone soft. Didn’t believe it until now.” His gaze slid to Nenah. “A waitress. What’s next — stray cats?”

“You’re not invited,” Sebastian said, expression flat, though the air around him had gone cold. “This is neutral ground. Or have you forgotten the rules in favor of playing house?”

Victor sat anyway. “The families are talking. They say the Reaper’s traded his edge for a pretty face and a defanged dog.” He reached toward Cerberus, and the dog snapped, teeth clicking inches from his fingers. Victor withdrew, smiling like he’d proven something. “Still has some fight. More than his master, it seems.”

He turned his attention fully on Nenah, assessing her like livestock.

“Weakness spreads. Infects. Kills, eventually.” He leaned closer. “I give her three weeks before someone uses her against you. A month before you’re dead for hesitating to protect something that was never meant to survive here.”

Sebastian’s voice, when it came, was quiet in a way that promised violence. “You’ve made your point. Now get out.”

Victor rose, adjusting his cufflinks. “I taught you that sentiment is suicide, boy. That mercy is weakness.” His eyes found Nenah one last time, and she saw her own death reflected there. “When this experiment gets you killed, remember — I warned you.”

After he left, Sebastian’s hand found hers, grip almost painful. “He’s right about one thing. You’ve made me vulnerable.” His voice dropped. “The question is whether you’ve also made me stronger.”

Cerberus pressed against Nenah’s leg, and she understood, with cold clarity, that Victor hadn’t come to warn Sebastian.

He’d come to declare war.