The pit bull was the first to attack. The sheer power of the dog knocked me off balance. As I fell, I hit my head on the wall and then on the sharp edge of a metal chair. I felt it sink its teeth into my throat, looking for the carotid artery. I tried in vain to push it off.

Three shots rang out. The first took out the dog about to rip out my throat and sent the other two scurrying away. The other two shots were fired while I was still sprawled on the ground. I came to my senses just in time to see the body of Alexis DeVille thrown back toward the stone fireplace in a spray of blood. I turned to the sliding door and saw my father framed against the sunlight.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Thomas,” he said in the same reassuring voice he had used when I was six years old and had nightmares. His hand, steady as a rock, gripped the rosewood handle of Francis Biancardini’s Smith and Wesson.

My father helped me to my feet, keeping an eye out in case the hellhounds came back. For a moment, when he laid a hand on my shoulder, I was once again that six-year-old boy. And I thought about that endangered species, the dying generation of men like Francis and my father. Gruff, rugged men whose values belonged to a different age. Men I had been fortunate enough to encounter not once, but twice. Men who, in order to save my life, had not hesitated to get their hands dirty.

By plunging them into a bloodbath.

Epilogue(s)
Beyond the Night

The Curse
of the Nice Guys

The days that followed Alexis DeVille’s death and my father’s arrest were among the strangest of my life. Every morning, I woke up convinced that the ongoing police investigation would lead to the case of Vinca’s and Clément’s disappearances being reopened. But from his prison cell, my father skillfully managed to mitigate the danger.