ELENA
He came back.
Not because the wound was infected (it wasn't, I'd done a good job). He just… showed up at closing, with two coffees. One black, one with enough sugar to rot teeth.
He set the black one in front of me.
"You got it wrong," I said.
"I know," he said, and drank the sweet one himself, making a face.
He didn't talk much. He'd sit at the small table in the back while I cleaned, long legs stretched out, watching me. Not creepy. Just… present. Like a large, dangerous dog that had decided my bakery was safe.
On the third night I asked, "Why are you really here?"
He was quiet for a long time. "My apartment is quiet," he said finally. "Too quiet. Here there's noise. The mixer. The timer. You yelling at the dough."
"I don't yell at the dough."
"You do. You mutter at it in Italian. It's… nice."
I didn't know what to do with that, so I kept sweeping.
On the fourth night, the bell jingled after I'd locked up. Two men. I recognized them from Antonio's notebook — Vincent's guys. They weren't there for bread.
I was in the back. I heard them say Matteo's name. I heard Matteo's voice change. It went flat and cold and empty in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up. I'd never heard a voice become a weapon before.
I walked out with a rolling pin in my hand. My heart was hammering so hard I thought they could hear it.
They laughed when they saw me. "Aw, look, she's gonna bake us to death."
"Get out of my bakery," I said. My voice was steady. I don't know how.
They looked at Matteo. He was standing very still, one hand near his coat where I knew the gun was. He nodded, once, a tiny movement.
They left. But not before one of them looked at me and said, "We'll be back, sweetheart."
The door closed. The bell jingled. The silence was worse than the yelling.
Matteo exhaled, and I realized he'd been holding his breath.
"They'll come back," he said. "For me. And they'll hurt you to get to me. Or just because they can."
"So leave."
"I can't." He turned to face me fully, and for the first time he looked at me without the wall up. He looked young. And scared. "And you can't keep pretending Antonio was just in the wrong place. He was moving money for Vincent. He saw the books. He was going to take you and run. They killed him for it. And now they're watching you, Elena, because you're his sister and you're angry and you've been asking questions at the docks."
The floor felt like it dropped out from under me. "How do you know that?"
"Because I've been watching you. To keep you alive."
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to cry. I did neither. "What do you want from me?"
"Let me protect you," he said. "Not as a favor. As a deal. You help me find the proof Antonio had. You help me take Vincent down. I keep you alive while you do it."
"That's not protection. That's using me as bait."
"Yes," he said, and the honesty of it was brutal. "But I'll be honest about it. Every step. And I will not let them touch you. I swear it on my sister's grave."
I thought about the notebook under Antonio's mattress. V. He's skimming. I have proof.
I thought about the white lilies. The card. The fact that Vincent had smiled at me at the funeral.
"Fine," I said. "But I make the coffee. And you stop bringing me that sugar garbage. And you tell me everything. No lies."
He looked at me for a long moment. Then, very slowly, the corner of his mouth lifted. Not a smile. The ghost of one. It changed his whole face.
"Deal," he said, and held out his hand.
I shook it. His palm was calloused. Warm. He held on a second too long.
That night, I didn't sleep. I lay in Antonio's bed and stared at the ceiling and thought: I just made a deal with the devil.
The problem was, the devil looked at me like I was the only solid thing in a room full of smoke.
And I was so tired of being alone.