“Of course you will.”
We move around each other, scrubbing sheet pans, stacking them to dry, wrapping the sourdough starter like a baby, and sliding it into the warm space near the oven. At seven, Marco drifts up the stairs with three yawns and a promise to brush twice. My mother kisses his head on the landing, follows him tohelp with bedtime, and tucks him in. A few minutes later, her voice floats down from upstairs.
“I’ll fold laundry,” she calls. “Lock up.”
I flip the bolt on the front door and turn the sign. I switch off the open sign and let the room shift from public to ours. The heaters hum. The glass case throws a gentler glow now. I wash my hands one last time, peel off my apron, and hang it on its hook.
He’s there when I turn. Leaning against the far end of the counter like he belongs in every room he enters. One ankle crossed over the other, hands easy at his sides, gaze locked on me like I’m the reason he learned to stare. I didn’t hear him come.
“Out,” I tell him, low. “You don’t wait in my mother’s shop.”
He doesn’t move a bone. “Your mother told me to pour myself coffee,” he answers, voice quiet steel. “I did that. I waited where I could see the door.”
“This isn’t your perimeter.”
“Tonight it is.”
I come down the length of the counter with my hands open and my temper tucked into my back pocket. Up close, he smells like good soap and winter and the cinnamon that lives in these walls. His shoulders take up space in a way that makes the room feel smaller, which makes me angry at him and at myself.
“You don’t get to come here and act like you own the street,” I tell him.
“I do not need to own anything to keep you standing,” he replies. “I need to be in position.”
“For what? For your shadow to swallow my life?” I ask. “I built this with two hands.” The memory of smaller hands helping flashes quick and unwanted. “I don’t need a man in a five-thousand-dollar coat telling me how to breathe easy.”
His jaw tics, then smooths. “You built well,” he answers. “Now you have a problem that does not care how well you built.”
“You keep saying trouble,” I counter. “You keep saying ‘protection’ like you filed a patent for it. Give me something I can hold.”
“Then listen.” He slides off the counter. “You left the city fast. A black SUV swapped a plate two blocks from your building and tailed you. A woman in a gray coat came into the shop and left without buying. Two rooms at the motel have shades down at noon. None of that is weather.” Not a muscle in his face changes. “Science would call it the butterfly effect.”
A chill goes down my spine, clean and undeniable. I hide it with movement. “You have people watching my town?”
“I have men watching your edges,” he returns. “Not your door.”
“My mother heard you,” I remind him. “She tells others that you’re a distant cousin.” Suddenly, I’m angry.
“She thinks what she needs to think until I make the rest smaller,” he says.
“I don’t need you,” I insist, louder now because the facts he lays out slot too neatly into the worry that’s been eating at the back of my neck.
“You do not want me,” he corrects. “That is different.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.”
His voice drops. “You want to keep your son safe.”
The word hits me like a physical thing. I keep my face still. Inside, a thousand gears whir. He can’t know. He’s guessing. He watched me glance toward the stairs one too many times. He lived a life where the vulnerable get counted first. He’s using the obvious and my history to box me in.
“There’s no child down here,” I answer, tone flat as a counter. “There’s a bakery and women who have things to do.”
His eyes flick to the stairs and back. “Then we are finished,” he says, “and I will go.”
I should say go. I should open the door and hold it with a flourish. Watch his back disappear into the street.
“What does Benedetti want?” I ask instead. Benedetti is not the only reason. But I won’t let him have more than that.
“Pressure,” he answers. “They want you soft enough to sign something or stand somewhere. They want a headline. They want a mistake on a camera.”
