“What happens now?” I ask, and my voice finally levels.
“Now I leave,” he answers, surprising me. “I have work to do. I do not knock unless the door needs knocking.”
“You leave?” I repeat, and it lands like a pebble in a bowl, small ripples of sound expanding slowly. “You leave when there’s a photo of my child on my table.”
“I leave because you need to gather yourself without me here,” he says. “If I stay, I will stand between you and that door, and we will argue until morning. That helps no one. The cameras see. You can summon me with a call.”
I hate that the idea of him gone makes my stomach flip. I hate that a camera in the pantry feels like a talisman. I hate that fear makes me practical and petty in the same breath.
“Go,” I tell him. I point at the door. If I don’t use my hand, I’ll use my face, and that will give away too much. He nods and slides the photo and card back into the envelope and pushes it toward me like a bill. He moves to the door and reaches for the lock. I watch his hand because my eyes are cowards.
The moment before he steps outside, he looks over his shoulder toward the ceiling and the shape of a small room above our heads. He lets a feeling live for exactly one second and then kills it.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he murmurs.
“I’m not,” I answer, even if it’s not entirely true.
His hand finds the handle. He opens the door into snow that has begun again, small flakes like dust shaken from a sheet, and steps through.
A wet thud lands clean on his chest. He stops with the reflex of a man hit in training. The snow sticks and melts, a white star on dark wool. For a heartbeat, it’s comedy, not crisis. A high giggle floats down from above, bright and unbothered, and the sound lifts something inside me and breaks something else. Of course, my child chooses artillery.
16
MATTEO
Morning comes hard and glassy. Salt lines the curb in white streaks. The plow has left a rough wall across the lane. Steam rises from coffee cups and men’s mouths alike. The town wakes, slow and unguarded. I idle two streets over, under a maple that still holds last year’s nests, and finish my coffee before pulling out. A flag on a porch snaps in the wind. The bakery lights are on. This is how this town keeps time.
I make a slow round through the streets before heading toward the highway. Nico checks in from the square. Petro sits at the church steps with a broom he borrowed from a closet. Out by the spur, the motel’s lot shows three lit windows at dawn and two by seven. The black SUV, crusted with slush and snow, still parked crooked near the fence, looks like it slept badly.
Lila meets me at the back door. Her hair is pinned, but she touches her temple, the old habit that means she’s thinking too fast to stand still. Her hands are dusted with flour. It clings to her sleeve like frost, to her temple now too. I almost brush it away before I remember not to.
“I told her,” she says. No greeting. No softening. “She wants to talk to you.”
My smile freezes on my face. Her eyes look steady. There is no accusation in the sentence and no welcome. It is only a relay. She steps aside so I can step in.
Maria stands by the prep table, half-turned, a dish towel caught in her hands while the kettle hisses beside her. She looks smaller than she did the last time we stood in this room. She faces me, puts down her towel, and ties her apron tight. Her eyes have the look of someone holding too many decisions at once.
“Matteo,” she begins. She uses the name and leaves the rest alone. “I’m not asking you for details. Tell me only what I must know.”
I set my palms on the edge of the table where steel is cool and true. “There are men who will use your daughter and grandson to get to me. They have been watching the window upstairs. They will also watch the church and the pageant hall next. A date that gives them noise and cover suits their job. My job is to make sure they get neither.”
She absorbs that. Her face does not change much. “What do you need from me?” she asks.
“Permission to be close to them.” I look at Lila. Her hazel eyes gleam like amber as they hold my gaze. “A place to be near without knocking every hour.” I clear my throat to steady my voice and continue matter-of-factly because Maria is watching. “Two keys. One to the back. One to the door at the landing.”
She glances at the stairs and nods. “The little apartment above the bakery is clean. Bed, a chair, and a hot plate should let you rustle up something.” She pauses, weighing the choice, thenadds, “You can use it as a base for now. You will be close, never more than a few steps away if they need you.”
Lila’s eyes narrow, the muscle in her jaw tight. She does not like the idea, but Maria turns to her and says quietly, “You cannot watch the bakery and the boy every second.” Lila exhales through her nose and says nothing.
Maria nods her head. “I can find you a blanket that doesn’t smell like flour.”
“I will bring my own,” I assure her. “And coffee. And some gear so nothing slips past us. I will set a rig that sends me a signal when I am out.”
Her eyes cut to Lila, then back. “I’m not a fool, Mr. Russo. I know men who move like you don’t sell tires. I also know the difference between menace and protection. My daughter takes pride in doing things herself. She has done enough alone. You’ll not make her smaller. You’ll simply stand where you must.”
“I will not make her smaller,” I say. That is a promise I understand.
“Good.” She draws a breath that serves as a period. “Try not to bring a fight through my ovens.”
