He looks at me across the rising curl of steam. “We will know,” he says. “But not by guessing. I will move the wheel where it must turn.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No,” he says. “But it is what I can tell you.”
“So we sit and wait to get hit,” I challenge, because if I don’t push, I’ll cry.
“So we work,” he corrects. “I have been thinking,” Matteo says. “We cannot guard every wall or follow every shadow, so we use what we have. The bakery stays what it is. People come, they talk, they eat. That is the face they must see. You keep it open, warm, alive. Fear makes noise. Steadiness does not. I will build around that. The less change they notice, the harder it becomes for them to move against us. This place already holds what we need—light, habit, and you.”
I picture Mrs. Brewster holding court by the coffee urn, the twins from the mill building forts in the yard and reporting license plates like spies, the barber pretending not to stare from his doorway. The town’s flaws turn into features when someone threatens one of ours. My jaw loosens a little.
“What about my son?” I drill down, because everything else is theory until we talk about him. “Keep him out of this.” My voice is dry.
“I will tell you when I move, and I will not cross his door unless there is no other choice,” he agrees, no pushback. He rubs his thumb along the rim of his mug, a habit of a man who’s been in too many rooms like this, making deals that smell like coffee and fear. “I will walk him to the door in the morning and watch the stairs at night. He will not know unless you tell him.”
Relief loosens my shoulders in one place. Panic clamps down on another. “How do you do this,” I ask, “and still look like you did last night?”
His gaze flicks for a second, a small flash that feels like heat. “Practice,” he replies. Then, softer, “You looked like something meant to be kept safe. I reached for it anyway.”
I press my spine against the cabinet because a memory sneaks up on me—his mouth and my resolve losing a fight I don’t regret. I close that door in my head, but it doesn’t latch cleanly.
He reads the shake and shifts his stance as if he’s giving me room. “We will keep the line,” he adds, a concession he doesn’t owe me.
“I didn’t ask you to,” I reply, even though I probably did with my eyes.
“You did,” he contradicts, gentler than the word sounds. “In Milan, you asked me not to ruin you. I listened for one night and failed the rest. Here, I will not fail.”
Something in me stops trying to be brave and decides to be honest. “I want you here,” I admit, voice thin. “Not just becauseof the men at the motel. I hate that. I hate that I’m saying it while you stand in my kitchen with a plan that sounds like war. But I want you here.”
He nods, like he’s signing his name to a contract that matters. “I am here.”
Footsteps sound on the landing above. My mother moves down the stairs with a laundry basket on her hip. She steps into the kitchen, eyes flicking from me to Matteo and back.
“You both look like you could use food instead of arguments,” she remarks, setting the basket on a chair. “There’s oatmeal and oranges. Sit.”
We sit because nobody ignores Maria Hart at breakfast. The bowls steam. The simple sweetness makes the kitchen feel like a place called home again. My mother listens while I outline the situation, the parts she should know and the parts I can’t bear to say. Her mouth thins for a moment when I mention the drifters, but she just nods and starts crushing walnuts over the bowls with methodical hands.
“We’ll make twenty trays for the pageant volunteers,” she decides. “Put men behind cookies and it’ll look like help. People carry more than they think when you hand them a paper plate.”
Matteo inclines his head. “Yes.” His eyes say what his mouth doesn’t.Your mother has already found the way.
My mother carries a breakfast bowl upstairs to Marco. “He’s in a mood and wants his milk in bed,” she says with a small smile, the light touching her eyes. “I’ve allowed it this time.” I take a bite of a cinnamon roll. The coffee’s cold. I tip it into the sink, swipe the brown ring with a towel, and pull a fresh shot. When I lift my eyes, I see it through the glass door.
It’s back. Not the woman. The SUV. It glides past slowly, the angle of the mirrors just high enough to catch the second-floor panes. The driver’s cap stays low on a mouth that likes to smirk at people on the road. He doesn’t smirk now. He looks and keeps looking, then slides on—the same patient crawl he used before he knocked me into a bush.
“Stay,” Matteo breathes, already moving for the back hall, all calm stripped from his face. His coat is in his hand. Before I can tell him I’m not foolish enough to chase, he’s gone, swallowed by the alley.
The doorbell rings as a gust hits the jamb. We’re not open, but I look up anyway. A woman in a gray coat walks past, slow enough to notice, careful enough to pretend she’s not. Her hair’s tucked under a knit cap. She doesn’t look at the case. She looks up. Her gaze stops on the second-floor window where my child slept an hour ago, then flicks to her reflection in the glass.
“Matteo,” I whisper to a room that doesn’t answer. My heartbeat counts the seconds.
The woman’s eyes trace the painted words on our door. She checks the lock. She sees the corner where Matteo added a tiny dome. She fixes her hat like she’s freezing and keeps walking, a steady glide that says she’s timing herself. Her nails are neat and salon-shiny, wrong for a town that peels oranges with a thumbnail and wipes its hands on its jeans.
20
MATTEO
The panel across the broken pane is a reason to stand in the front room, so I use it. I set a driver, screws, a square, and a tape on the counter, then crouch and drag the sawhorse an inch as if the angle matters.
