Chapter 43
Chapter Forty Three
Luca
I smell the sugar before I hit the foyer—sweet and toasty with a hint of something singed—and follow it to the kitchen.
They’re at the island when I walk in: Caterina flour-dusted and smug, Elena waving around a rubber spatula. A sheet pan cools on the counter, a graveyard of dark circles. Smoke snakes out of the cracked oven door.
I stop, take it in, and the first smile I’ve had all afternoon happens without permission.
Elena sees it and narrows her eyes. “Don’t.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, and I absolutely would. “What have we here?”
“Evidence,” Caterina answers, flicking flour off her fingers. “Your girlfriend can’t bake.”
Elena points the spatula at her. “I used to be average at cookies.”
“Average at buying cookies, maybe,” Caterina says.
“Traitor,” Elena mutters, but she’s fighting a grin. She’s in a soft T-shirt that stretches comfortably over her bump. It’s really grown over the past couple of months, and I feel something warm turn over in my chest every time I see her.
I cross to the tray and pick up a cookie. “Almond?” I ask.
“Elena’s mom’s recipe,” Caterina says. “Attempt three.”
Elena’s mouth flattens. “Technically, attempt two. The first one was a trial run.”
“A trial run on cookies?” Caterina puts her hands on her hips. “I don’t think so.”
I bite delicately. It tastes like charcoal. “Mmm,” I say solemnly. “Hints of campfire. Bold finish of… uh…”
“Shut up,” she says, but it’s amused. She eyes the tray like it personally offended her. “I followed the card. Half the dough is fine, and then the last tray decides to self-immolate. How does that even happen?”
“You turned the oven up,” Caterina says, because of course she did. “Because you’re impatient.”
“I nudged it,” Elena argues. “The recipe says ten to twelve minutes, and after ten they were pale.”
“That’s what cooling racks are for,” Caterina says. “They keep baking after they come out.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense! How can they keep baking out of the oven?” Elena slumps against the counter, one hand on her lower back. “This is ridiculous. Children make cookies.”
“Not very well,” I say wisely, though we both know it’s a lie. I come around the island to kiss her temple. She smells like sugar and a barbecue pit. “You’re on a high-stakes mission.”
She leans into me for half a second and then pulls back to glare at the oven. “We wanted to have them ready when you got home.”
“Oh?” I look at Caterina.
“She wanted to make them,” Caterina says, palms up. “I offered supervision. Then I answered two texts and came back to a crematorium.”
Elena covers her face with the spatula hand and groans. A streak of flour paints her cheek. It shouldn’t make my chest ache, but it does.
“Okay,” I say, clapping once. “We autopsy the fallen, honor their sacrifice, and try again.”
Elena peeks at me through her fingers. “You’re not helping.”
“I am helping,” I say, digging a nearly acceptable cookie from a cooling rack behind the disaster tray. “This one is edible.”
“Edible doesn’t meet the standard.” She taps the recipe card on the counter with the spoon. I recognize the handwriting—loopy and certain. Her mother’s. The sight makes me put the almost-cookie down.
“You’ll get them right,” I tell her.
Her mouth softens. Then she straightens and points the spatula at Caterina again. “Fine. Coach me.”
Caterina sweeps my burnt eulogy tray to the side and pulls a clean bowl forward. “All right, stubborn people. Again from the top.”
“I’m here for morale,” I say, moving to the sink to wash my hands.
“No,” they say together.
“You’re here to measure,” Caterina adds. “No eyeballing.”
Elena slides the recipe card closer, reads it under her breath like an incantation, then she freezes and looks up. “Oh!”
I stop with the water running and turn back, panicked. “What? What is it? Is everything all right?”
I’m halfway to her when she nods. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I just remembered something.”
“That’s how you react when you remember something?” Caterina asks, walking to the sink to turn it off. “Panic-inducing.”
“No, I mean, I remembered that I wanted to tell you something when you got home,” she says, cleaning her hands on a towel. “I spoke to Miles today. About Akers.”
I dry my hands on a towel, every muscle tightening without my permission. “You spoke to Miles,” I repeat. “When?”
“This afternoon,” she says, a little breathless now that she’s committed. “He called me.”
Caterina’s eyebrows go up. “What did he say?”
Elena sets the spatula down. “He said they followed an anonymous tip about internal misconduct,” she says carefully, lawyer-plain. “They pulled the access logs, the comms token history, VPN records—everything. It panned.”
My grip tightens on the towel. “Panned how?”
“They found messages,” she says. “Akers used his credentials to pull my schedule, then routed it off-network. They matched timestamps from the coffee shop Wi-Fi to submissions through the liaison’s webform token.
And there were texts on a second phone arranging a ‘consult’ with the Russos.
” Her throat works; she keeps going. “Miles said OPR mirrored his drives, recovered deleted threads, and got two cooperating witnesses in the office to confirm he’d been asking about me. They picked him up this morning.”
Caterina’s hand flies to her mouth. “Arrested?”
“Arrested,” Elena says. “Charged. Murder-for-hire, conspiracy, obstruction, abuse of position. He’s in federal custody.”
“They may offer him a deal yet,” I say, knowing exactly how it works in the justice system.”
But Elena is shaking her head. “I don’t think so. They might try, but he doesn’t work for the Russos.”
I had gotten confirmation on that after Gabe Russo attacked Elena.
Elena continues, “He doesn’t know anything credible. All he knows is that he hired them to kill me. They won’t get anything to take the Russos down. I think he’s going away for good.”
Caterina exhales like she’s been holding her breath for two months. “Holy—” She stops herself, then laughs, shaky. “Okay. Okay. Good. Good.”
“We made them look,” she corrects softly. “But… yeah.” Her smile is small and a little stunned. Then it falters. “He admitted nothing, of course. But the logs and the burner and the witness statements—Miles said it’s… solid.”
“Solid is enough,” I say. “For them.”
“And for you?” she asks, searching my face.
“As long as he stays behind bars, it’s solid for me too,” I say. “Though I will be making sure his stay is as unpleasant as possible.”
Caterina clears her throat, swiping at her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Does this mean we can, I don’t know, breathe? A little?”
Elena looks at me, deferring the answer. I nod once. “Not completely, but we can breathe a little easier, yes.”
I wipe the flour streak off Elena’s cheek with my thumb and keep my hand there. “That,” I say quietly, “was very smart.”
“I’m very smart,” she says, trying for flippant and failing because she’s pleased I said it.
“Infuriatingly,” I agree.
Caterina taps the rack with the spatula. “Break it up, lovebirds. We’ve got cookies to make.”
At that, Elena’s stomach growls, and she looks a little embarrassed.
“What? The baby wants cookies.”
“The baby does not want burnt almonds,” I say.
“The baby has taste,” Caterina agrees.
Elena lifts her chin. “This baby is going to be raised on the finest cuisine. Mostly because Luca refuses to let anyone eat boxed mac and cheese in his house.”
“Because it’s not food,” I say.
“It’s comfort,” she counters. “Blue box therapy.”
“Make your cookies and I’ll consider it,” I bargain.
“Bribery.” She sniffs. “Low.”
“You love it,” I murmur.
Caterina makes a gagging noise. “That’s enough of that, or I’ll banish you from the kitchen, Papá. I mean it.”
“I’ll be good.” I lift my hands, palms out. “For now.”
I wink at Elena, and she blushes.