Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
STEVIE
The Blue Door is actually blue.
Like, aggressively blue. Blue with opinions. Blue that has seen things.
I don’t know why that surprises me. It’s right there in the name. Maybe I thought it’d be ironic beige. But standing on the sidewalk of a small Colorado town I’ve never seen before, staring at a bakery I’m supposed to pretend I own, the blue of the door catches me off guard.
It’s the exact shade of Saul’s eyes.
Of course it is.
Because the universe has a sick sense of humor and apparently my type is ‘men who destroy my peace but smell incredible doing it.’
Bonus points if they carry trauma like an accessory and make me want to bake them into a pie and marry them simultaneously.
“What do you think?”
Saul’s beside me. He drove the whole way.
Fourteen hours across three states, stopping only when I needed to use the bathroom or he needed coffee.
He looks tired. Rumpled. His hair is doing that thing where it sticks up in three different directions because he keeps running his hands through it like he’s trying to scalp himself via stress
Ten out of ten on the hot but haunted scale.
“It’s blue,” I say.
“That’s... yes. That’s accurate.”
“Like your eyes.” The words come out before I can stop them.
I feel him looking at me but I keep staring at the door because if I look at him right now, I might do something stupid like cry or kiss him or both.
“Is that a good thing?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know yet.”
Might be a blessing. Might be a breakdown. Honestly, could go either way.
He doesn’t push. That’s the thing about Saul. He never pushes. He just stands there, steady and patient, waiting for me to figure out what I need.
I needed Dario to see me. I needed Enzo to be real with me. I need Saul to stay.
But he can’t. He’s here for a week. Seven days to help me set up a life and then he leaves, because that’s the job, that’s the deal, that’s how witness protection works.
I’m really tired of people leaving.
“Should we go inside?” he asks.
I nod. Don’t trust my voice.
He pulls out a key, my key, technically, Zoey Carter’s key, and unlocks the blue door.
The bakery smells like dust, disuse, and aggressive potential. It’s waiting for me to either start a business or a breakdown. Possibly both.
Empty display cases line one wall. A counter with a register that looks like it’s from the 90s. Behind it, a doorway leading to what must be the kitchen.
It’s small. Worn. The kind of place that definitely hosted a health code violation in 2006 and is now waiting for someone to love it back to life with sugar and trauma.
Relatable.
I walk through slowly, trailing my fingers along the counter, leaving tracks in the dust.
“The kitchen’s through there,” Saul says, hovering near the entrance like he’s not sure if he should follow. “Commercial oven, industrial mixer, walk-in cooler. Should have everything you need.”
I push through the swinging door. And my breath catches.
The kitchen is... perfect.
Not fancy. Not Pinterest-perfect. Just real.
It’s been through some shit and came out on the other side with flour in its hair and no time for bullshit.
Stainless steel counters scarred from years of use. A six-burner stove that looks like it could survive a nuclear apocalypse. The kind of kitchen I used to have dreams about. Literal dreams. Erotic dreams, if I’m being honest.
Back when I was baking cookies in my depressing little apartment with a hand mixer that sparked when you looked at it wrong. Before Saul set me up with the good stuff as Beth.
I run my hand along the counter. Feel the dips and grooves where other bakers have worked before me.
This is mine. Not borrowed. Not temporary. Mine.
Zoey’s, technically. But Zoey is just Stevie in a fake mustache trying to pass for emotionally stable.
The woman who owns a bakery in a small Colorado town and bakes things for people who will never know she used to make cookies for mobsters.
“Is it okay?” Saul is in the doorway, watching me with those blue eyes that see too much.
“It’s perfect,” I whisper.
His expression softens. “Good. That’s... good.”
I want to tell him that perfect isn’t the same as okay. That I can stand in the middle of a dream and still feel like I’ve been dropkicked through a grief-powered blender.
That all I can think about is Enzo trying to cream butter like he was fighting it, flour in his hair, laughing at himself for being terrible at something for once.
But I don’t.
Because if I start talking about Enzo and butter and battle-wounded mixing bowls, I might end up sobbing into a bag of powdered sugar.
So I just nod and turn away. Pretend I’m not seconds from crying on the floor of my new kitchen like it’s the Great British Breakdown Off.
The apartment above the bakery is small.
One bedroom. A bathroom. A living area that’s also a kitchen that’s also a dining room that’s also maybe a panic attack staging area.
Because I’m a federal witness, not a princess.
And square footage is apparently reserved for people who don’t fall in love with men who own murder gloves.
But it has windows. Big ones that let in afternoon light and look out over a street lined with trees that are starting to change color. Fall in Colorado. I’ve never seen it before.
I’ve never seen a lot of things before.
It’s mine. Actually mine. Not borrowed. Not temporary.
And I hate that I can’t share it with them.
Can’t text Enzo a picture of the view. Can’t leave the door unlocked for Dario to find his way here.
This is everything I wanted and it feels hollow.
“I’ll bring up the bags,” Saul says.
He disappears down the narrow staircase that connects the apartment to the bakery. I hear his footsteps on the stairs, solid and sure.
I stand in the middle of my new living room and try to feel something other than ghost in a pancake house.
I fail.
The vibe is haunting but make it cozy.
This is good. This is better than beige. This is a life I might actually want to live, if I could stop thinking about the two men I left behind without saying goodbye.
Did Enzo find the note? The cookies? Did he understand? Does he hate me?
My chest aches in a way that’s becoming familiar. A bruise I keep pressing on, just to feel something.
Saul comes back with my bags. Both of them. Everything I own in the world.
“Where do you want these?”
“Straight into the void, ideally.”
I gesture toward the bedroom like I’m not moments from breaking down on a beige comforter and screaming into a federal pillow.
He carries them through, sets them on the bed.
The bed is already made with generic witness protection linens. The emotional state is beige. My soul is beige.
This apartment is one sad throw pillow away from becoming a cry for help on HGTV.
Some things never change.
“We can get you real bedding,” Saul says, following my gaze. “Whatever you want. This is just temporary.”
Temporary. Like him.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“Stevie.”
“Zoey,” I correct. “Legally. Mentally I’m still a raccoon in eyeliner clinging to emotional debris and stolen shirts.”
I smile. It feels like it might slide off.
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he crosses the room, stops in front of me, close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I was brave enough.
“You’re Stevie,” he says softly. “To me, you’re always Stevie.”
Jesus Christ. I’d marry him for that line and a functional espresso machine.
“Saul...”
“I know.” He steps back. Gives me space I didn’t ask for but probably need. “I know.”
I unpack because it’s something to do.
Clothes go in the closet. Toiletries in the bathroom. Normal things, practical things, the kind of things Beth Taylor would have done without feeling like her chest was caving in.
But then I get to the bottom of my bag. And I stop.
Enzo’s mug. Battle-worn. Chipped. Emotionally devastating. Like me, but ceramic.
I hold it in both hands. Feel the weight of it. The chip rough under my thumb.
He was going to come back. He was going to walk into my apartment and reach for this mug and I was going to be there, and we were going to be real, and now…
“Hey.” Saul’s voice, gentle, from the doorway.
I don’t look up.
“That’s his,” I say. “Enzo’s. He had a mug at my place. I took it.”
Silence. Then footsteps. Saul crossing the room, sitting on the edge of the bed beside me. Not touching, but close.
“Tell me about him.”
It’s not a demand. Not even really a question. Just an invitation.
“He was supposed to hurt me.” I trace the chip with my finger. “Sal sent him.” A wet laugh escapes me. “Instead he watched terrible movies with me and taught me to throw a punch and burned my eggs when he tried to make breakfast.”
“Sounds like a good man.”
“He is.” My voice breaks. “He’s a good man who does bad things for worse people. And somehow I’m the one who feels like the criminal because I left cookies instead of a goodbye.”
Saul doesn’t say anything. Just sits there, warm and solid, while I fall apart holding another man’s mug.
“I want to call him,” I admit. “I know I can’t. I know it’s dangerous. But I want to hear his voice. Want to know he doesn’t hate me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know he came back for you.” Saul’s voice is steady. “Men who hate women don’t come back with plans to make breakfast. They don’t leave their mug at someone’s apartment.”
I look at him finally. His face is open, unguarded, nothing but kindness there.
“How are you so okay with this?” I ask. “I’m sitting here crying over another man and you’re just...”
“Being here?”
“Yes.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Considering.
“Because I’d rather you tell me the truth than pretend you’re fine.” He holds my gaze. “And because I know what it’s like to lose something you weren’t ready to let go of.”
His marriage. The woman who said he was impossible to know.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “For dumping this on you. You’re supposed to be setting me up and leaving, not... dealing with my emotional wreckage.”