Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ENZO
Six weeks.
Forty-two days of following dead ends and cold trails and a U.S. Marshal who’s better at disappearing than I gave him credit for.
I’ve tracked Saul Bennett across three states. Arizona. New Mexico. Nevada. Watched him visit witnesses I don’t care about in cities that don’t matter. Sat outside safe houses and apartment complexes and shitty motels waiting for a glimpse of Stevie that never comes.
She’s not in any of them.
Every empty apartment feels like losing her again. Every witness who isn’t Stevie makes me want to put my fist through something.
I’m running on coffee and rage and the memory of her saying my name in a voice that sounded like a promise.
A promise I couldn’t keep.
But he shook me four times. Deliberately. The kind of evasive driving that says he knew I was there and wanted me gone.
Which means he’s protecting someone he cares about more than the others. Which means I’m getting close.
Colorado is different.
I feel it the moment he crosses the state line. Something in the way he drives, less careful, more eager. Like he’s heading somewhere he wants to be instead of somewhere the job requires.
Small mountain town. The kind of place with one main street and a coffee shop that probably closes at 6 PM. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone and strangers get noticed.
The kind of place you’d hide someone you wanted to keep safe.
Saul parks on the main street. Gets out. Stretches like a man who’s been driving for hours and is finally home.
Home.
That’s what this is. I can see it in his body language. The relaxation. The ease.
This is where he comes when he’s not working.
I park down the block. Kill the engine. Watch.
He walks toward a storefront. Blue, bright and cheerful, impossible to miss. Hand-painted sign above it: The Blue Door.
A bakery.
This has to be her.
She’s baking. Wherever she is, whatever name she’s using, she’s baking. Because that’s who she is. That’s what she does when she’s scared or happy or falling apart.
Saul opens the door and walks in like he belongs there.
I sit in my car and count my heartbeats. One. Two. Three.
Any minute now. Any minute I’ll see her.
Five minutes pass. Ten.
The door opens.
And there she is.
Stevie.
Blonde hair pulled back in a messy bun. Flour on her apron. Moving with that specific grace I’d recognize anywhere. The way she tilts her head, the way her hands never stop moving, the way she exists in space like she’s not quite sure she’s allowed to take up room.
She’s carrying a tray of something. Sets it on one of the outdoor tables. Arranges whatever’s on it with the particular care she gives to everything she bakes.
Saul follows her out. Says something I can’t hear.
She laughs.
The sound doesn’t reach me, but I see it. The way her head tips back. The way her whole body softens.
She’s laughing. Really laughing.
The laugh of someone who’s happy.
Saul reaches out. Touches her face. Gentle. Familiar.
She leans into his hand.
And then she kisses him.
The world goes red.
Not metaphorically. Actually red, like blood behind my eyes, like something rupturing in my skull.
She’s kissing him.
Her mouth on his. Her hands on his chest. Her body curved toward him like a flower toward the sun.
The same mouth that kissed me. The same hands that traced my scars and told me I was beautiful. The same body I held through the night, wrapped around me like I was the only solid thing in her world.
She’s giving all of that to someone else.
I told her I’d come back. I promised.
And she believed me. I saw it in her eyes that morning. She trusted me.
And then she was gone and I couldn’t find her and now she’s moved on. Like I was easy to replace. Like what we had was just two weeks of fucking around while she waited for someone better.
Someone safe. Someone who wouldn’t get her killed.
Someone who isn’t me.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything except watch as the woman I love kisses another man like I never existed.
They break apart. Talk for another minute. She’s smiling. He’s smiling.
They look happy.
They look like a couple.
She walks over and flips the sign on the door. CLOSED. Then his arm goes around her, casual, possessive, comfortable, and they disappear inside.
Together.
Into her bakery. Her home. Her life.
I don’t know how long I sit there.
Long enough for the sun to shift. Long enough for my hands to cramp from gripping the steering wheel. Long enough for the red behind my eyes to fade into something worse.
Gray. Empty. The color of nothing.
She moved on. She’s happy. She doesn’t need me.
The thoughts circle like vultures, picking at the carcass of everything I thought we had.
She loved me. She did. That morning. Before I left. Before everything fell apart.
She made me cookies. Learned my coffee preferences. Touched my scars like they were something precious instead of something shameful.
Every moment was real.
And then she left.
Not by choice. I know that. Saul took her. Relocated her. Erased her. But she didn’t fight to come back. She built a new life. A bakery. A relationship. Moved on.
I should be happy for her. I should be grateful she’s safe, she’s thriving, she’s not disappearing into beige the way she was before.
But all I feel is rage.
He’s still in there.
I get out of the car.
Don’t know why. Don’t know what I’m going to do. Just need to move, need to do something with the violence building in my chest before it tears me apart from the inside.
There’s an alley behind the bakery. I walk toward it without thinking. Away from the main street. Away from witnesses.
The alley’s empty. Dumpsters. Brick walls. The back entrance to her bakery, metal door with a small window glowing warm.
I can see the kitchen through the window. Stainless steel counters. Industrial equipment.
Her.
She’s in there. Moving around. Cleaning up, maybe. Living her life.
Without me.
The first punch connects with the brick wall before I realize I’ve thrown it.
Pain explodes through my knuckles. Skin splitting. Blood.
Good.
I punch again. Harder.
Again.
The wall doesn’t fight back. Doesn’t give. Just takes the punishment.
I hit it until my fist goes numb. Until my knuckles are shredded. Until the rage finds somewhere to go that isn’t through her door, into her kitchen, into the life I’m not part of anymore.
I hit it until I can’t anymore.
And then I sink down against the opposite wall, cradling my ruined hand, and I break.
Not crying. This is worse than crying.
This is something tearing loose inside me. Something I didn’t know was there until she found it and now it’s bleeding out with no way to stop it.
She’s happy.
And I’m sitting in a fucking alley bleeding on my shirt because I can’t handle seeing her kiss someone else.
What does that make me? What kind of man falls apart like this?
The kind who was stupid enough to believe someone like her could love someone like him. The kind who thought maybe he could have something good.
The kind who was wrong.
I stay there long enough for my hand to stop bleeding. Long enough for the sky to go dark. Long enough for the light in her kitchen to turn off.
She’s upstairs now. In her apartment. With him.
I don’t think about what they’re doing.
I can’t think about what they’re doing.
Eventually, I pull myself up. Walk back to my car on legs that don’t feel like mine.
I should leave. Should drive back to the city and never come back. Let her have her life. Her bakery. Her Marshal who looks at her like she’s everything.
Dario deserves to know. He’s been waiting. Six weeks of waiting while I followed cold trails. Six weeks of pretending to function while every part of him was focused on finding her.
He deserves to know she’s okay. Even if okay means she’s fucking someone else.
I start the car. Pull away from the curb. Don’t look back at the blue door. Can’t.
The drive takes hours. Hours of replaying what I saw.
The smile. The kiss. The easy way she leaned into his touch.
Hours of trying to figure out how to tell Dario.
Of my hand throbbing in time with my heartbeat, blood seeping through the makeshift bandage I wrapped around it at a gas station bathroom.
The attendant looked at me like I was dangerous.
She wasn’t wrong.
Dario’s at his house when I get there.
He opens the door before I knock. Like he’s been waiting. His eyes drop to my hand. The bloody bandage. The way I’m holding it against my chest.
“You found her,” he says.
“Yeah.”
He steps back. Lets me in.
The house looks the same. Neat. Organized. Everything in its place. Except him.
Dario looks like hell. Dark circles under his eyes. Clothes that aren’t quite as pressed as usual. The look of a man who hasn’t been sleeping, hasn’t been eating, has been doing nothing but waiting for news about a woman who disappeared.
“Where?” he asks.
“Colorado. Small town. She has a bakery.”
Something flickers across his face. “A bakery.”
“Called The Blue Door. She looked...” I struggle for the words. “She looked good.”
“Good.”
“Happy. Healthy. Like she’s actually living instead of just surviving.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Processing. “Is she alone?”
And there it is. The question I’ve been dreading for hours.
“No. The Marshal.”
His jaw tightens.
“Saul,” I continue. “He was there. They’re...” I can’t say it. Can’t make the words come out.
“They’re what?”
“Together. They’re together.” My voice comes out rough. “I watched them. She kissed him. In front of the bakery. Like they’ve been doing it for a while. Like it’s normal.”
Dario doesn’t react. Just stands there, perfectly still, the way he does when he’s trying to control something that wants to explode.
“They looked...” I run my good hand through my hair. “Comfortable. Easy. Like they belong together.”
“Good.” The word comes out flat. Dead.
“Good?” I stare at him. “That’s all you have to say? She’s fucking her Marshal and you say good?”