Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
STEVIE
The bakery’s been open for five weeks.
Martha likes her scones with extra lemon glaze.
Tom from the hardware store pretends the bear claws are for his wife but I’ve seen the powdered sugar on his mustache.
The college kids order oat milk lattes and study for hours on a single cup, but they tip well and tell their friends, so I let them stay.
Five weeks of being Zoey Carter.
Some days the name fits like a glove. Other days it sits on my skin like someone else’s coat, close enough to wear, wrong enough to itch.
Today is an itchy day.
Saul left this morning.
Three days of orgasms, unsolicited coffee, and being looked at like I’m someone worth rooting for.
And now he’s gone and I’m here, standing in a kitchen that still smells like him and trying not to lose my goddamn mind.
I stood by the window and waited for the familiar existential freefall. It didn’t hit. Not like it used to.
Just a low-grade ache. Old grief humming under my ribs like a shitty fridge motor I’ve learned to ignore.
It tastes like Dario’s espresso and Enzo’s laugh, which is rude, because neither of those things are Witness Protection approved coping mechanisms.
I miss them in a way that doesn’t fade, doesn’t soften, doesn’t get easier with time. It just becomes part of me. Background noise. The hum of grief I’ve learned to function around.
Saul knows. He sees the mug I won’t put away. The shirts I sleep in. The pen on my nightstand that I’ve never used because using it would feel like erasing something.
He doesn’t ask about them.
I don’t know if that’s kindness or avoidance.
Maybe both.
I’m restocking the display case, chocolate croissants on the left, almond on the right, everything in its place, when the door chimes.
“Be right with you,” I call without looking up.
“Delivery for Zoey Carter.” It’s a courier. Brown uniform. Clipboard. The kind of bored professionalism that says he does this forty times a day and doesn’t care what’s in the boxes.
“That’s me.”
He has me sign. Hands over a package. Medium-sized. Heavier than it looks.
I set it on the counter after he leaves. Stare at it.
I didn’t order anything. Supplies come through the back. Saul would have mentioned if he’d sent something.
The paper’s brown. Plain. No return address.
My hands are steady when I cut the tape. Then I open it and immediately wish I hadn’t. Because inside is grief in a fucking wrapper.
A box. Smaller. Dark wood with gold lettering. The kind of packaging that whispers expensive and imported and someone spent real money on this.
Italian chocolates.
The kind that taste like betrayal and orgasms and a man who could make murder look like art. Same box. Same pretentious gold lettering. Same emotional whiplash.
My heart does a backflip. My lungs forget their job. My trauma response kicks in like it’s clocking in for the night shift.
I open the box.
The chocolates are perfect. Rows of dark and milk, nestled in paper like tiny works of art. The smell hits me, rich, sweet, the specific scent of that first box.
There’s a note.
Small. Cream-colored. Expensive stationery, because of course it is, because Dario Marchetti doesn’t do anything without style.
Three words. Neat handwriting.
Are you okay? - D
The box slips from my fingers. Hits the counter. Tips. Chocolates scatter across the surface, rolling, falling, bouncing off the floor.
I don’t catch them. I can’t move.
He found me. Which means Enzo found me first, because Enzo’s the one who tracks, who follows, who sits in shadows watching. Enzo found me and told Dario and now they know. They know where I am. They know I’m alive. They know about the bakery and the town and probably, fuck, probably Saul.
They know I moved on.
Except I didn’t move on. I just kept living. There’s a difference.
Isn’t there?
Are you okay?
Are you okay really meant, I’m thinking about you. Are you okay meant, I care if you’re hurting. Are you okay meant, I love you but I don’t know how to say it.
And now he’s asking again. After six weeks of silence. After I left without saying goodbye. After I built a life with someone else.
He’s asking if I’m okay.
I sink onto the stool behind the counter.
And then it hits. The ugly crying. The real shit. The kind with snot and open-mouthed gasps and the full Greek tragedy of my life collapsing on a pile of luxury confections.
I cry until I can’t anymore.
I’m having a full emotional breakdown in my bakery over chocolates while wearing an apron that says ‘Life is what you bake it.’
The universe has a sick sense of irony.
My phone is in my hand before I realize I’ve picked it up.
Saul’s number. One tap.
He answers on the second ring. “Hey. I’m about an hour out. Everything okay?”
“No.” The word comes out cracked. Broken. “No, I’m not okay.”
“What happened?” His voice sharpens. Shifts into marshal mode. “Are you hurt? Is someone there? Do I need to…”
“They found me.”
Silence.
“Dario sent chocolates. To the bakery. With a note.” I’m crying again, I realize. When did I start crying again? “He knows where I am. Saul, they know, and I don’t know what to do.”
More silence. Longer this time. I hear him breathing.
“I’m turning around,” he says finally.
“You don’t have to.”
“I’m turning around. Stay there. Lock the door. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“Saul.”
“Just wait for me. Please.”
He hangs up.
I stare at my phone. I should clean up the chocolates. Should flip the sign to closed. Should do something productive instead of sitting here falling apart.
Instead, I pick up the note. Read it again.
Are you okay? - D
Am I?
I don’t know anymore. But the fact that three very different men care enough to ask might mean I’m not as lost as I feel. Or it might mean my life is a romantic thriller with baked goods.
Unclear.
Saul makes it in fifty-one minutes.
He comes through the door like a man preparing for battle. Eyes scanning. Body tense. Hand near his hip where his weapon sits. His gaze lands on the scattered chocolates. The empty box. The note in my hand.
“Are you hurt?” His voice is sharp. Professional. “Is anyone else here? Did you see anyone watching? Any cars you didn’t recognize?”
“What? No, I.”
“Show me the package.” He’s already moving. Checking the windows. The back door. “Now, Stevie.”
I hand him the box. The note.
He reads it. Once. His jaw tightens. Then he’s on his phone. Typing. Pulling up something. His marshal face fully locked in.
“Saul, what…”
“How long ago did this arrive?”
“Maybe forty minutes? The courier…”
“Legitimate courier or someone dressed as one?”
“I... I don’t know. He had a uniform. A clipboard. He didn’t seem…”
“That doesn’t mean anything.” He’s still on his phone. Checking something. “Dario Marchetti sent this. Which means either he found you himself or his enforcer found you. Either way, they know where you are.”
“I know. That’s why I called you.”
“Do you understand what this means?” He finally looks at me. And there’s something in his eyes. Fear. Real fear. “I relocated you because the family wanted you dead. And now Dario’s sending you chocolates.”
“Dario wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know that. You testified against him. Against his family. People have been killed for less. You don’t know if Sal’s still looking. If this,” he holds up the note, “is Dario acting alone or if the whole family knows where you are.”
“He’s not going to hurt me.”
“Stevie.”
“He’s asking if I’m okay!” My voice rises. “It’s what we used to say to each other. It’s how.” I stop. “It’s not a threat. It’s him checking on me.”
Saul stares at me. Processing.
I watch the shift happen. Marshal Saul analyzing the threat. Boyfriend Saul realizing what I just said.
“You had a phrase,” he says slowly. “With him. A thing you said to each other.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay.” He looks at the note again. “That’s what you said to each other. That’s how you.” He stops. Sets the note down very carefully. “How you showed you cared.”
The fear in his eyes becomes something else. Something that looks like breaking.
I nod.
“I left here this morning.” His voice is quiet now. “Three hours ago. We were in bed. You kissed me goodbye. And now you’re falling apart over three words from a man I’ve spent six weeks keeping you safe from.”
“Saul.”
“Do you know what the last six weeks have been like?” He’s not yelling.
That’s almost worse. “Watching you grieve them. Watching you sleep in his shirt. Keep his mug in your kitchen. Refuse to make certain recipes because they remind you of them.” His voice cracks.
“And I told myself it was okay. That you’d heal.
That what we were building would be enough. ”
“It is enough. You…”
“Don’t.” He holds up a hand. “Don’t tell me I’m enough when you’re standing here crying over chocolates from someone else.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” He gestures at the scattered chocolates. At the evidence of my breakdown. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like one gesture from him undoes everything we’ve built. Like I’m the consolation prize. The safe option you settled for.”
“You’re not a consolation prize.”
“Then what am I, Stevie?” His voice rises. I’ve never heard him yell. Not once. “What am I to you? Because I thought what we had was real. I thought you loved me. But maybe I was just convenient. The guy who was there when they weren’t.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then tell me the truth!” He’s in my space now. Close. Vibrating with emotion he can’t contain. “Tell me what I am to you. Because I need to know if I’m wasting my time.”
“You’re the man I’m in love with!” The words come out sharp. Desperate. “You’re the person I wake up next to and want to keep waking up next to. You’re the one who makes me feel like maybe I’m not completely broken.”
“I’m not enough.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Can’t find a truth that works.
His face does something terrible. Anger and hurt all mixed together.