by Eden Butler
“It’ll keep you warm.” He pushed back our empty plates when a waitress arrived with more of that broth. I hesitated, enjoying the rich scent though my stomach ached from how full I was already.
Marco spotted my hesitation and leaned toward me, eyes squinting, shy and cautious. “Or maybe…you know, we can do something else to warm you up.” His laugh was soft, low when I jerked a glare at him. Marco waved to Mr. Hoàng with two quick fingers motioning him forward and the old man dipped behind the bar, hurrying toward us with a bottle of whiskey and two tumblers in his hands. Marco smiled again, this time wider, looking more amused as he accepted the glasses and bottle from Hoàng. “You thought I had other ideas.”
He filled the glasses, lifting his tumbler when he was done to toast me. I copied him, sipping deep with my attention on his face. He looked right at me as he drank, those dark eyes unblinking. That look slipped, giving me the impression he liked what he saw and how it felt when I returned his stare.
“There’s something about you,” I admitted, wondering out loud what this man’s game was and why I was allowing myself to play it.
“Oh? Like my good looks?”
Despite my nervousness, I didn’t return his grin, but that didn’t seem to bother Marco. “More like you staring at me like I’m tastier than the Pho.”
What was I doing?
He put his tumbler down, curling his bottom lip under his top teeth. “Miss Ava, if I was a betting man, I’d put all my cash on that simple fact.”
This time when he angled closer to me, I forgot to pull away. I forgot all my good sense. “Something tells me you are a betting man.”
Marco exhaled, like he needed a second to think before he answered. “Damn straight.” He got close then, still cautious, watching me as he rested his fingers over my knuckles. His touch was warm, a small tremble moving his fingers. I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I shouldn’t be here letting this stranger tempt me. He inhaled, his nose against the shell of my ear. “You think maybe you’ll ever let me find out just how tasty you are?”
The whiskey was sweet on his breath and mingled with the rich scent of his cologne and that drugging feel of warmth that came from his body. It made me forget the temperature in the room was lowering the longer we sat in the dark.
What was I doing letting him inch closer? Why wasn’t I turning away when he moved his bent knuckle to my chin, tilting it up.
“These lips of yours…” he said, his voice lulling.
Just as Marco’s breath warmed my face, the whiskey aroma over my cheek, the buzzing pop sounded again and the lights around us flickered, lighting up the entire restaurant as the power turned back on.
He didn’t move, still kept hold of my face, but the shock of the light flashing on had me leaning back, mentally shaking myself when he dropped his hand onto the table.
What had I almost done?
“Maybe next time, when there isn’t such an audience.”
Mr. Hoàng emerged from the kitchen, his friendly smile making me feel like a kid who’d been caught with a boy she wasn’t supposed to know. “Or,” I picked up my tumbler, taking a long drink, “maybe we should leave pointless theories alone.”
Marco fingered my hair, head shaking. “There would be nothing pointless about testing that.” He moved closer, and my focus went to the slow glide of his tongue peeking out of his mouth as he played with his piercing. “And I bet you’d come back to test it over and over.”
I swallowed, inhaling to regain my composure. “So full of yourself.”
“Nah. I just know something good when I see it.” He moved back, relaxing, like he knew I needed a break to push away the sensation that his almost-kiss had worked in me.
“And what’s good here?” I couldn’t help but ask forgetting how dangerous this game was, pretending it wasn’t my loneliness—years and years of it—that was making me take such a big risk.
Marco’s full smile stretched across his mouth and the way it lit up his expression and lightened his eyes made him seem younger, like the rough edges about him momentarily softened. “You, Miss Ava.”
For a second, I believed him.
For a second, I wanted to keep on believing him.
But if I’d learned anything in the past few years it was what was left of me wasn’t good for anyone.
4
Ava
For two days now, the bodyguards came early to intimidate me. They were hardly any different than my ex’s men, though this group didn’t curse at one another an ogle every woman that came withing ten feet of them.
Like with Marco, an eerie feeling of familiarity swallowed my focus as the quiet transients hung around the bakery sipping their complimentary coffee.
They stayed the day, taking up space, glaring and solemn-faced with gun-shaped bulges bunching the clean lines of their designer suits. Once I noticed that, any dregs of concentration on my work I had, fled, replaced with small flashes of crippling anxiety.
It seemed a pastry chef had somehow managed to disrupt the peace in this sleepy little town. That, I guessed, required the attention of no-neck men about their boss’s business.
I didn’t know their names. Didn’t much care to learn them. What I did know was the one with black buzz cut and small, squinted eyes didn’t like cream in his coffee. The other, squatter, but still trim, had a kinder face, though with those blank expression and steely stares, that wasn’t saying much. The other ones taking up space in the only available tables left, hadn’t ordered anything, had, in fact, brought in their own mugs of coffee and pretended to not understand me when I told them they’d have to buy something or leave.
They were here to make me see reason.
They were here to help me understand the rules.
By the second day my worry had dulled, though I kept alert. Alex had devised a game plan that I stuck to: when in doubt, haul ass. So far, nothing had given me real cause to be so drastic. But, it was only Tuesday.
“Lord, again?” Angelica moved her head, coming off her break to glance at the at-capacity tables, those dark eyes glaring when the largest of the two guards took out his phone, fingers working over the screen, his attention trained on the pair of us.
“Again,” I told her, giving the men my back as I fussed with the scones Angelica had put in the oven before she stepped out. “And I’m sure tomorrow will be a ‘Lord again’ morning too.”
“The thing about this place, honey—” Angelica held her explanation when another guard walked through the door, taller than even Mr. Beefy Buzz Cut. “The thing is,” she tried again, those big eyes trained on the man’s backside when he turned to speak to his fellow no-necks. “Now that, I don’t mind seeing every morning.”
“You know him?” The movement of me stocking the display with biscuits brought Angelica’s gaze away from the suits and right to me.
“Nobody really knows Carelli’s men except people in that family.” She brushed a long braid from her forehead, twisting it back under the wrap she wore but didn’t seem able to keep her attention away from the man across the bakery.
There was still a bit of glitter on her cheeks and under her big eyes, as though she hadn’t quite gotten all the makeup and mess from her skin after whatever festivities she’d gotten up to on New Year’s Eve.
“But you’d like to get to know that one?” I asked, moving my chin toward the newest no-neck occupant. Angelica not worrying helped to keep my worry at bay, but I remained cautious.
“What? Hell no. He’s way too young for me.” She glanced at me, unable to hide her grin and she shot a look across the lobby, pretending with a shake of her shoulders that she hadn’t. “Besides, everyone in Cuoricino knows not to mess with Smoke Carelli’s men.”
“Does that have something to do with the bulges at their waists?” I whispered, glancing at those gun-shapes again. I repressed a shiver that ran up my spine. I’d seen too many men like these, all of them with their own gun-shaped bulges.
“I
don’t know anything about all that.” Angelica was lying or at least, she was pretending to play dumb. But I recognized the disregard, the flippant play of mock innocence and I understood why she thought it was necessary. Sometimes those bulges disappeared and with those disappearances, came chaos, violence, and fear.
She went back to the display case, placing more scones next to the batch I’d organized. “I do know you’ve caught the man’s attention…”
“No neck’s?” I frowned, trying to see if I could make out any differences between the men. All were thick and scary looking. All with shoulders that seemed to go right under their chins.
“Smoke’s.” The name left her mouth in a mumble and her attention went right to the crowd of goons.
I jerked around, giving my back to our non-paying customers. “Are you saying I should be worried?” Some of that worry latent returned.
“Well, no. Not really.” She straightened, fussing with the arrangement of the pastries. “But you’re new. And even if those roughnecks,” she nodded toward Carelli’s men, “are here every morning mean mugging you, don’t think the worst.”
“What’s the worst?” I asked, squinting at her.
“That the Carellis are a bunch of, you know…” She glanced at the guards, not staring for too long. “Shoot ’em up, bang-bang types.”
Turning, I glanced back at those bulges, head shaking. “Kind hard not to think that.”
“It’s not that big of a deal, the community fee.” Angelica lowered her voice, motioning for me to follow her into the kitchen. We lingered in the doorway with me facing the front of the bakery and Angelica leaning against the metal table near the sink. “I’m telling you because you don’t know. It’s…kind of expected. Every shop owner in town pays it.” When I cocked my eyebrow Angelica lifted her hands, giving up offering any advice. “But like I said, that’s not my business.”
There was a lot of dread and grief tied up with the worry threatening to suffocate me. Flashes of memory, broken and distorted moved around in my mind the longer those men camped out in my shop. It was hard to be sure which memories were real and which were nightmares.
But as I mentally sorted between the small pieces, things I remembered Jada saying broke through the fragments.
“Don’t let him win,” she’d say or “You’re stronger than they want you to believe.”
No one had my back like my best friend.
It was likely why her memory was the strongest.
It was those memories that gave me the power to stand up to the bullies when they came for me.
Angelica busied herself in the kitchen and I peeked a look over my shoulder, the tension in my chest easing when I spotted one of those big goons picking at his teeth and another nodding off in his seat.
Pathetic, I told myself.
Like every other bully in the world, if you chip away at what keeps them steady, they’ll be left with nothing solid to stand on.
“I’m not intimated by those fools.” Their expressions hadn’t shifted from blank stares and narrowed eyes in the past two days.
“Figure that much. I get the feeling you’re scrappy.”
“I’ve seen the likes of Smoke Carelli before.” If I were honest with myself, I’d admit to being impressed if not intimidated by the man when he had come calling three days after I opened. My realtor had informed me of this community fee, but when I asked for details about it, she couldn’t offer any.
“Why would I pay an extra five hundred a month for something we have no details on?”
“Well, that’s Cuoricino,” she’d said, her tone flippant. “You pay it, you’re protected.”
“From?”
“Ah… danger?”
Then my realtor distracted me with what a deal I was getting on Mrs. Watson’s supplies and top of the line appliances.
Smoke Carelli had walked into my shop like any other friendly neighbor waiting to welcome me to town. There had been nice pleasantries and compliments on how I’d set up the bakery. Then, the man twisted flattery and fear like a fishtail braid.
“I understand you had questions about the community fee,” he tried, walking around my shop, his attention on the display case filled with biscuits, scones, and pies.
I’d been ready to open the next morning. He turned, pushing a smile on his mouth that didn’t stay there.
“There’s no misunderstanding, Mr. Carelli. I’m just not going to pay it.”
The smile dropped, and a small line dented the space between his eyebrows. “Is that right?” His voice was smooth like honey bourbon, but I noticed the disappointment in his tone.
“It is.” Through the glass front window behind him I’d gotten my first glimpse of his men. Two of them. Enough to make a show of his power, not enough to seem like a that much of a threat. It was something my ex had always attempted but never could quite pull off. His show was always loud and flashy, public, and permanent.
That was when I realized what I was facing. That was when I understood coming to this town with the intent of forming an alliance might not have been a good call.
“You know Miss Anderson…”
“Look, Mr. Carelli, I’m trying to run a business. It’s the first time I’ve done that on my own. And unless this fee can be plainly explained and that explanation is reasonable and fair, you’re not getting a dime from me.”
His jaw tensed then, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he walked to the display case, squinting as he looked inside it, pausing when he noticed the open box of fresh baked cookies I intended to add to the case on top. He exhaled, suddenly looking more tired than annoyed but he paused, taking a cookie without invitation, and biting into it. “Disappointing,” he said and walked toward the door, slow and confident, and I was frozen by every gradual step.
He was a scary man, devastatingly beautiful, elegant, and he carried himself with a confidence I hadn’t seen in many. But I’d lived through a battle of my own. I’d come out the other side and now there was only one thing I had left to lose. Keeping her from my past life and the people in it was all that mattered to me now. Protecting my goddaughter and her grandparents took the little bit of cash I had left. Smoke Carelli wouldn’t cut into that.
Angelica glanced through the doorway, doing a poor job of hiding the smile that jumped across her mouth when the no-neck she seemed to like caught her eye. She moved back, arms crossed as she looked at me.
“Hell, sugar, just pay the damn thing. If you don’t, they’re not gonna leave, and fine as that man is, I got too much shit to do in one shift to be distracted by him.”
She dropped her shoulders when I shook my head, wordlessly telling her there was no way I would compromise.
“You’re stronger than they want you to believe.”
Nodding, I grinned at Angelica, moving my chin up. “Carelli might have an army of no-necks and the loyalty of every shop owner in town, but he doesn’t worry me.”
“No?” she said, lifting her eyebrows as though my forced confidence was impressive.
“I’ve seen worse than Smoke Carelli.”
“Well, you better do something.” She went to the oven, pulling open the door to check the cake baking inside. “Otherwise, the only thing you’ll sell in this bakery are the two cups of coffee Dino nurses throughout the day.”
“Dino?”
Angelica nodded, closing the door. “The biggest one? He’s Smoke’s right hand. A total teddy bear, but he’s a solider. Whatever Smoke tells him to do, Dino gets it done.”
“You said you worked for the family?”
She nodded again, twisting her mouth to one side. “At the restaurant. Why?”
“Food,” I told her, pushing off the wall. “What are the things men respond to most?”
Angelica laughed, hands on her hips. “Food and sex.” She lifted her eyebrows blinking like she expected me to offer a scandalous, impressive idea with my next breath. “You plan on turning this shop into something X-rated?”
“I’m
not that desperate.” She watched me as I pulled down a tray from shelf above the sink, grabbing several plates. “But if I know men, and I do,” I said as Angelica laughed at my wink, keeping her attention on my movements as the idea I had took root and had me moving fast. “I know those two things you mentioned make them all go a little goofy.”
She glanced at my shirt, to the buttons secured all the way to my collarbone. “You planning on a costume change? Maybe aiming to let that cleavage make an appearance?”
“No, God, nothing that obvious.” When I had the plates filled with cookies and scones, biscuits, and a few fresh croissants, I reached for the coffee mugs. “When you worked at the restaurant, did the owners feed Smoke’s men?”
“You kidding? Sometimes I thought they only worked for him for his mama’s lasagna.”
“Well, I don’t know if I can compete with Mrs. Carelli’s lasagna.” I filled the mugs, setting out the cream and sugar next to the soft butter in the center of the tray. “But I’ve been told my biscuits are slap-your-mama good.
She hurried to help me, grabbing another tray to set up more plates and mugs. “Oh, you about to fight dirty.”
“Angelica, my friend, that’s the only way I know how to fight.”
5
Dario
Ava had no clue. Three days since our date, and a few late night conversations that carried on past Jimmy Fallon’s final guest, my cell warming from use, and I’d still managed to keep the woman interested. And convinced my name was Marco.
“I made the apple tarts I told you about.” She was sweet, teasing me with her baked goods during our long talk last night. “And before you say anything, those are the only tarts here.” And her sass.
“I’d never call you a tart, darlin’.” The line was quiet, but I could make out her light breath in the background, like she knew I’d have something flirty to say. “But I might wish you’d act like one.”
It was easier on the phone. Even easier when I was a little buzzed like I’d been on our date. The whiskey gave me confidence. It made me feel almost like the old me again.
