The black armored SUV idles at the curb of 4th Street, its tinted windows smeared with the grimy residue of the morning mist. Through the glass, the neighborhood looks gray and half-awake. The sign above the door—Romano’s Artisanal Bakeshop—hangs slightly askew, a gold-leaf letter R peeling at the edge.
To anyone else, it’s a quiet storefront. To the men in the car, it’s a crime scene waiting to happen.
Dante sits beside me, his massive frame dressed in a charcoal three-piece suit that makes him look less like a mob boss and more like an executioner on his way to a boardroom. He doesn't look at the bakery. His amber eyes are glued to the side-view mirror, tracking a nondescript sedan parked half a block down.
"Marco," Dante says, his voice a flat, dead line of authority.
"Already on it, boss," Marco replies from the front passenger seat. He clicks a button on his radio. "Team two, pinch the sedan on the corner. No noise."
I watch out the window as two large men in dark jackets casually step out of an alleyway near the sedan. They don't draw weapons. They simply flank the car, and a second later, the sedan's brake lights flash once before the vehicle slowly pulls away, escorted into the shadows.
"The perimeter is clear," Dante murmurs, his large hand settling over my knee. The heat of his palm cuts through the thin fabric of my tailored trousers. "We have five minutes before the Lucchesi scouts realize their lookouts went missing. Move."
He opens the door and steps out, his hand instantly reaching back to pull me into the damp morning air. He doesn't carry me this time; he keeps me tucked tightly against his flank, his long strides forcing me to move fast across the cracked sidewalk. Marco and another guard follow a pace behind, their hands buried inside their coats.
I pull my keys from my pocket, my fingers trembling slightly as I slide the brass key into the lock of the bakery door. The lock turns with a familiar, heavy click, and the scent of yeast, vanilla, and old flour rushes out to greet me.
Step inside, and it feels like stepping into a different lifetime. The metal mixing bowls are stacked neatly by the sink. The industrial ovens are cold and silent, their massive iron doors looking like vault entryways. For seven years, this room was my entire world. Now, it feels like a cage I barely escaped.
"Where is it?" Dante asks, his leather shoes making a gritty sound on the flour-dusted floorboards as he closes the door behind us and throws the deadbolt.
"In the back. The dry storage," I whisper, my voice echoing strangely in the empty kitchen.
I lead him past the heavy marble pastry slabs toward the walk-in pantry. The air here is cooler, smelling faintly of burlap and cinnamon. In the corner sit three massive, hundred-pound aluminum bins filled with unbleached flour.
"Behind the center one," I say, pointing a finger at the heavy metal drum. "There's a false wood panel in the wainscoting. My father had it installed when the gaming commissions started auditing the family businesses."
Dante doesn't hesitate. He steps past me, his broad shoulders easily crowding out the narrow space of the pantry. He grabs the lip of the heavy aluminum bin. With a single, fluid heave of his arms, he slides the hundred-pound drum across the floor, the metal scraping sharply against the concrete.
He drops to one knee, his charcoal trousers pressing into the white dust on the floor. His long, calloused fingers trace the seam of the wooden paneling until he finds the hidden latch. With a sharp crack, the wood gives way, revealing a small, black digital wall safe embedded in the brickwork behind it.
"He changed the code every month," I say, my heart hammering against my ribs as I lean over his shoulder. "But he always used the same formula. The year the first Romano bakery opened, backward."
"Nineteen-eighty-four," Dante murmurs, his amber eyes narrowing as his fingers hover over the keypad.
"Backward," I remind him.
He taps the numbers into the pad: 4-8-9-1.