Chapter 3 - THE DINNER AT THE BASTION"You brought them here," I whispered, the reality crashing down on me like an anvil. "You dragged a target to my front door."
"I brought my niece to get a pastry," Matteo replied, his jaw hardening into granite. "The fact that your grandfather happened to be a ghost from my bloodline was an unfortunate coincidence. But now it’s our reality."
He stepped toward the heavy service door that led into the back alley. "We have approximately ninety seconds before that vehicle makes its third pass. You can either stay here and explain to the Moretti soldiers why you have the Vescari crest sitting above your coffee grinder, or you can come with me."
"I have dough proofing!"
Matteo stared at me as though I had lost my mind. "Leave the bread, Emily."
"This is my livelihood!"
"You won't have a livelihood if you're stuffed into the trunk of a stolen Buick!" He reached out, his gloved fingers closing around my wrist with inescapable firmness. He didn't twist or hurt me, but his grip was unyielding. "Coat. Now."
Ten seconds later, I was thrust through the back door into the freezing drizzle, my flour-dusted canvas jacket clutched around my chest. Matteo shoved me into the leather interior of the black SUV just as the muffled crack of a silenced pistol echoed off the brick walls of the alleyway.
A bullet chipped the stone lintel where I had stood moments before.
The SUV surged forward, the tires screeching on the wet cobbles as Matteo’s driver spun the wheel hard, launching us into the morning traffic. Sofia sat pressed against the opposite door, her knees pulled to her chest, her eyes wide with terror.
I whipped around to glare at Matteo, who was already on an encrypted phone, speaking in clipped, lethal Italian. He snapped the phone shut and looked at me.
"Welcome to the family," he muttered dryly.
"Don't flatter yourself," I panted, wiping rain and flour from my cheek. "You're taking me back the second the police clear that block."
"The police aren't clearing that block, Emily. My people are. And you aren't going back until I know who authorized that tail."
An hour later, the SUV passed through massive wrought-iron gates set into a fifteen-foot limestone wall on the cliffs of Oyster Bay. The house wasn't a home; it was a fortress disguised as an English manor, surrounded by manicured yews, sweeping lawns, and men in dark overcoats carrying tactical rifles behind manicured hedges.
Inside, the foyer was vaulted with arched timber and lit by heavy iron candelabras. Standing at the foot of the sweeping staircase was the woman from the bakery—Matteo’s sister, Carmela—dressed in an immaculate ivory wool dress. Beside her stood a matriarch whose face looked carved from Tuscan travertine.
"Matteo," the older woman spoke, her voice carrying the dry authority of a judge passing down a life sentence. "You bring guests through the service gate like thieves?"
Carmela let out a breathless shriek of recognition. "It’s her! The baker! Mama, she threw bread flour right into his face! Five thousand dollars worth of cashmere, ruined!"
The matriarch’s coal-black eyes settled on me, traveling from my scuffed work boots to my messy braid, then down to the flour clinging to my jacket.
"You are the girl," the old woman said, stepping closer with the aid of an ebony cane. "The one who does not fear my son."
"I don't know your son," I said plainly, chin up, refusing to shrink back. "I was kidnapped from my kitchen, and if my ovens burn down, someone is paying me for thirty loaves of country sourdough."
A beat of pure silence hung over the grand hall. Carmela looked terrified. The armed guards at the perimeter subtly shifted their weight.
Then, the old woman’s chest heaved, and she let out a loud, booming laugh that echoed into the rafters.
"Finally," she declared, tapping her cane sharply on the marble floor. "A woman who understands the value of flour over blood. Carmela, set another place for dinner. My son’s fiancee will eat with us."
"I am not his fiancee!" I protested.
May you like
Matteo stepped beside me, his arm sliding around my waist with the authority of an emperor claiming a province. His fingers dug lightly into the wool of my jacket, keeping me pinned against his side.
"Let it go, Emily," he murmured, his breath warm against my temple. "Dinner with Mama is far less dangerous than the men waiting in your alley."
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