Chapter 5 - The Night Roman Chose the Bakery
Marcus Hale stood near the front counter as if he belonged there.
That was the unsettling part.
He wasn’t shouting.
Wasn’t threatening anyone.
He simply removed his gloves and placed them beside the register.
Roman stood between him and the back hallway.
I watched from the staircase with Lily behind me.
Marcus glanced toward us.
“There you are.”
Roman’s voice dropped.
“Look at me.”
Marcus did.
“You’re not speaking to her.”
“You’ve always had that habit.”
“What habit?”
“Believing you can control who people speak to.”
Roman didn’t move.
Marcus smiled.
“I spent fifteen years solving your problems.”
“Apparently creating some too.”
The smile faded.
“You found Elena’s recording.”
Not a question.
Roman said nothing.
Marcus looked toward the basement door.
“And the ledger?”
“Not yet.”
Marcus laughed.
“Then you still don’t understand.”
I stepped fully into the room.
“What is there to understand?”
Roman turned.
“Clare, take Lily downstairs.”
“No.”
Marcus studied me.
“So you’re the baker.”
“I have a name.”
“I know.”
That chilled me.
Roman moved slightly closer to him.
“What do you want?”
“The letter.”
Lily whispered behind me.
“I don’t have it.”
Marcus looked past Roman.
“Yes, you do.”
Roman’s posture changed.
A quiet warning.
“Leave.”
Marcus ignored him.
“Your mother made mistakes, Lily.”
Roman grabbed the front of his coat.
“Enough.”
Marcus lifted both hands.
No fight.
No drama.
Just a calm man facing another calm man, which somehow felt more dangerous than shouting.
“Roman,” Marcus said quietly. “Ask yourself something. If I wanted to hurt Lily, why would I walk into a public bakery?”
“Because you think you still have leverage.”
Marcus smiled.
“There he is.”
Roman released him.
Marcus adjusted his coat.
“Daniel’s death was natural.”
Lily flinched.
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“But Daniel discovered something before he died,” Marcus continued. “Something Elena misunderstood.”
“What?”
Marcus looked at Lily.
“The truth about your father.”
Roman said, “Stop.”
“No. She deserves to hear it.”
“You don’t decide that.”
“Neither did you.”
Marcus turned toward the door.
Before leaving, he looked back.
“When you read Elena’s letter, Roman, remember that she didn’t trust you enough to give it to you herself.”
Then he left.
Roman didn’t move for several seconds.
Finally, he turned toward Lily.
“Where is the letter?”
Lily looked terrified.
Not of him.
Of the answer.
“Mom gave it to me two days before she died.”
“And told you to hide it?”
“She said only give it to you if something happened to her.”
Roman looked wounded.
“Something did.”
“I was scared.”
He closed his eyes.
Lily started crying.
“I thought if I gave it to you, whatever happened to her would happen to you too.”
Roman crossed the room.
He stopped several feet away.
Then, instead of touching her, he crouched.
“You were trying to protect me?”
She nodded.
His voice broke slightly.
“You should never have had to do that.”
That was the moment Lily finally stepped forward.
Roman wrapped his arms around her.
I looked away.
Not because it was private.
Because something about watching him hold her while she cried felt too honest.
Twenty minutes later, Lily brought the letter from a hidden compartment inside her backpack.
Roman opened it at one of my bakery tables.
Clare wasn’t written on the envelope.
Only Roman.
He read silently.
His face went through several changes.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Then pain.
He handed it to Lily.
She read.
Roman,
Daniel came to me before he died.
He believed Marcus had used his name to move money through several companies. Daniel confronted him.
Marcus convinced Daniel that the transactions were meant to protect the family.
Daniel believed him.
For a while.
Then Daniel discovered that Marcus and Andrew had been paying officials to influence public contracts.
Daniel wanted to expose everything.
The night before Daniel died, he argued with Marcus.
I don’t believe Marcus caused Daniel’s heart attack.
But I believe the stress of what he learned contributed to it.
Daniel died believing he had helped criminals steal under his own family’s name.
He made me promise to protect Lily.
I started investigating after his death.
Vincent helped me secretly.
Roman, if something happens to me, do not blame Vincent.
And do not blame yourself.
Marcus has spent years making everyone distrust one another.
That is how he survives.
There is one original ledger proving everything.
Daniel hid it somewhere connected to the bakery on Ashland Avenue.
I think he chose the location because the property was owned through a company Marcus didn’t know Daniel controlled.
Find it.
Elena.
Roman lowered his head.
Vincent hadn’t been the enemy.
Marcus had.
But something still bothered me.
“Why would Daniel hide the ledger here?”
Roman looked around.
“This building belonged to him.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Through a shell company.”
“You mean I bought Honey & Rye from your brother?”
“Technically.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
Roman stood.
“Unless someone sold it after Daniel died without knowing what was hidden here.”
“Marcus?”
“Possibly.”
We searched again.
Every shelf.
Every wall.
Every floorboard.
At 2:00 a.m., I sat on the kitchen floor beside Roman.
“You realize I open in ninety minutes.”
“You’re not opening.”
“You don’t make that decision.”
“You haven’t slept.”
“I regularly make bread while mildly hallucinating.”
“That is not comforting.”
Lily had fallen asleep upstairs in my office.
Sophia stayed with her.
Vincent had arrived an hour earlier.
Roman had apologized.
Vincent had accepted with exactly one sentence.
“You’re still an idiot.”
Apparently family healing in the Dawson world was concise.
Roman leaned against the cabinet beside me.
“Why did you buy this place?”
“My grandmother.”
He looked over.
“She baked?”
“Every Sunday.”
I smiled faintly.
“When my father died, I stopped talking much.”
Roman was silent.
“Grandma didn’t force me. She just gave me dough.”
“Dough?”
“Bread dough. Said you could tell a lot about a person by whether they punched it too hard.”
“What did she learn about you?”
“That I was angry.”
“Were you?”
“Very.”
“At your father?”
“At everyone.”
I looked toward the dark bakery.
“She taught me that bread needs time. You can’t bully dough into rising faster.”
Roman smiled.
“Is this your way of criticizing my parenting?”
“Yes.”
He laughed quietly.
Then his expression softened.
“You’re good with Lily.”
“She’s easy to love.”
Roman looked down.
“That’s exactly why I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Losing her.”
The answer was so simple that I had no joke ready.
I turned toward him.
“You can’t protect someone by making sure nothing reaches them.”
He met my eyes.
“What do you suggest?”
“Stand close enough that when something does reach her, she doesn’t face it alone.”
We sat there in silence.
Then Roman said, “You never answered Sophia’s question.”
“What question?”
“Whether you’re actually pretending.”
My heart kicked once.
“Roman.”
“I’m not asking for three weeks anymore.”
I stood too quickly.
“We have a ledger to find.”
He stood too.
“Clare.”
“Later.”
“You say that whenever you don’t want to answer.”
“I learned it from you.”
He stepped closer.
Not enough to crowd me.
Enough to make the air change.
“If I kissed you right now,” he said quietly, “would you throw flour again?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“How bad the kiss is.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
My pulse betrayed me.
Then a loud crash came from the basement.
We both turned.
Roman moved first.
The basement door was open.
Vincent stood halfway down the stairs.
“What happened?” Roman asked.
Vincent pointed.
A section of the wall had collapsed.
Behind it was an old built-in metal compartment.
Roman and I exchanged a look.
Inside was the ledger.
We knew before opening it.
A heavy book wrapped in plastic.
Original signatures.
Payments.
Dates.
Account numbers.
Names.
Everything Marcus had spent years hiding.
Roman stared at the pages.
“This ends it.”
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“You found what doesn’t belong to you.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“Marcus.”
The caller laughed.
Then said, “Check upstairs.”
Roman looked toward the ceiling.
We ran.
My office door stood open.
Sophia lay unconscious on the floor.
Alive.
Breathing.
But Lily was gone.
On my desk sat one new envelope.
Roman ripped it open.
Inside was a single line.
BRING THE LEDGER TO THE OLD DAWSON WAREHOUSE.
COME ALONE.
And beneath it:
OR LILY LEARNS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO LOSE ONE MORE PERSON.
Roman’s face went completely still.
I had seen him angry.
I had seen him afraid.
This was different.
He picked up the ledger.
“No.”
I grabbed his arm.
He looked at me.
“You’re not going alone.”
“Clare.”
“No.”
“This is my family.”
“And she came to my bakery for help.”
His jaw tightened.
“This is dangerous.”
“I know.”
“You could get hurt.”
“So could you.”
His eyes held mine.
“You matter to me.”
The words stopped everything.
Roman looked almost angry at himself for saying them.
I whispered, “Then come back.”
He stared at me.
I stepped closer.
“Come back with Lily.”
And then, before he could answer, I kissed him.
Brief.
Soft.
Terrified.
When I pulled away, his forehead rested against mine.
“That was unfair,” he murmured.
“Why?”
“Now I have another reason to come back.”
I swallowed.
“Good.”
Roman left.
But he didn’t go alone.
Not really.
Because while Marcus Hale believed Roman Dawson was bringing him the ledger he wanted, he had no idea we had already copied every page.
And he had no idea Lily had left one thing behind.
Her phone.
Still connected to a location-sharing app.
The dot on the screen was moving.
May you like
And it wasn’t heading toward the Dawson warehouse.
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