Chapter 2 - Bakers Don’t Carry Surgical Shears
Kora’s father lived behind a bakery that officially closed every night at nine.
At 10:18 p.m., Kora pounded on the steel service door with one hand while keeping the other pressed against Mateo’s side.
“Dad!”
Nothing.
She hit it again.
“Dad, open the door!”
Locks snapped.
The door opened six inches.
Samuel Voss stared at his daughter.
Then at the torn wedding dress.
Then at Mateo Bellini leaning against Gino.
Every trace of color left his face.
“No.”
“Move.”
“Kora—”
“He needs help.”
Samuel stepped backward.
The bakery smelled of yeast, cinnamon, and warm sugar.
It was absurdly peaceful compared with the burning chapel behind them.
Gino locked the door.
Samuel stood motionless.
“You brought him here?”
“You taught me not to let people die because I’m afraid.”
“That was a different life.”
“It’s the same life if somebody’s dying.”
Mateo opened his eyes.
“Samuel?”
The older man flinched.
Mateo had heard that name before.
Kora saw recognition trying to surface.
“We don’t have time,” she said.
Samuel’s jaw tightened.
Then the baker disappeared through the kitchen.
“Table.”
Gino blinked.
“What?”
“Put him on the stainless-steel table.”
Within thirty seconds Samuel stopped being a baker.
He opened a concealed cabinet.
Inside were sealed medical supplies.
Sterile gloves.
Sutures.
IV equipment.
Medication.
Gino stared.
“What kind of bakery is this?”
“The kind that keeps secrets,” Samuel said.
Kora removed the ruined upper layer of her dress, leaving the intact underslip beneath.
She washed her hands.
Samuel watched her.
“You remember?”
“All of it.”
“You haven’t done this in six years.”
“You don’t forget.”
Mateo remained conscious enough to hear them.
Six years.
Hospital.
Medical equipment.
A baker with a hidden surgical room.
Nothing about Kora Dominico—or Kora Voss, apparently—fit the story he had been told.
Samuel examined the injury.
“The fragment missed anything immediately catastrophic.”
“For now,” Kora said.
Samuel nodded.
“We stabilize him. Then we move him somewhere with imaging.”
Gino stepped closer.
“He can’t go anywhere Dominico controls.”
Samuel gave him a tired look.
“Then your boss has made dangerous enemies.”
“He usually does.”
For nearly an hour Kora worked beside her father.
Her hands never shook.
Only once did Mateo see something crack through her control.
Samuel called her “Doctor.”
Kora stopped.
So did Gino.
Mateo watched her face.
She continued working.
Gino whispered, “Doctor?”
“Not now.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“I said not now.”
Mateo closed his eyes.
A memory returned.
A photograph.
A young woman in navy scrubs standing beside a famous trauma surgeon.
He had seen it years earlier while investigating an unrelated hospital contract.
The surgeon had later died in a boating accident.
Dr. Samuel Voss.
Except Samuel Voss was standing ten feet away.
Alive.
Mateo opened his eyes again.
“You died.”
Samuel went still.
Kora slowly looked toward her father.
Mateo’s voice was barely audible.
“Dr. Samuel Voss died six years ago.”
Nobody spoke.
Gino frowned.
“What?”
Mateo continued.
“Lake Michigan. Boat explosion.”
Samuel removed his gloves.
“That was the official version.”
Kora looked furious.
“This isn’t the time.”
“No,” Mateo said. “Apparently it’s exactly the time.”
Samuel looked at him.
“If I explain, you become more dangerous alive than dead.”
Mateo almost laughed.
“That happens frequently.”
Kora stepped between them.
“We need a safe place.”
Samuel glanced toward the ceiling.
“There isn’t one anymore.”
The words were so quiet Kora almost missed them.
“What?”
Samuel walked to the front counter and picked up a small black tablet.
Security cameras showed four angles outside the bakery.
A dark SUV had stopped across the street.
Another vehicle appeared at the intersection.
Gino swore.
“How did they find us?”
Kora looked at Mateo.
Mateo shook his head.
“My phone?”
Gino removed it, crushed it beneath his shoe.
Samuel’s face hardened.
“That isn’t how.”
He walked toward Kora.
“Did Leo give you anything today?”
She looked down.
“My wedding ring.”
Samuel grabbed her hand.
The enormous diamond was still there.
He turned the ring beneath the light.
Then he found it.
A nearly invisible seam.
Samuel removed a precision tool from his cabinet.
Inside the setting was a tiny electronic component.
Gino stared.
“Tracker.”
Kora’s expression emptied.
Leo had tracked her.
Not Mateo.
Her.
From the moment she stepped into the chapel.
Samuel ripped the device free.
“We have maybe two minutes.”
Kora looked around the bakery where she had spent six years rebuilding her life.
The racks of cooling bread.
Her father’s handwritten recipes.
The blue apron she wore every morning.
“Where do we go?”
Samuel pulled a flour sack from beneath the counter.
Behind it was a floor safe.
He opened it.
Inside were passports.
Cash.
Three old phones.
And a sealed envelope bearing the Bellini family crest.
Mateo pushed himself upright.
“What is that?”
Samuel looked at him.
“It belongs to your father.”
“My father has been dead twelve years.”
“I know.”
“Why do you have it?”
Samuel handed the envelope to Kora.
She turned it over.
On the back, written in faded ink, were six words.
IF MATTEO SURVIVES, TELL HIM EVERYTHING.
Kora looked from the note to Mateo.
His father had misspelled his name in the exact same way he had when Mateo was a boy—two T’s, an old family joke nobody outside the Bellini house should have known.
Mateo’s face changed.
“This is real.”
Samuel nodded.
Outside, SUV doors opened.
Gino reached inside his jacket.
Samuel turned off the bakery lights.
Kora held the envelope against her chest.
“What did Mateo’s father know?”
Samuel looked at the shadowed figures approaching his door.
“The reason Saint Jude’s burned tonight.”
The first man reached the sidewalk.
May you like
Samuel lowered his voice.
“And the reason Leo Dominico was never supposed to marry you.”
