Chapter 1 - The Woman in the Pink Apron
By eleven forty-seven that night, Mara Bell had stopped pretending the pain in her lower back would go away.
It wouldn't.
She had been on her feet since five that morning, shaping sourdough, filling cannoli, glazing lemon cakes, unloading twenty-pound bags of flour, arguing with a supplier who swore he had delivered six boxes of butter when Mara could clearly count four.
The bakery smelled warm enough to make anyone outside jealous.
Yeast.
Sugar.
Coffee.
Toasted almonds.
Behind the front windows, Chicago looked like a different planet.
Rain hammered South Halsted in silver sheets, cold enough to sting skin, while a hard February wind pushed trash down the curb and rattled the old metal sign above Bell & Daughter Bakery.
Mara hated that sign.
Not because she hated the bakery.
She loved it more than almost anything.
She hated the word Daughter.
Her father had painted it himself twenty-three years earlier when she was twelve, standing on a shaky ladder while her mother yelled through the doorway that he was going to break his neck.
Her mother had been gone nine years now.
Her father, four.
The sign stayed.
Mara stayed.
Most nights, that felt like loyalty.
Some nights, it felt like being trapped in a promise made by dead people.
She slid the last tray of rosemary loaves from the oven and set it on the cooling rack.
"Done," she muttered.
The bakery was empty.
No customers.
No employees.
No delivery drivers.
Just Mara, the old refrigerator compressor, and rain.
She looked down at herself.
Flour covered the chest of her white shirt.
Her pink apron had a streak of chocolate on one side and dried raspberry filling on the other.
Her blond hair, tied in a high ponytail with a faded pink scarf, had escaped in loose curls around her face.
She looked ridiculous.
She felt worse.
Mara switched off the oven lights.
That's when she heard the first shout.
It came from the alley behind the bakery.
She stopped moving.
Chicago taught people which sounds belonged to them and which sounds did not.
Drunks arguing outside a bar?
Not yours.
A car alarm?
Definitely not yours.
Someone yelling about parking?
God help them, but still not yours.
This sound was different.
One male voice.
Sharp.
Controlled.
Then another voice.
Then the unmistakable clatter of metal against pavement.
Mara stared at the steel back door.
Her first instinct was simple.
Lock it.
Call 911.
Stay inside.
That was what a reasonable person did.
Mara reached for her phone.
A gunshot cracked through the alley.
Her thumb froze over the screen.
Another gunshot followed.
Then silence.
Not ordinary silence.
The kind that swallowed everything around it.
Even the rain seemed quieter.
Mara should have called the police from behind the locked door.
Instead, she moved toward it.
"Idiot," she whispered to herself.
She unlocked the deadbolt.
The door groaned when she pushed it open.
Cold rain slapped her face.
The alley stretched between brick buildings, narrow and black, lit by one flickering security lamp and the distant glow of the street.
At first, Mara saw only silhouettes.
Then her eyes adjusted.
Her stomach tightened.
A man stood against the far wall.
Barely.
He was tall, dark-haired, broad across the shoulders, dressed in what had once been an expensive charcoal suit.
Now the jacket was soaked.
His white shirt was dark at the side.
One leg trembled under him.
He had been shot.
Mara knew that before she saw the blood.
She saw it in the way he kept one hand against the wall.
The way his jaw clenched each time he shifted his weight.
The way he refused to sit down because sitting down in front of the men surrounding him would look too much like surrender.
There were twelve of them.
Mara counted twice.
Twelve.
Several carried pistols.
Two had compact rifles held low.
The blond man in front held a black handgun loosely at his side.
He looked relaxed.
That frightened Mara more than the weapon.
"End of the line, Vincent," he said.
Vincent.
Mara's eyes went back to the wounded man.
No.
Surely not.
Then he raised his face toward the light.
Vincent Costello.
People who had never met him knew the name.
Restaurant owners knew it.
Contractors knew it.
Men who operated trucking companies, nightclubs, warehouses, unions, security firms, and businesses that never appeared on tax forms knew it.
Mara's father had once told her, "If you hear the Costello name, keep baking."
She had laughed.
He hadn't.
Vincent Costello had a reputation that changed depending on who told the story.
Monster.
Protector.
Criminal.
Businessman.
Killer.
A man who paid hospital bills for widows and broke the hands of men who betrayed him.
Mara had never cared enough to decide which version was true.
Now he was thirty feet away, bleeding into the rain.
The blond man lifted his pistol.
"So this is how the great Vincent Costello dies."
Vincent said nothing.
No begging.
No threats.
No dramatic speech.
He simply looked at the man.
Calm.
Almost bored.
Mara could not understand how anyone bleeding that badly could look bored.
She stepped into the alley.
Every gun turned toward her.
Her breath caught.
One of the men laughed.
"Well, look at this."
Another whistled.
The blond leader looked her over from sneakers to flour-covered apron.
"Go back inside, sweetheart."
Mara's mouth went dry.
"This doesn't concern you," he added.
She looked at Vincent.
He looked back.
His eyes were darker than she expected.
There was no plea in them.
That made it worse.
If he had begged, maybe she could have hated him enough to walk away.
Instead, he simply watched her as though he was trying to understand why she had opened the door.
Mara shoved her hands into the pockets of her apron.
She felt the hard square shape of her old Zippo lighter.
Her father's lighter.
She carried it even though she had never smoked.
The blond man sighed.
"What are you doing?"
Mara forced herself to speak.
"I'm trying to close my bakery."
A few men laughed.
"You're making that difficult."
More laughter.
Cruel laughter.
Easy laughter.
The kind people used when they were certain nothing in the world could touch them.
Mara had heard men laugh like that before.
Years earlier.
Behind another door.
That memory moved through her like ice.
She buried it.
The blond man smiled.
"You've got nerve."
"I've got bread burning."
That was a lie.
He chuckled.
"Go inside."
Mara glanced toward the ground.
Water ran between cracks in the pavement.
Broken glass glittered near a dumpster.
An overturned metal can lay near a dark sedan parked at the mouth of the alley.
A thin liquid streamed from beneath the car.
At first Mara thought it was rainwater.
Then she smelled it.
Gasoline.
Her eyes followed the trail.
It ran from the vehicle.
Across the alley.
Past three of the armed men.
Toward the drain several feet from Mara.
Her fingers tightened around the lighter.
Vincent saw her look.
His eyes shifted.
Car.
Fuel.
Lighter.
Back to Mara.
A tiny change crossed his face.
Understanding.
The blond man noticed.
"What are you two looking at?"
"Nothing," Mara said.
His smile disappeared.
He took two steps toward her.
Mara's heartbeat jumped.
"Let me give you some advice," he said. "People live longer when they understand when they're irrelevant."
That word hit something inside her.
Irrelevant.
Her father had said something else once.
Never let cruel men decide your size for you.
Mara slowly removed her hand from her pocket.
The Zippo remained hidden inside her palm.
The blond man looked amused again.
"Good girl."
Mara hated him for that.
She stepped sideways.
Vincent's voice came for the first time.
"Don't."
It was low.
Rough.
Mara looked at him.
He wasn't telling the blond man not to hurt her.
He was talking to her.
Don't do what you're thinking.
Mara almost laughed.
Of course.
Chicago's most feared man had twelve guns pointed at him and somehow he had decided she was the dangerous one.
The blond leader turned.
"Still giving orders?"
Vincent's gaze stayed on Mara.
"She's not part of this."
"She is now."
The blond man raised his pistol toward her.
Everything inside Mara went still.
Fear did strange things.
Movies made it loud.
Screaming.
Panic.
Shaking.
For Mara, real fear became quiet.
She could hear one loose gutter pipe tapping the brick.
She could hear Vincent breathing.
She could hear rain striking the metal dumpsters.
She could hear the click as the blond man's finger touched the trigger guard.
Mara opened the lighter.
Click.
Twelve heads turned.
The tiny flame appeared.
The laughter vanished.
Mara held the flame waist-high.
The blond man's eyes dropped toward it.
Then toward the pavement.
He saw the gasoline.
His face changed.
"Put that out."
Mara almost smiled.
"See?"
Her voice shook despite her best effort.
"Now I'm relevant."
One of the armed men backed away.
Another looked toward the sedan.
"Rafe..."
So the blond man's name was Rafe.
Rafe raised his free hand.
"Nobody move."
Mara's fingers trembled around the lighter.
She had no intention of dropping it.
Gasoline fires were not tidy movie explosions.
They spread.
People burned.
Buildings burned.
Her bakery could burn.
She knew that.
Vincent knew that.
The armed men didn't know what she was willing to risk.
That was enough.
For six seconds.
Then someone behind Rafe panicked.
Mara saw the movement too late.
A younger man lunged toward her.
Vincent moved at the same time.
Despite the wound in his leg, he slammed his shoulder into Rafe.
A gun fired.
Mara flinched.
The lighter flew from her hand.
It hit the wet pavement.
The flame stayed alive.
For one impossible second, nobody breathed.
Then the lighter rolled.
Straight toward the gasoline.
"Oh, hell," Mara whispered.
Rafe screamed.
Men scattered.
Vincent grabbed Mara around the waist and pulled her behind a steel dumpster.
The flame touched the fuel.
Fire raced across the pavement.
Fast.
Bright.
Hungry.
The sedan erupted along one side, not in some giant Hollywood blast, but in a violent roar of heat and burning fuel.
Men shouted.
Weapons clattered.
Someone fired blindly.
Mara ducked.
Vincent covered her with his body.
Glass shattered somewhere above them.
The bakery's rear window cracked.
"Stay down," Vincent ordered.
"I'm trying!"
The fire cut the alley in two.
Several attackers fled toward the street.
Others scrambled toward a rear fence.
Rafe stood on the opposite side, staring through the flames.
His face was no longer amused.
It was furious.
He pointed at Mara.
"You stupid woman!"
Mara crouched behind the dumpster.
"That seems unnecessary."
Vincent gave her a sharp look.
Even wounded, even in the middle of chaos, he seemed momentarily confused by her.
Then a vehicle screeched at the alley entrance.
Black SUV.
Another.
Three men jumped out.
Vincent's men.
Mara assumed.
Gunfire erupted.
Short.
Controlled.
Rafe disappeared into the rain with two surviving attackers.
The alley became a maze of smoke, water, shouting, and emergency sirens approaching from several blocks away.
Vincent tried to stand.
His wounded leg buckled.
Mara caught his arm.
He was heavier than she expected.
"You're bleeding all over my apron," she said.
He stared at her.
"I'll buy you another."
"That's not the point."
"It usually is."
Mara dragged him toward the bakery door.
One of Vincent's men ran over.
"Boss."
"I'm fine."
"You've been shot."
"I noticed."
Mara pushed open the back door.
"Inside."
Vincent looked toward the alley.
"Police will be here in minutes."
"Then perhaps you should stop standing where everyone can see you."
For the first time, something almost human appeared in his expression.
Not a smile.
Close.
His men carried him inside.
Mara reached for the steel door.
Before she could close it, Rafe's voice came faintly from the far end of the alley.
"Mara Bell!"
She froze.
Vincent froze too.
Rafe stood beyond the rain and smoke.
He knew her name.
Mara had never seen him before in her life.
Rafe smiled across the distance.
Then he shouted one sentence.
"Ask Vincent what happened to your father!"
Mara stopped breathing.
Vincent's face changed.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
That frightened her more than the guns had.
Rafe vanished into the night.
Mara slowly turned toward Vincent Costello.
Her father's old lighter burned somewhere outside in the rain.
Vincent looked at her.
May you like
And Mara understood that opening the bakery door had not dragged her into a stranger's war.
Somehow, she had already been inside it.
