Chapter 2 - The Name Her Father Never Mentioned
The first thing Vincent Costello did after being shot twice was complain about Mara's kitchen chair.
"That thing is trying to kill me."
Mara stared at him.
"You survived twelve armed men, a burning car, and apparently half the criminal population of Chicago, but my chair is where you draw the line?"
Vincent sat behind the bakery prep counter with his injured leg stretched out.
His suit jacket had been removed.
His shirt had been cut open at the side.
One bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his thigh.
The second had grazed his ribs.
Neither wound looked harmless.
Mara's hands were stained with blood.
She hated that.
Vincent's men had wanted to move him immediately.
Vincent refused.
Police sirens were already surrounding the block.
Leaving through the alley would have been reckless.
So Chicago's most feared crime boss was sitting beside forty pounds of bread flour while Mara pressed clean kitchen towels against his leg.
One of Vincent's men, a compact older man named Silvio, watched the front windows.
Another, Nico, kept checking his phone.
"Two patrol cars," Nico said. "Fire truck. Ambulance."
Mara looked at Vincent.
"You need the last one."
"No hospitals."
"Naturally."
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
"Is sarcasm your only response to dangerous situations?"
"No. Sometimes I bake."
A corner of Silvio's mouth twitched.
Vincent noticed.
Silvio immediately looked serious again.
Mara pressed harder against the wound.
Vincent's jaw tightened.
"That hurt?"
"No."
"Good. I was worried."
He studied her.
Mara wanted to ask about her father.
She didn't.
Not yet.
Her hands were shaking enough already.
Someone had shouted her name.
Someone had connected her dead father to Vincent Costello.
She needed facts before emotion turned everything into noise.
A knock sounded at the front entrance.
Everyone went still.
"Police," a voice called.
Mara looked toward Vincent.
"You cannot be serious."
Vincent pushed himself up.
Pain flashed across his face.
Silvio grabbed him.
"Back room."
Mara pointed toward the walk-in pantry.
"There's a storage space behind the flour racks."
Vincent looked at her.
"You have hidden rooms in a bakery?"
"It's Chicago."
That almost earned another smile.
Vincent disappeared behind the racks with Silvio and Nico.
Mara washed her hands fast.
Then she opened the front door.
Two officers stood beneath the awning.
One was young.
The other looked exhausted.
"Ma'am, you own this place?"
"Yes."
"Did you hear gunfire?"
Mara looked past them.
Smoke drifted above the alley.
Firefighters moved behind the building.
"Hard to miss."
"Did you see anyone?"
This was the moment.
Mara could tell them everything.
Twelve men.
Vincent.
Rafe.
The guns.
She could point toward the back room.
End it.
Except Rafe knew her name.
And Vincent knew why.
Police could arrest Vincent tonight.
That would not answer what happened to her father.
"I opened the door after the shooting started," Mara said. "I saw people running."
"How many?"
"Several."
"Recognize anyone?"
"No."
The lie tasted bitter.
The officer wrote something down.
"Stay inside tonight."
Mara almost laughed.
A little late.
When the police finally left, Mara locked the door.
She returned to the prep room.
Vincent emerged.
"You lied well."
She slapped him.
Silvio moved instantly.
Vincent raised one hand.
"Don't."
Mara's palm stung.
Vincent's cheek reddened.
"That was for my father."
"I figured."
"What happened to him?"
Vincent sat again.
"We need to leave."
"No."
"Mara."
"You know my name."
"So did Rafe."
"Exactly."
Vincent looked at Silvio.
"Clear the room."
Silvio hesitated.
"Boss."
"Now."
The men left.
Mara crossed her arms.
Vincent watched her for several seconds.
"Your father was Daniel Bell."
"You've done your research."
"I didn't need research."
Cold moved through her.
"You knew him."
Vincent looked toward the bakery sign visible through the front windows.
"Yes."
"How?"
"He drove trucks for my uncle."
Mara stared.
"No."
"He did."
"My father delivered flour."
"Later."
"You're lying."
Vincent said nothing.
Mara moved closer.
"My father was a baker."
"Your father became a baker."
One sentence.
That was all.
Yet suddenly half her childhood felt unstable.
Mara remembered her father refusing to talk about the years before opening the bakery.
Old scars on his hands.
Men who occasionally visited after closing.
Whispered conversations in the back office.
Her mother telling her never to ask questions.
She had assumed it was debt.
Business trouble.
Maybe gambling.
Anything except this.
Vincent continued.
"Daniel worked logistics. Trucks, warehouse routes, manifests."
"For criminals."
"Yes."
Mara looked away.
"Was he one?"
Vincent thought before answering.
"Sometimes good men do bad work because they think it will solve a temporary problem."
"That isn't an answer."
"It's the best one I have."
Mara looked back.
"Did you kill him?"
Vincent's face hardened.
"No."
"Did your people?"
"No."
"Did your family?"
A pause.
Tiny.
But she saw it.
Mara's stomach dropped.
"Who?"
Vincent exhaled.
"My uncle ordered Daniel's death."
The bakery seemed to shrink.
Mara gripped the steel counter.
"My father died in a car accident."
"It was made to look like one."
She wanted to scream.
Instead, nothing came out.
Vincent continued quietly.
"My uncle believed Daniel stole something."
"What?"
"Records."
"What records?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying again."
"I'm not."
Mara slammed her hand against the counter.
"You expect me to believe the great Vincent Costello doesn't know what his own uncle killed people over?"
"My uncle died eight years ago."
"My father died four years ago."
Vincent's expression changed.
"Exactly."
Mara went still.
"If your uncle was dead..."
"Someone used his old network."
Silence.
Vincent leaned forward.
"That's why Rafe shouted your father's name."
"Who is Rafe?"
"Rafael Kane. He worked security for my organization."
"Worked?"
"Until tonight."
Mara gave him a bitter laugh.
"Very strict employee policy."
"He knew my route. Knew my meeting location. Knew which guards would be absent."
"So someone inside betrayed you."
"Yes."
"And that someone knows about my father."
"Yes."
Mara paced toward the ovens.
Her brain ran too fast.
Her father.
Rafe.
The ambush.
Records.
Vincent.
"What did my father steal?"
Vincent's eyes dropped toward her apron.
Mara followed his gaze.
A strange detail surfaced in her memory.
Her father had been obsessed with the bakery books.
Paper books.
Even after Mara moved payroll and suppliers into software, Daniel insisted on keeping old handwritten ledgers.
After he died, she boxed them.
Basement storage.
She turned toward the floor.
Vincent saw the realization.
"What?"
Mara headed toward the cellar door.
He grabbed the counter and tried to stand.
"Where are you going?"
"My father kept records."
They went downstairs.
The cellar smelled of yeast, cardboard, and damp concrete.
Mara found the old boxes beneath a metal shelf.
Daniel Bell.
Taxes.
Suppliers.
Equipment.
2017.
2018.
2019.
She opened them.
Normal bakery paperwork.
Receipts.
Invoices.
Nothing criminal.
Vincent leaned against the wall, pale from blood loss.
"Mara."
"Give me a minute."
She pulled the last box out.
Underneath it was a wooden flour crate she had never opened.
The lid was nailed shut.
Mara grabbed a pry bar.
Vincent watched.
"You keep a pry bar near flour?"
"I've owned a business twelve years."
Fair enough.
She broke the lid.
Inside were old papers wrapped in plastic.
A photograph.
A ledger.
And a USB drive.
Mara picked up the photograph first.
Three men stood beside a delivery truck.
One was Daniel Bell.
Younger.
Harder.
The second was Vincent.
Maybe twenty-five.
The third man was unfamiliar.
Blond.
Mara stared.
Rafe.
Except younger.
She turned the photograph over.
Her father's handwriting covered the back.
If anything happens to me, don't trust the Costellos.
Underneath that sentence was another.
Except Vincent.
Mara looked up.
Vincent had gone pale for reasons unrelated to blood loss.
"You've seen this before."
"No."
"You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"Looking like a man who just saw a ghost."
Vincent held out his hand.
Mara gave him the photo.
He studied it.
Then the ledger.
"Daniel kept copies."
"Of what?"
Vincent opened the first page.
Numbers.
Dates.
Shipping routes.
Names.
Payments.
Then one repeated notation.
Harrow.
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
Mara noticed.
"Who is Harrow?"
Before he answered, the bakery lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the cellar.
Mara's phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED INSIDE.
Then another.
Your father didn't.
Mara looked at Vincent.
He had already drawn a pistol from beneath his shirt.
May you like
Upstairs, glass shattered.
Someone had entered the bakery.
