Chapter 9 - THE BAKERY ON FOURTH STREET
Roman's back arched over the stone parapet, eighty feet of empty air and crashing ocean surf directly beneath his shoulders.
Marcus had both hands locked around Roman's throat, putting all of his weight into pushing him over the edge, his scratched gold signet ring digging into Roman's collar. "Say hello to the rocks for me, Roman!"
I didn't let go of the wooden horse in my left hand.
With my right hand, I grabbed the heavy canister of camp fuel Marcus had dropped on the stones and swung the steel bottom with all my weight straight into the back of Marcus's knee.
His leg buckled with a loud pop.
The moment Marcus lost his leverage, Roman twisted his hips with brutal, practiced force. Using his uninjured left arm, Roman hooked the collar of Marcus's tuxedo jacket and flipped their positions, slamming Marcus flat onto the granite stones inside the wall while Roman rolled safely back onto solid ground.
Before Marcus could reach for his fallen pistol, the wail of six state police cruisers echoed through the vineyard rows. Uniformed troopers swarmed the bluff with rifles raised, kicking the gun away and pinning Marcus face-down into the dirt.
As the troopers hauled Marcus to his feet in handcuffs, the heavy gold ring with the scratched family crest slipped off his bloodied pinky finger and rolled across the stone, stopping right against my boot.
I picked it up and handed it to the lead state detective. "That's the ring that tore Vincent Moretti's coat on this cliff three years ago. You'll still find fibers caught beneath the crest."
Roman sat propped against the stone wall, breathing hard, blood seeping slightly through the fresh bandages under his sweater. He looked up at me as I knelt beside him and held out the three-legged wooden horse.
"You saved my nephew's toy," Roman rasped, his dark eyes soft with something that made my chest tighten. "And my life. Twice in one night."
"I told you," I said softly, brushing a lock of soot-stained dark hair from his forehead. "You still owe my dad a banister."
Four months later, the winter snow had finally melted off the brick sidewalks of Fourth Street in South Philadelphia.
A brass bell chimed above the freshly painted green door of Carter & Sons Bakery, and a gust of warm air smelling of roasted pecans, melted butter, and fresh cinnamon rolls washed out onto the street.
"Elena! Look!"
Six-year-old Leo Moretti came running up to the front counter, his cheeks pink from the March wind, wearing a little navy wool coat. He wasn't hiding behind anyone anymore. He wasn't whispering.
In both hands, he held his wooden horse.
My father, sitting in his favorite rocking chair beside the warm brick oven with a mug of coffee and a clean bill of health from the University Hospital cardiac team, leaned forward and smiled. "Well now, Leo, doesn't that look brand-new?"
"Daddy and I carved a new leg out of apple wood!" Leo announced proudly, setting the horse on the glass pastry case. "And Mommy painted the saddle blue!"
Behind him, Vincent and Clara walked through the door hand in hand. Vincent still walked with a slight limp, using a polished walnut cane, and the white scar on his temple had faded to a thin silver line, but he looked ten years younger. Clara looked radiant, her dark eyes shining as she wrapped a warm scarf around her son's neck.
With the micro-SD card from the wooden horse, federal prosecutors had dismantled the entire Vane syndicate in a matter of weeks. Arthur Moretti, Marcus, and Cassandra were serving consecutive federal sentences without the possibility of parole. And the city council's eminent domain transit project had been rerouted two blocks east to an abandoned warehouse district after the corruption scandal broke—leaving my quiet little street untouched.
"One dozen hot cinnamon rolls for the Moretti table," I said, sliding a heavy ceramic platter across the counter and kissing the top of Leo's head. "Extra cream cheese icing on the corner one."
"Thank you, Elena!" Leo beamed, grabbing a napkin before running over to show my father a drawing he'd made at his new first-grade class.
The bell above the bakery door chimed one more time.
I looked up, wiping my flour-dusted hands on my apron.
Roman Moretti stepped inside, shaking the March snow from the shoulders of his black wool coat. The terrifying mafia boss who had once locked a ballroom full of millionaires was gone; in his place stood a man who looked completely at peace.
He walked past the tables where his brother and sister-in-law were laughing with my father, and stopped right in front of my counter.
From his coat pocket, he pulled out a thick cream-colored envelope and set it down beside the cash register.
"What's this?" I asked softly. "You already signed the building deed back over to me in November, Roman."
"That's not for this building," Roman said, his deep voice warm and steady. "That's the deed to the empty storefront next door. I figured if you're going to expand the dining room before summer, we're going to need space for more tables."
I looked down at the envelope, then back up into his dark eyes. "Did you say we?"
Roman reached across the counter and gently took my flour-covered hand in his, his thumb brushing over my knuckles.
"My nephew refuses to eat breakfast anywhere else," Roman said, a slow, genuine smile warming his face. "And frankly, Elena... after forty-four years in the cold, I'd really like to stay somewhere warm."
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Over by the brick oven, Leo laughed out loud—a bright, clear sound that filled every corner of the bakery—while his wooden horse stood whole and unbroken on the table beside him. I looked at my father smiling from his chair, at the family we had pulled back from the dark, and I laced my fingers through Roman's.
"Pull up a chair, Mr. Moretti," I smiled. "The coffee's fresh."
