Chapter 6 - Shadows on Main Street
The front door didn't wait for Arthur to unlock it. With a loud crack of splintering pine, the latch gave way, and the door swung inward against the wall.
Two men stepped into the warmth of the bakery, bringing the cold damp of the West Virginia night with them. They weren't local loggers or down-on-their-luck mill workers. They wore tailored wool overcoats, polished leather boots, and carried themselves with the effortless, casual menace of men who collected debts for a living.
At the front of the pair was a younger man with sharp, clean-shaven features, slicked-back dark hair, and a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Uncle Gino sends his regards," Vincent Vance—no, Vincent Moretti, Rocco’s cousin and enforcer—said smoothly, stepping over the threshold and brushing a speck of dust off his sleeve. He stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes swept across the room and landed squarely on the man sitting in the secondhand wheelchair.
The room went dead silent.
Vincent’s smile vanished. His jaw went slack for a fraction of a second before his professional composure snapped back into place. He took off his leather gloves, folding them slowly in his hands.
"Well," Vincent murmured, walking further into the bakery, his hard eyes flicking from Arthur to Elena, and finally back to Rocco. "To think the great Rocco Castellano—the ghost of Boston Harbor—is hiding out in a rural bakehouse playing beggar. Uncle Gino was worried sick. He thought you’d been kidnapped. Or worse, that you’d lost your mind."
Rocco didn't move an inch. His face hardened into the impenetrable mask he had worn in the boardrooms of Boston. "How did you find me?"
"You left a trail of breadcrumbs, cousin," Vincent said, stepping closer, though he kept a respectful two-meter distance from the wheelchair. "A discounted bus ticket bought with cash in Albany. A motel registry signed with a fake name in Pittsburgh. It wasn't hard for a man with resources to trace a man who forgot how to disappear."
Arthur stepped in front of Elena, his large frame blocking her from Vincent’s view. "Get out of my shop. You broke my door. That's trespassing and property damage."
Vincent didn't even look at Arthur. He kept his eyes locked on Rocco. "Is this the charity case, Rocco? Is this why you threw away a billion-dollar shipping empire? For a stale cinnamon roll and a girl with flour on her apron?"
Rocco’s voice, when it finally broke the silence, was cold enough to frost the glass. "This conversation has nothing to do with them, Vincent. Tell Gino I’m not coming back."
"Gino doesn't want you to come back," Vincent said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, conspiratorial purr. "Not the old way, anyway. Gino sent me to clean up the loose ends. Ray Kesler’s dying words caused quite a stir in the family archives. We found Ray’s personal safe in his Boston apartment. Do you know what was inside it, Rocco?"
Rocco’s eyes narrowed. "What?"
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Vincent pulled a thick, yellowed manila folder from inside his overcoat and tossed it onto the counter next to the sugar shaker.
"The original deeds to the Cedar Hollow timberlands," Vincent smiled. "Signed over fifty years ago, never formally filed, and worth roughly forty million dollars in mineral and logging rights today. Uncle Gino wants his property back. And he figured since you were already here playing pilgrim, you could sign the transfer papers yourself."
