Chapter 2 - The Ledger Beneath The Bricks
The bell above the door chimed, and Clara felt her stomach drop.
She had spent the last two hours convincing herself that Roman Valenti was a phantom—a bad dream born of sleep deprivation, unpaid taxes, and too many nights breathing in wood smoke and baking powder. She had wiped down the counters three times. She had scrubbed the flour off the espresso machine. She had even checked on Lily, who was busy doing homework upstairs, completely unaware that her aunt had just started a small war with the most dangerous man in Massachusetts.
But the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in the doorway was entirely real.
This time, he didn't wear the dark overcoat. He wore a charcoal suit that fit him with terrifying precision, an open-collared white shirt, and sleeves pushed up to his forearms. No bodyguards followed him. No black luxury SUV idled at the curb. He walked in like a regular human being—if regular human beings possessed the terrifying gravity of a sinking ship.
Clara gripped a dish towel, her knuckles whitening.
"You're early," she said.
"I'm precisely on time," Roman replied, stepping up to the counter. He glanced at the glass display case, then back at her. "Ten o'clock. The sourdough should be ready."
"It's resting."
"Then I will wait."
He didn't move. He stood there, leaning slightly against the wooden edge of the counter, his pale gray eyes assessing the room, the walls, the old chalkboard menu, and finally, Clara herself.
"You're crazy," she whispered.
"People have told me worse."
"What do you want, Roman?" Using his first name felt like walking barefoot on broken glass, but she refused to call him Mr. Valenti. She refused to give him that inch of submission.
"I told you. Sourdough. And cinnamon."
"You didn't come back for bread."
"True." Roman crossed his arms. The movement pulled the fabric of his shirt tight across his chest, reminding her of how close he had stood just hours before. "I came back to talk about your kitchen floor."
Clara froze. The dish towel slipped from her fingers, landing softly on the flour-dusted counter.
"My floor?"
"The floorboards under your father's old brick oven," Roman said softly, his voice dropping an octave, slipping beneath the ambient hum of the bakery's refrigerator. "Specifically, the loose oak board near the corner pillar. The one held down by rusted iron screws."
Blood rushed in Clara's ears. A sudden, sharp chill pierced the warmth of the bakery.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You do." Roman leaned forward, resting his weight on his palms. "Your father, Thomas Evans, was a proud man. He took out loans from people who didn't use banks. When the neighborhood changed in the nineties, when protection money turned into hostile takeovers, Thomas didn't fold. But he didn't win either."
"My father was an honest baker," Clara snapped, her voice cracking with defensiveness. "He didn't deal with your kind."
"He didn't deal with my kind," Roman corrected gently. "He dealt with my uncle's regime. A very different beast. And when my uncle passed away, a lot of old paperwork went missing. Accounts receivable. Property deeds. Leverage."
Roman straightened up, his silver eyes locking onto hers with unblinking intensity.
"And a black ledger containing the names of every local business owner my family extorted, bought out, or ruined over thirty years. Your father kept it. He took it from my uncle's safe thirty-five years ago as insurance to keep this bakery alive. And when he died, he left it to you."
Clara's throat felt dry as sand. She remembered her father on his deathbed, whispering incoherent phrases about the bricks, about keeping the family safe, about never letting them take the foundation. She had thought it was delirium from the cancer. She had thought it was fever talk.
"There is nothing under the floor," she lied, though her voice shook so badly it sounded like an admission of guilt.
May you like
"Let's find out," Roman said.
Before Clara could move, Roman stepped past the counter entirely—not invading her space with hostility this time, but with absolute, terrifying purpose. He walked straight toward the heavy iron brick oven at the back of the kitchen, knelt down on the worn linoleum floor, and found the exact corner board she had tried to ignore her entire life.
