Chapter 6 - The Bakery Trap
Smoke rolled through Sophia’s front hallway.
Roman pushed me behind the kitchen wall.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
His eyes flashed.
“For once in your life—”
“Lily is upstairs.”
That ended the argument.
We ran.
Daniel and two guards moved toward the front.
Roman and I took the back stairs.
I had no weapon.
Roman had one.
I didn’t ask where it came from.
My heart pounded so violently I could hear blood in my ears.
“Lily!” Roman shouted.
Her bedroom door opened.
She stood there barefoot.
“What happened?”
“Come here.”
She ran toward us.
A crash sounded downstairs.
Roman pulled both of us behind him.
Then Sophia appeared at the top of the stairs holding a cast-iron skillet.
I stared at her.
“What?”
she demanded.
“It was closest.”
I loved this woman.
Daniel shouted from below.
“They’re gone!”
Roman did not relax.
“Check every room.”
“They never made it upstairs.”
“What happened?”
“Incendiary device at the front entrance. Distraction. Two men entered through the basement.”
“Looking for what?”
Daniel’s expression answered before he spoke.
“Lily.”
Roman went cold.
Lily grabbed his sleeve.
“I’m okay.”
He looked at her hand.
Then at her face.
“Yes.”
He sounded like he was reminding himself.
“You’re okay.”
Police arrived.
Then fire crews.
Then more police.
For the next three hours, Sophia’s home became a flood of uniforms, questions, soot, broken glass, and people Roman disliked touching things he considered private.
At two in the morning, Daniel received the call that changed everything.
Marco had been found.
Alive.
He had walked into a suburban police station carrying Elena’s files.
Roman drove us there.
Marco looked twenty years older.
He sat behind glass in an interview room.
When Roman entered, Marco refused to look at him.
“You ran,” Roman said.
“Yes.”
“You let us think you killed Elena.”
Marco finally looked up.
“I thought they were watching me.”
“Who?”
“Victor Sanz.”
The name clearly meant something to Roman.
I knew because every muscle in his body tightened.
Roman’s voice became flat.
“Victor is retired.”
Marco laughed bitterly.
“Victor owns half the men you think are loyal to you.”
Roman said nothing.
Marco continued.
“Elena discovered he had been diverting money through Duca construction contracts for years. When she confronted me, she thought I was involved.”
“Were you?”
“At first.”
Sophia made a broken sound behind us.
Marco looked toward his sister.
“I moved money. I didn’t know where it was going.”
“And when Elena showed you?”
“I helped her collect proof.”
Lily stood beside me.
Her fingers closed around mine.
Marco looked at her.
“That night in the garage, Elena and I argued because I wanted her to go to Roman immediately.”
Lily whispered, “You hit the dashboard.”
“Yes.”
“You called her Lena.”
Marco’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Lily began crying.
“So you didn’t hurt her?”
“No, sweetheart.”
Roman’s jaw tightened at the endearment, but he said nothing.
Marco leaned forward.
“I followed her after she left. A black sedan was behind her. I lost them near the lake.”
“And you said nothing?” Roman demanded.
“I was afraid.”
Roman slammed his palm against the table.
Lily jumped.
Roman immediately stepped back.
Marco closed his eyes.
“I have hated myself every day since.”
“Who was driving the sedan?”
“Victor’s son.”
Roman went still.
“Adrian.”
Marco nodded.
Victor Sanz had been Roman’s father’s closest friend for forty years.
Adrian had grown up with Roman.
He wasn’t just connected to the family.
He was practically family.
Marco slid a folder across the table.
“Elena copied everything.”
Roman opened it.
Documents.
Photographs.
Transaction records.
Enough evidence, according to Marco, to prove years of theft, blackmail, and bribery.
There was something else.
A photograph of Adrian.
Wearing a silver ring with a black stone.
Lily gasped.
“He had one too.”
Roman looked at Marco.
“My father gave Victor a ring.”
“And Victor gave it to Adrian.”
The man watching my bakery had not necessarily been Marco.
It had been Adrian.
My stomach turned.
Roman reached for his phone.
Then mine buzzed.
A text.
From Honey & Rye’s alarm system.
MOTION DETECTED.
I opened the camera feed.
My bakery was dark.
At first, I saw nothing.
Then a man walked into frame.
Adrian Sanz.
I knew him because Marco’s photograph was still sitting on the table.
He stood behind my counter.
Smiling directly at the security camera.
Then he held up a sheet of paper.
COME GET WHAT ELENA HID HERE.
Roman took my phone.
His expression hardened.
“It’s a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“We’re not going.”
“Yes, we are.”
“No.”
“Roman, Elena came to my bakery two weeks before she died.”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“The receipt.”
I could suddenly see the logic.
“She didn’t go there because she wanted pastry.”
Lily whispered, “She hid something.”
Roman’s face changed.
The bakery.
A public place.
A receipt Lily would recognize.
Somewhere Elena could leave evidence without carrying it home.
“Where?” Roman asked.
I thought back.
Eleven months ago.
Honey & Rye had been undergoing a small renovation.
We had replaced shelving near the back office.
A woman had asked me an odd question.
My heart stopped.
“I remember her.”
Roman stared.
“What?”
“Elena.”
The memory came back in fragments.
Dark hair.
Red scarf.
Honey-pear galette.
She had asked if customers ever left things for other people.
I had assumed she meant a birthday package.
Then she had asked whether the old wall safe in my office still worked.
I hadn’t used that safe in years.
“It’s in my office.”
Roman grabbed his coat.
Daniel said, “Police should handle it.”
Roman nodded.
“They will.”
I blinked.
He looked at me.
“What?”
“I’m shocked.”
“I’m evolving.”
“Slowly.”
Police surrounded Honey & Rye before dawn.
Adrian was gone.
No sign of forced entry.
No sign of whatever Elena had hidden.
Roman, two detectives, and I entered.
My bakery looked almost normal.
That made it worse.
I went to the office.
Moved a filing cabinet.
Behind it sat an old steel safe.
I had never changed the combination because I had never known it.
Roman crouched.
“How do we open it?”
I remembered Elena standing near my counter.
She had asked what time we started baking.
“Three-thirty.”
“What?”
I entered 0-3-3-0.
The lock clicked.
Roman stared at me.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m charming, not kidding.”
Inside sat an envelope.
Lily’s name was written across the front.
Roman stopped breathing.
I picked it up.
There was also a flash drive.
And a letter addressed to Roman.
We returned to Sophia’s temporary hotel suite before opening either.
Lily sat between us.
Roman handed her the envelope.
She opened it.
Inside was a letter from her mother.
She read silently.
Then began crying.
Roman put his arm around her.
After several minutes, Lily handed him the final page.
Elena had written:
If you are reading this, then I failed to make it home.
Roman, do not avenge me. Protect Lily. Give her a life where our family name is not a cage.
Roman read the sentence again.
And again.
Then he covered his mouth.
Lily leaned against him.
I turned away to give them privacy.
That was when my phone buzzed.
A photograph appeared.
Taken seconds earlier.
Through the hotel window.
It showed Roman, Lily, and me sitting together.
The message beneath it read:
ELENA ALWAYS DID LOVE HAPPY ENDINGS.
May you like
LET’S SEE IF YOU GET ONE.
A red laser dot appeared on the wall beside Lily’s head.
