Chapter 2 - FLOUR, RAIN, AND THE STRANGER’S NAME
The freezing drizzle of early November swept down Main Street, carrying the scent of burning coal and wet rust. Ash Ridge, West Virginia, was a town that had been chewed up and spat out by closed coal mines and broken rail spurs. Enzo Falcone sat in a squeaking, secondhand wheelchair he had bought off an old veteran at a bus depot three counties back. The faux-leather seat was split down the seam, the left brake dragged against the rim, and his bespoke Italian overcoat had been abandoned in a locker two states behind. He wore a stained canvas barn coat and wool fingerless gloves. His legs were fine, but his soul was bruised, and he wanted to see this town from the absolute dirt up.
The quarter tossed by the salon women rolled into the curb. Enzo picked it up, feeling the cheap tinny weight against his scarred palms. He looked down at the sidewalk, hearing the quiet rustle of an apron before he saw the boots.
They were brown leather lace-ups, scuffed at the toes and dusted with white flour. Two flour-streaked knees hit the cold, grit-covered concrete directly in front of him.
Enzo stiffened. In Boston, people fell to their knees before him only when they were begging for their lives or weeping for family members in shipping containers. But this girl was kneeling because she had lowered herself to his level. She didn’t look at the bent wheel or the peeling rust of the handrails. She looked directly into his dark, hooded eyes.
She had dark auburn hair pulled back into a messy, impatient bun secured with a wooden chopstick. A smear of powdered sugar ran across her left cheekbone. In her hands, she held a warm paper bag that smelled overwhelmingly of roasted yeast, melted butter, and cinnamon.
"You’ve been out here since six in the morning," she said. Her voice was surprisingly steady, carrying the rich, gravelly timbre of mountain air. "The wind off Blackwood Ridge turns teeth into ice cubes by noon. You're going to freeze your ears off."
Enzo held her gaze, keeping his mouth closed, letting his silence work the way it always did. Silence made people nervous. Silence made men confess to theft.
The girl didn't flinch. Instead, she cracked a dry, crooked smile. "Look, mister, if you're mute, you can nod. If you're stubborn, you can scowl. But you’re taking these rolls before they turn into bricks, and you’re telling me who to yell at when I bring out a thermos of chicory coffee."
She pushed the warm bag into his lap, right over the pathetic pile of four coins. The heat seeped through the rough canvas of his trousers, warming his numb thighs.
"Why?" Enzo's voice came out lower than he intended—a deep, rasping baritone that hadn't spoken in seventy-two hours.
She blinked, surprised by the resonance of his voice, but she didn't retreat. "Because my father taught me that if you have an oven, nobody on your block gets to starve. That’s just the rule. My name is Clara. Clara Rossi."
The name Rossi hit Enzo like a blunt strike to the solar plexus.
He didn't let a muscle in his face twitch, but his pulse surged against his ribs. Desmond’s letter had contained only three words besides the apology: Find Joseph Rossi.
"Your father," Enzo said slowly, testing each syllable. "Where is he?"
Clara pointed a flour-dusted thumb across the cracked street toward a low brick building with peeling gold leaf on the display glass: Rossi & Daughter Bread Co. Est. 1994. Through the steamy window, Enzo could see the hunched silhouette of an older man kneading dough beneath a hanging incandescent bulb.
"Inside, trying to figure out how to pay an electric bill with sacks of rye," Clara answered, her voice dropping a fraction into something weary and defensive. She tilted her head, studying the sharp bridge of his nose, the clean cut of his jaw that three days of stubble couldn't hide, and the calm, terrifying stillness in his posture. "You don't talk like a drifter. What's your name?"
He could not say Falcone. The name was poison. It was a summons for assassins.
"Michael," he said, using his middle name. "Michael Cole."
Clara nodded once, satisfied. "Well, Michael Cole. You eat those. If you’re still alive at five o’clock, roll yourself up that ramp over there. We throw out day-old focaccia at closing, and I’d rather give it to someone who needs it than let the alley cats fight over it."
She stood, brushing the road grit off her apron knees, and turned to jog back across the street. As she reached the curb, a screech of tires shattered the sleepy quiet of Main Street.
A black Dodge Ram, lifted high with tinted windows and no front plate, tore around the corner, splashing a wave of filthy slush across the sidewalk. It slammed to a halt directly in front of the bakery. Two men in heavy Carhartt jackets and steel-toed work boots stepped out. One carried an aluminum baseball bat; the other held an unsealed manila envelope.
Clara froze on the bakery steps.
Enzo didn't move an inch in the chair, but his hands slipped beneath the folds of his canvas coat. His fingers curled around the grip of the custom Walther PPK concealed against his ribs.
The man with the bat tapped it lightly against the bakery's brick facade, right beside Clara’s head. "Tell your old man his time ran out yesterday, sweet cheeks," the man drawled. "Mr. Vance wants his twenty grand. Or we take the flour mixers out by the roots."
May you like
Clara stood her ground, her chin lifting defiantly, but her fingers were trembling against her apron. Through the fogged bakery window, the old man dropped his rolling pin, terror plain across his face.
Enzo sat fifty feet away in a broken wheelchair, watching the scene unfold with the icy, detached calculation of a predator. He recognized the pattern instantly. It wasn't local muscle. The jackets were local, but the man holding the envelope wore a braided leather pinky ring—a trademark of the South Boston Irish crews that answered directly to his own family.
