Chapter 6 - The Bread of Affliction
The autumn storm finally broke over Providence on Thursday night, turning the streets of Federal Hill into rivers of black water and driving the residents behind their locked doors. Inside the bakery, the heat from the old brick ovens kept the chill at bay, but the air was heavy with a different kind of tension.
Cassian sat in the back office, his laptop open on the small metal desk where Rosalind usually calculated her ingredient costs. Two of his men—tall, silent figures in dark suits—stood outside the alley door, their eyes scanning the rain-filled darkness.
“The Moretti crew is pushing into the northern terminals, Cassian,” Frank, his primary lieutenant, said through the speakerphone. “They think you’re distracted because you’ve been spending all your time on the Hill. They don't know why you’ve locked down the old Fairchild property.”
“Let them think I’m distracted,” Cassian said, his green eyes fixed on the security monitors that tracked the perimeter of the bakery. “Move the third battalion to the warehouse on Valley Street. If a single Moretti soldier so much as looks at the corner of Federal Hill, I want their logistics trucks confiscated by morning. This shop is off-limits. To everyone.”
He closed the laptop and stood up, walking out into the kitchen where Rosalind was preparing the pre-ferment for the Friday morning rush. She looked tired, the dark circles under her eyes showing the toll the last three days had taken on her forty-year-old frame.
“You should be at your estate, Cassian,” she said without looking up from her flour bin. “The neighborhood is starting to talk. Old Mr. Petrakis asked me why there are men with earpieces standing near the pawn shop.”
“They’re here to ensure no one enters this building without my permission, Rose,” Cassian said, stepping behind her, his presence warm against her back. He didn't touch her, respecting the wall she had built between them, but his voice was close enough to stir the stray hairs near her ear. “My father’s old allies are testing the borders now that he’s gone. They think I’m soft because I left Chicago to come back to a three-table bakery in Rhode Island.”
“Are you?” she asked, turning around to face him, her hands covered in white powder, her green eyes matching his with a fierce, independent fire. “Are you soft, Cassian?”
May you like
He reached out, his scarred hand finally coming down to cup her cheek, his skin rough but incredibly gentle against her skin. “For sixteen years, I was stone, Rose. I killed the men who betrayed my brother, I broke the unions that wouldn't clear the cargo, and I sat in that big house in Illinois until my heart turned to ash. But the second I walked through that door and saw you standing here with flour in your hair… the stone cracked. I’m not soft. I’m just alive again.”
Rosalind looked into his dark eyes, seeing the boy from the alleyway hidden beneath the scars and the crown of the Don. She didn't pull away from his hand. For the first time in sixteen years, she let herself feel the warmth of a promise she had thought was dead, while outside, the rain washed away the ancient grime of Federal Hill.
