Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
God, she’d been furious about it, too.
Confronted some of the guys.
And they’d beaten the shit out of her for it.
Bastards.
They weren’t welcome in my shop. They knew it. Sheryl knew it. That was why she still decided to come, even though the attack had made her much more of a recluse lately. Happy just to pitter around in the garden at the house her grandmother had left to her a few years before.
She was probably in her mid-forties, though I hadn’t asked, with skin that got tanner as the summer burned on, dark eyes, and dark brown hair that she almost always had in a braid.
Anytime I saw her, she was in long, filmy skirts of bright colors—orange and yellow were my favorite on her—vegan leather brown sandals, and a dozen or so bracelets on her arms, all made by her sweet little nieces.
“Unbelievable,” Sheryl grumbled as she followed my gaze. “They know they can’t come in here, so they do that shit out front, so people feel weird about coming in.”
“That’s okay. The locals know to come here,” I said. “Who cares if they keep the city guys away?”
“That’s true,” she agreed.
It was a mediocre day of sales.
I was actually glad to finally close up a bit early that night. If I stayed open later, people would just park for hours, not buying anything. My time would be better served doing my baking ahead of time instead of in the morning before work.
I wasn’t much of a sleeper anyway.
I locked the doors, dimmed the lights, and decided to do a deep clean of the front of the cafe for an hour or so before cutting the lights entirely, and moving into the back.
I’d just wiped down the surfaces when I heard it.
A hard crack that had my heart stuttering in my chest as my brain tried to figure out what it was.
But then it happened again.
A louder crack.
Someone was breaking in.
I should have pulled down the security gates before I moved into the back. But I never needed to. I had a certain amount of protection in this building. In my life in general.
That was the perk of having your dad as the chief of police.
Sure, he was as crooked as crooked got, but that also gave him the power to extend protection toward me. No matter how nasty I got to the local crews. And, yeah, I had never been good at holding my tongue when I crossed their paths.
This new crew, though, I had no idea if they greased my father’s pockets. If they gave a single fuck about the rules.
I was about to turn and run toward the back door where my purse and keys were on a hook, and my truck was parked in the alley for a quick exit, when I heard more noise out there.
Male laughter.
And the unmistakable sound of glass shattering.
I’d heard that more than a few times in my life.
They were breaking my truck’s windows.
I couldn’t go out front.
Or out back.
I was trapped.
And it was only a matter of time before they got inside.
My gaze shot around, seeing possible hiding spots. All of which any halfway competent criminal would think to check. Which meant I would be found.
Then fuck knew what would happen to me.
A beating like Sheryl had gotten?
Worse?
Likely worse.
Stomach flip-flopping, my gaze landed on my oven.
I’d bought it because it was big, sturdy, and industrial with only one big compartment, instead of the two smaller ones that most units had. It let me fit six baking sheets in it at a time.
I mean, I wasn’t going to say it would be an easy fit. But I’d seen girls squeezing themselves into suitcases before for social media challenges.
To save my damn life, I could cram myself into the oven.
I was reaching for my phone as I made my way over.
I could call the police.
Objectively, that was what you did in this situation.
But not in this town.
When the cops were all in someone’s pockets.
Even if they came, they might standby and watch horrible shit happen to me.
Hell, they might even participate if they believed I wasn’t going to live through the night and be able to tell my father about it.
Cops were out.
I could call my father.
But, well, we weren’t exactly on speaking terms.
I don’t know why, when my finger scrolled through my contacts, I landed on one name.
The last man in the world I thought I would ever call on for help.
August fucking Grassi.
A mafia capo from over by the shore.
I was hitting dial before I could think better of it, listening to it ring and ring and ring and ring.
I pulled out the oven racks and placed them on top of the range.
Most men probably wouldn’t even think to glance in the oven, not even if they saw the racks out.