Chapter 1 - The Baker They Laughed At
Twelve armed men cornered Chicago’s most feared mafia boss in a dead-end alley, then laughed when I—a flour-covered, plus-size baker in a pink apron—stepped between them and the man they intended to kill.
They stopped laughing about three minutes later.
My name is Maggie Russo, and until that night, the most dangerous thing in my life was usually a commercial mixer with a bad switch.
Russo’s Bakery sat between a laundromat and an abandoned hardware store on the South Side. My father had opened it thirty-one years earlier with one oven, three hundred dollars, and an unreasonable belief that people would walk through snow for good cannoli.
He was right.
That Wednesday night, freezing rain rattled against the back windows while I pulled the final loaves from the oven. My blonde hair was tied into a messy ponytail, flour covered my white blouse and pink apron, and every part of my body hurt.
I wanted a shower.
A sandwich.
Bed.
Then I heard shouting behind the bakery.
Not drunk shouting.
Not teenagers.
The other kind.
The kind that makes a neighborhood suddenly pretend it has no windows.
I should have locked the door.
Instead, I opened it.
At the far end of the alley, a man leaned against brick beneath the rusty fire escape.
Blood darkened the leg of his charcoal suit. His white shirt was open at the collar, revealing tattoos disappearing beneath expensive fabric. One hand pressed against his thigh.
Even wounded, Vincent Costello looked dangerous.
Everybody in Chicago knew the name.
Vincent owned restaurants, construction companies, warehouses, and enough rumors to fill a police station. People called him a businessman in daylight and something else after dark.
Facing him were twelve men.
The blond one in front lifted his pistol.
“End of the line, Vincent.”
Vincent’s face barely changed.
“If you need twelve men,” he said, “you’re not making the statement you think you are.”
The blond man laughed.
Then I stepped outside.
Every gun turned toward me.
Wonderful decision, Maggie.
One thug looked me up and down.
Pink apron.
Flour.
Sneakers.
Curves that had given cruel men material since high school.
He grinned.
“Go make cupcakes, sweetheart.”
Another laughed.
“What’s she going to do? Frost us?”
I looked at Vincent.
He didn’t laugh.
His eyes moved once toward the pavement beside a damaged sedan.
A thin rainbow-colored trail mixed with rainwater.
He had noticed it too.
The blond leader pointed at my bakery.
“Inside.”
“I’m trying to close my business,” I said. “You’re blocking the alley.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then twelve men laughed.
Vincent almost smiled.
“Lady,” the blond man said, “do you know who you’re standing beside?”
“Yes.”
“And you still came outside?”
“I make poor choices when I’m tired.”
He raised the gun slightly.
Vincent’s voice turned sharp.
“She has nothing to do with this.”
That told me something.
A man facing death was trying to move attention away from a stranger.
Interesting.
The blond man looked delighted.
“Vincent Costello protecting a baker.”
He took one step toward me.
“Move.”
“No.”
His smile disappeared.
One of his men approached from my left.
He reached for my arm.
That was his mistake.
People saw my size and assumed slow.
They never knew my father had put me in judo classes when I was twelve after three girls shoved me into a locker.
They also didn’t know I trained for fourteen years.
The man grabbed me.
I shifted my weight, trapped his wrist, and used his momentum.
He hit the wet pavement hard.
The alley went silent.
I knelt with his arm controlled beneath me.
“Cupcakes,” I said, breathing hard, “are tomorrow.”
Vincent laughed.
Actually laughed.
The blond man’s face twisted.
“You stupid—”
I reached into my apron.
Several guns lifted.
Vincent shouted, “Down!”
I dropped behind a stack of crates and threw the object in my hand—not at anyone, but toward the far end of the alley.
A sudden flare of fire near the leaking vehicle sent the armed men scattering away from the growing danger.
I had no intention of turning the alley into an inferno.
I wanted confusion.
I got it.
Vincent moved.
For a wounded man, he was terrifyingly fast.
He knocked one gun aside, drove another attacker into the wall, and grabbed the fallen weapon without firing it.
My bakery’s rear alarm began screaming.
Sprinklers inside activated because smoke reached the open doorway.
Windows lit across the block.
Someone yelled that police were coming.
The blond leader backed toward the alley entrance.
“This isn’t over, Costello!”
Vincent leaned against the wall.
“Apparently not.”
The men fled.
I stayed crouched beside the thug I had thrown.
He groaned.
“Am I allowed to move?” he asked.
“No.”
“Fair.”
Sirens grew closer.
Vincent’s knees buckled.
I caught his shoulder.
He was heavier than expected.
“Easy.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding through a suit that probably costs more than my oven.”
“It does.”
“Congratulations.”
He looked at me.
Rain ran through his dark hair.
“You always talk this much during shootings?”
“This is my first.”
He studied me.
“You don’t seem frightened.”
“My knees are shaking.”
He looked down.
They were.
“Interesting.”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me. You’re losing blood.”
A black SUV screeched to a stop at the opposite entrance.
Three suited men jumped out.
I nearly grabbed the fallen gun.
Vincent touched my wrist.
“Mine.”
His men.
The largest one stared at the alley.
At Vincent.
At the thug pinned beneath me.
Then at my pink apron.
“Boss?”
Vincent nodded toward me.
“She saved my life.”
The man blinked.
“I see that.”
“You absolutely do not,” I said.
Police sirens were close now.
Vincent’s security chief, Luca Marino, wanted to move him.
Vincent refused until he looked at me.
“What’s your name?”
“Maggie.”
“Last name?”
“Russo.”
Something changed in his face.
“What?”
“Russo?”
“Yes.”
His stare sharpened.
“Joseph Russo’s daughter?”
My entire body went still.
My father had been dead for twelve years.
I had never heard Vincent Costello speak his name.
“How do you know my father?”
Vincent looked toward the bakery.
Above the back door hung an old wooden sign Dad had painted himself.
RUSSO’S — SINCE 1995.
Vincent’s face changed.
Not recognition.
Guilt.
“Your father once saved mine.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“My father hated organized crime.”
Vincent gave me a strange look.
“I’m sure he told you that.”
A cold feeling settled under my ribs.
“What does that mean?”
Before Vincent could answer, something moved above us.
Luca shouted.
“Boss!”
A figure appeared on the fire escape.
One remaining gunman.
He aimed downward.
I grabbed Vincent and pulled him behind the brick corner as Luca’s men reacted.
The gunman fled across the roof before police reached the alley.
Vincent looked at me.
Then at the building above.
“They knew exactly where I would run.”
“What?”
“This alley.”
His voice became colder.
“This was not an ambush that went wrong.”
I didn’t understand.
Vincent did.
“Somebody told them my escape route.”
“Someone in your organization?”
“Yes.”
Then he looked at the old Russo’s Bakery sign again.
“And if they knew where I’d be, they knew whose bakery was here.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why would that matter?”
Vincent held my gaze.
“Because twelve years ago, the night your father died, he was carrying something that belonged to my family.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“A ledger.”
“My father was killed by a drunk driver.”
Vincent’s expression told me the answer before he spoke.
“No, Maggie.”
Rain ran cold down my face.
Vincent said quietly:
May you like
“Your father was murdered.”
And suddenly the twelve men in my alley were no longer the most frightening thing about my night.
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