CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO RIVAL MAFIA BOSSE

Episode 4: Chapter 4: The Offer

Neither man looked away from the other. Amara decided that was the most dangerous thing in the room.

"She isn't leaving with you," Dante said.

"She isn't leaving with you," Viktor answered through the glass, almost pleasantly. "Unless she wishes it. And she hasn't said so."

Dante finally turned his head. "Amara. Go into the back."

"No."

Both men blinked. It was the first time in years either had heard that word.

Amara pulled the knife from the counter, set it down on the steel with a deliberate clink, and wiped her palms on her apron. Her hands were still shaking, so she hid them in the fabric.

"I have a wedding cake due at nine," she said. "A bride is going to cry when she sees it. I am not going to a car. I am not going to a river. And I am not going to be discussed like a parcel."

Silence.

Then Viktor laughed, low and delighted. Dante did not laugh, but a muscle in his jaw moved in a way it hadn't before.

"Unlock the door," Dante said at last. "Let him in."

Amara stared. "You want me to let him in?"

"I want to see his hands," Dante said coldly. "A man like Volkov is more dangerous outside a window than inside a room."

She turned the lock. Viktor stepped in, and the bakery suddenly felt too small. He smelled of tobacco and winter air. He looked around at the flour sacks and the cooling racks with open interest, as if he had wandered into a museum.

"You run this alone?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"Brave." He picked up a sugar rosette from the tray, inspected it, and put it back exactly where it had been. "Or foolish. I haven't decided."

Dante's voice cut across the room. "This is not a social visit."

"No." Viktor's smile thinned. "It is a business matter. You buried a man in my district tonight, Marchetti. Stefan Brandt. He owed me money. I would very much like to know why he is in your alley instead of in my debt."

"He was a rat."

"He was my rat."

"Then you should have kept him on a shorter leash."

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Amara noticed the way both men's hands hovered near their jackets, and the way neither one drew.

She understood then, with the clarity of someone who had spent years reading a room full of impatient customers. Neither man wanted a fight in her kitchen. And neither man wanted the other to walk out holding her.

"This is about me," she said quietly.

Dante looked at her at last. His face was unreadable stone. "You are a loose end. Nothing more."

"A loose end with a very pretty face," Viktor murmured.

"Don't," Dante said sharply, and then, as if he'd heard himself, went still. "She is a liability to both of us. If she talks, the police look at my docks. If she talks to the wrong person, they look at your district."

"So you want to kill her," Viktor said mildly.

"I want to contain her."

"Excuse me," Amara said. "Still standing here."

They both turned. She lifted her chin.

"You each want me somewhere you can control. Fine. I understand. But if I disappear tonight, my landlord, my suppliers, and forty guests at a wedding all notice by morning. A missing baker is a story. A baker who keeps baking is a nobody." She drew a breath. "So here is my offer. I stay right here. I work. I say nothing. And you both leave me alone."

Dante's eyes narrowed. "You think that's how this works?"

"I think you've both already decided it isn't," she said. "But I'm saying it out loud so that whatever happens next, you know I tried the sensible thing first."

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

Then Viktor took a slow step back, hands raised and open. "A clever girl. I like her clever."

"You like her useful," Dante said.

"Perhaps," Viktor said. "Perhaps both." He looked at Amara, and for half a second, only half, the smile slipped, and something sharper showed beneath. "Do not mistake me, Miss Okafor. I am not here out of kindness. I do not do kindness. A witness is leverage. You are the best leverage in this city tonight, and I would simply prefer that it be mine and not his."

"That's honest," Amara said.

"I try to be, occasionally."

Dante's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, and his expression changed. Not much. Enough.

"Marchetti?" Viktor asked.

"My driver," Dante said slowly. "Wasn't at the corner. He should be." He crossed to the window and drew back the blind. "Where are your men?"

Viktor frowned. He looked out too.

The black SUV was still parked across the street, but the driver's door hung open. The streetlight above it had gone dark. And in the alley, the yellow bulb, the one that had buzzed all night, went out with a soft pop.

"That's not mine," Viktor said quietly.

"Nor mine."

A small red dot appeared on the wedding cake.

It crawled across the white fondant, across the sugar rosettes, and settled just beside Amara's heart.

"Down," Dante said.

The window exploded.