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“Vera, if you need to be somewhere else for a while, I can stay with Rosa, make sure she’s okay. She’s got that pull-out in the den, and she’s been trying to feed me since I was nineteen. She’d love it. I’d study. It’d be fine.”

My throat goes tight. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Text me tonight. A real text. Not an emoji.”

“A real text.”

“Love you, V.”

“Love you.”

Rosa comes in shortly after, unwinding her scarf.

I wait until she hangs up her coat, ties her apron, and checks the proofing racks, because I know her, and she won’t hear a word until her hands are busy.

“From tonight,” I begin, “a man will be watching the bakery after dark. Nikolai is staying upstairs with me, and nobody closes alone. You and me together, or me and him.”

Rosa lines up the loaf pans on the bench until all twelve are straight. Then she faces me.

“Is it the kind of watching I should call the police about?”

“If you see anything suspicious, or if anyone tries a door, yes. You call the police first, and then you call me.”

She nods slowly. Then she picks up the bench scraper and turns it over in her hand.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m too old to be brave by myself.”

Just before nine, Rosa and I lock the front door together. Then she pats my cheek and goes out to the cab waiting at the curb, and Nikolai watches it all the way to the corner.

Upstairs, I’m brushing my teeth when my phone buzzes on the edge of the sink.

I don’t recognize the number. I don’t need to.

Saw you’ve got a new friend. Hope he’s worth it, V.

10

NIKOLAI

Grisha calls on Saturday afternoon while I’m standing in the walk-in at Rosa’s with a crate of eggs I’m allowed to lift.

“I’m at a diner on Harlem Avenue. Foreman arrived, Reed was waiting for him.”

I put the eggs down on the shelf.

“Back booth by the kitchen. I took a stool at the counter where I could see them in the pie case glass.” A breath. “Reed had his phone out on the table, swiping through pictures. So I went to the restroom as a waitress was coming through with a tray. I had to stop at his elbow for three seconds and let her by. He didn’t even look up.”

“What did you see?”

“The bakery. Lights on. You entering through the front door.”

I don’t say anything. The cold of the walk-in settles on my neck, and my hands ball into fists.

“The tall one slid an envelope across the table,” Grisha says. “Fat. Reed put it inside his jacket without counting it.”

“Did he have pictures of her?” I don’t give a fuck about the money changing hands. The first fucker who tries to use Vera as currency will be counting their banknotes beneath six feet of fresh soil.

“Not that I saw.”