I Sent the Mafia Heir to Prison, and He Came Out Wanting Me novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Starter

At four in the morning Ben lit the old brick oven himself.

He had slept three hours on the cot with the file under his pillow, and he woke knowing he could not lie there another minute.

The warehouse had flour in the walls.

He found a sack that was still good, a bag of salt, and a hand scale in the grandmother's office.

He fed the starter in its crock and watched it rise and bubble in the cold air.

Baking was the only time his hands knew what to do.

Dario sat on an upturned crate by the wall with a blanket over his shoulders and watched him work.

He had been watching for an hour.

"March fourteenth," Ben said, without turning around.

"Yes."

"You've known where I was for seven months."

"My father's had your address for five years." Dario's voice was steady. "I took the copy out of his safe the week before they let me out."

Ben's hands went still in the dough.

"Five years."

"I knew you were alive. I didn't know how long that would last."

"Then why wait? Why not come in March?"

"If I'd come in March, I'd have been followed." Dario pulled the blanket tighter. "I wanted to be sure that when I walked into your shop, nobody walked in behind me."

"Somebody did."

"Not through the front."

Ben snorted.

He slapped the dough down, folded it over itself, and pushed it away with the heel of his hand.

He did it over and over, because the alternative was shouting.

He didn't believe him.

He didn't disbelieve him, either, and that was worse.

He had spent five years making himself believe in one thing, a man who killed another man in an alley.

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