Chapter 14: Lark's Kitchen

Lark's mother made coffee for the men who had kicked down her friend's door.

She made it for Dominic and put out the good cups.

She did not look at the two guards standing behind him.

It was Tuesday morning, and the kitchen smelled of toast.

Lark sat at the table in her scrubs with her red ponytail half undone.

She hadn't said a word since we came in.

"You wanted to see me," Dominic said to her.

"I wanted to see you take your hat off," Lark said. "You don't have a hat."

"I don't."

"Then stand there and be sorry without one."

Her mother made a small sound at the stove.

Dominic did not smile. He stood in the middle of the linoleum in his black overcoat, and he looked at the two men.

"Go on," he said.

The younger guard stepped up. He had a bruise under one eye that I hadn't put there.

"Miss Dunning," he said. "The other night we came to your mother's door when you told us not to. We didn't listen to either of you. That was wrong."

"Which part?"

"All of it, ma'am."

"Better," Lark said. "Say it to my mother."

He turned and said it to her mother, and her mother said, "Hm."

The older guard said it too. He kept his eyes on the floor.

Dominic waited until both of them finished.

"I gave the order," he said. "It was mine, not theirs. I broke my word to Ariella, and I broke it over your no."

Lark looked at him for a long moment.

"You sent a man with a bruise to apologize for you?" she said.

"I sent him because he asked to come."

The young guard went red.

"He did," the older one muttered.

Lark picked up her cup and drank.

"I'm still mad at you," she said to Dominic.

"I know."

"I'm going to be mad at you for a while."

"I'd think less of you if you weren't."

"Good." She set the cup down. "Now sit. You make my mother nervous, standing."

He sat.

I stood against the counter and watched a man who ran a crime family fold himself into a kitchen chair with a flowered cushion.

"Silvio has called the family together Friday night," he said.

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