Twelve armed men cornered Chicago’s most feared mafia boss in a dead-end alley,

The front bell of Martha’s Hearth gave a cheerful, delicate chime as we pushed through the double glass doors into the freezing Chicago night.

Across Archer Avenue, an idling black Cadillac Escalade sat near the curb, its exhaust curling into the mist. Standing on the sidewalk near the rear bumper was a lookout—a wiry kid in an oversized parka, holding an umbrella in one hand and a burner phone in the other.

He saw the front door open. He saw a massive, flour-covered woman walking out with a tall man in a ruined suit leaning heavily against her shoulder.

Before he could raise the phone to his ear, I swung the weighted maple rolling pin with the full rotation of my hips, catching him squarely across the temple.

Crack.

The kid went limp without a sound, folding into the slush like a wet coat. Vincent caught the falling umbrella with his free hand, snapped it shut, and retrieved the boy's dropped burner phone with the toe of his shoe.

"Nice swing," Vincent murmured, breathing hard against my neck. His skin was burning with the onset of shock and fever, but his grip on my shoulder remained unyielding. "Softball?"

"Pastry dough," I answered, grabbing the kid by the jacket collar and dragging him behind the newspaper kiosk so he wouldn't be spotted from the alley. "Keys are in his right pocket."

Two minutes later, the Cadillac's six-liter V8 engine rumbled to life.

I adjusted the driver's seat back three notches to accommodate my frame, slammed the transmission into drive, and pulled out into the deserted, rain-slicked boulevard just as the sound of shattering glass and gunfire erupted from the rear of my bakery.

Through the rearview mirror, I watched orange flames begin to lick at the second-story windows of my shop. Three years of seventy-hour workweeks, my grandmother’s sourdough starter, the copper proofing drawers—all of it burning beneath the industrial soot of the South Side.

My hands tightened on the leather steering wheel until my knuckles turned white, but my foot never left the accelerator.

"I will rebuild it," Vincent said quietly from the passenger seat.

He had his head leaned back against the headrest, his left hand pressing a fresh linen towel against his thigh, his gray eyes watching my reflection in the side glass. The lethal coldness in his face had settled into something far more dangerous: a debt acknowledged.

"You won't rebuild anything if you bleed out before we cross the river," I snapped, checking the side mirrors for tailing headlights. "Where are we going, Costello? I’m not driving this stolen hearse to Cook County Hospital so your friends can shoot up the emergency room."

"Bridgeport," he answered, his voice dropping into a raspy, rhythmic cadence. "Thirty-third and Morgan. The iron foundry behind the rail spur. There’s an iron gate with a bronze falcon on the archway."

"The old Moretti foundry?" I asked, glancing sideways at him. "That place was condemned fifteen years ago."

"It was bought fifteen years ago," Vincent corrected, pulling a silver signet ring from his pinky finger and dropping it into the cup holder between us. "Show that ring to the man at the gatehouse. Tell him the baker brought the bread."

"And if he shoots first?"