Chapter 7 - The City of Red Brick
Boston in December was cold, clean, and filled with the smell of ocean salt and roasting chestnuts.
The bakery in the South End was called Santini’s—a warm, three-story brick building with wide glass display windows filled with fresh cannoli, artisanal sourdough, and rich dark espresso.
The owner was a fifty-year-old woman named Rosa Santini—a broad-shouldered, sharp-tongued woman with silver hair and warm brown eyes who had known Vincent Rossi since they were teenagers in Little Italy.
The moment Sal dropped me off outside the shop on Saturday evening, Rosa pulled me inside, wrapped me in a thick wool blanket, put a bowl of hot minestrone soup in my hands, and pointed up toward the ceiling.
“Your apartment is upstairs,” Rosa said in her loud, commanding voice. “One bedroom, private bathroom, fresh sheets on the bed. You start at six tomorrow morning. You learn the register, you help with the morning rush, and you take thirty percent of the daily cash tips.”
I stared at her, overwhelmed by the sudden warmth. “Rosa... Mr. Rossi told you about my situation?”
“Vincent told me what I needed to know,” Rosa cut in firmly, wiping her hands on her flour-dusted apron. “He said you were hard-working, quiet, and needed a place where no one asks stupid questions. That’s enough for me.”
She handed me a brass key—similar to the one Vincent had given me in New York.
“Go sleep, child,” she murmured softly, her eyes lingering for a second on the faint scar near my mouth. “You’re safe here.”
That night, lying in the comfortable bed above the bakery, listening to the quiet hum of the night traffic on Tremont Street, I pulled out the manila envelope.
I unlocked the new phone Rosa had placed on my nightstand, dialed the private number written in silver ink on the back of the folder, and held the receiver to my ear.
It rang twice.
“Rossi,” his gravelly voice answered instantly.
“It’s Amelia,” I whispered into the dark room. “I’m in Boston. I’m at Rosa’s.”
There was a long pause on the line. I could hear the faint sound of a lit cigarette being drawn in the silence three hundred miles away.
“Is the apartment acceptable?” Vincent asked softly.
“It’s wonderful,” I said, tears rising in my eyes. “Thank you, Vincent. For everything.”
“Be good to yourself, Clara,” he murmured, using my new name for the first time. “Don't look back.”
May you like
The line went dead with a quiet click.
I set the phone down, pulled the warm duvet up to my chin, and fell into the first deep, dreamless sleep I had known in six years.
