Chapter 3 - The Recipe for RevengeThe smell of tear gas mixed with the scent of fresh yeast was suffocating.
"Sophie! Get under the couch!" I screamed, crawling on my elbows through the smoke toward the sofa where my assistant was hyperventilating, her hands clamped over her ears.
Adrian was already on his feet, moving with terrifying, military precision. He pulled a compact, matte-black handgun from an ankle holster beneath his trousers, flipping the safety off with a sharp click.
"Stay down!" Adrian ordered, his voice dropping into the icy, command-tone of a man who had survived worse than a midnight raid. "Marco’s team was stationed down the street, but they’re delayed—Valenti’s men must have blocked the alleyway."
Two dark silhouettes kicked through the shattered remnants of my front display door, their boots crunching on glass and sugar crystals. They were carrying heavy steel crowbars and suppressed pistols.
"Find the girl!" a harsh, raspy voice shouted from the smoke-filled front room. "Burn the kitchen! Make it look like a gas leak from the ovens!"
My heart stopped. They weren't just here to intimidate us. They were here to erase Rose & Rye once and for all.
"Adrian..." I whispered, clutching a heavy marble rolling pin I had grabbed from beneath my desk.
"Stay behind me, Emily," Adrian murmured, his eyes scanning the smoke. "I won't let them touch you."
He didn't wait for them to reach the office. Adrian stepped out into the smoke-filled hallway, firing two quick, silenced shots.
A heavy groan echoed from the front room followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor.
"He’s here! The Morello kid is inside!" the second intruder yelled, firing blindly down the corridor. Bullets tore through the drywall, showering us with white dust.
Adrian ducked back into the office doorway, his jaw tight, his gray eyes calculating the angles with terrifying calm. "There are three more outside. They’ve cut the power to the block."
I looked at the heavy commercial kitchen behind my office—the industrial mixers, the two-hundred-gallon proofing ovens, the stainless steel prep counters. This was my domain. I knew every inch of this space in the dark. I knew where the floorboards creaked, where the heavy cast-iron skillets were hung, and where we kept the fifty-pound sacks of raw rye flour.
"They think this is just a bakery," I whispered, my fear suddenly crystallizing into a cold, white-hot fury. "They think they can come into my kitchen and burn my life down."
Adrian looked at me, surprised. "Emily, no—"
"Follow me," I said, grabbing his arm. "Now!"
I grabbed Sophie by her jacket, dragging her through the back office door into the main prep kitchen. The room was pitch black, illuminated only by the strobing amber lights of the distant police sirens miles away.
"Sophie, get into the walk-in freezer," I instructed in a fierce whisper. "Lock it from the inside and don't open it for anyone unless you hear my voice."
"Emily, please be careful!" Sophie sobbed, stepping inside the thick steel door. I slammed it shut and threw the heavy exterior latch.
"What's the plan, Baker?" Adrian asked, his gun raised, his body pressed against the stainless steel prep counter beside me.
"Valenti’s men are coming through the corridor," I whispered, pointing toward the high-pressure industrial dusting fan mounted above the dry-goods storage rack. "In five seconds, they’re going to round that corner. When I tell you to shoot, don't hit the men. Hit the overhead gas release valve on the flour sifter."
Adrian’s eyebrows raised in the dark. "A flour dust explosion?"
"High-concentration organic dust in a enclosed space with an ignition source creates a vacuum flash bang," I said, a dark smile touching my lips. "It won't burn the building down, but it will blast their eardrums into next week."
"You’re brilliant," Adrian murmured, a rare, genuine spark of admiration lighting up his gray eyes. "And terrifying."
"I take my baking very seriously," I replied.
Footsteps crunched on the threshold of the kitchen.
"Vance said the girl’s in the back!" a man grunted. "Check the ovens! Spread the accelerant!"
"Now!" I yelled.
I slammed my hand down on the emergency power toggle for the industrial dusting fan. A massive, cloud of micro-fine white flour blasted from the overhead chutes, filling the narrow kitchen corridor with a thick, blinding dust screen.
CRACK!
Adrian fired a single shot upward into the copper gas line above the sifter. The small pilot spark caught the suspended dust particles instantly.
FOOM!
A brilliant, blinding flash of orange light and a deafening shockwave erupted through the corridor. The two intruders were hurled backward against the brick wall, their weapons clattering across the floor, their clothes covered in soot and white powder as they groaned, completely disoriented and deafened by the concussive blast.
Before they could recover, Adrian moved like a shadow, striking the first man across the jaw with the butt of his pistol and pinning the second to the floor with a heavy knee to his sternum.
Outside, the heavy blare of sirens finally flooded the street, accompanied by the screeching tires of four black Morello SUVs pulling up onto the sidewalk.
Marco and six heavily armed security officers kicked through the ruined front doors, their tactical lights cutting through the lingering smoke.
"Boss! Boss, are you alright?!" Marco yelled, sweeping his weapon across the room.
Adrian stood up, wiping soot from his white dress shirt. He looked down at the two unconscious men on the floor, then turned to look at me.
I was standing near the steel prep table, holding my marble rolling pin, covered from head to toe in white flour, my hair sticking out in wild curls, my chest heaving.
Adrian walked over to me. He didn't care that Marco and his men were watching. He didn't care about the sirens wailing outside or the ruined state of his designer clothes.
He reached out, cupped the back of my neck with his hand, and pulled me toward him, resting his forehead against mine.
"Are you hurt?" he whispered, his voice shaking with a sudden, raw emotion that stunned me.
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"I’m fine," I breathed, my hands resting against his solid chest, feeling the wild, rapid beat of his heart. "My bakery isn't, but I’m fine."
"I will rebuild this place ten times over, Emily," Adrian promised, his gray eyes locking onto mine with an absolute, unshakeable vow. "And the man who sent these animals to your door is going to pay for every single grain of flour ruined tonight."
