And I miss her.
She was loud. She was unhinged. She stared down mobsters and left crumbs of herself in their life.
She’s not dead.
Not yet.
I reach out and touch the pen again in the dark. Metal cool under my fingers. It’s solid. Real. Me.
I’m going back.
To Dario’s house. To that orbit. To the place where Stevie still leaves echoes.
Not because Saul failed.
Because Saul’s succeeding. Too well.
And I’m not ready to disappear quietly under a teal fucking throw blanket.
Not yet.
Fuck that. Not ever.
Chapter Fourteen
STEVIE
By Wednesday, I’m done being Beth Taylor, data entry specialist, consumer of adequate nutrients, owner of a teal blanket and a flour container that’s actually full for once.
Done pretending that survivable is the same as living.
Instead of doing anything reasonable, like responding to work emails or watering the succulent Saul brought me or generally behaving like a functional member of witness protection, I’m in my kitchen making cookies.
Not the usual stress-bake peanut butter chocolate chip situation.
These are the kind of cookies that make PTA moms weep and food bloggers orgasm. Cranberry orange white chocolate. Delicate, dangerous.
The kind that say I was thinking about licking your jaw instead of I made these at 2 AM while having a breakdown.
I package them in a nice container. Write a note on an actual card this time, because apparently I’m evolving. Growing. Becoming a more sophisticated stalker.
Still okay? - S
Simple. Casual. Definitely not desperate.
Which is a lie in cookie form. I am extremely desperate.
It’s 2 PM on a Wednesday and I’m about to drive four hours to break into a mobster’s house and leave him cookies like I’m canvassing for cult recruitment with sugar and citrus zest.
I get in my car anyway.
The drive gives me four and a half hours to talk myself out of this.
I use exactly zero of those minutes on rational thought. I use them to plan increasingly unstable cookie-delivery scenarios.
Knock on the door? No, that’s insane. Leave the cookies on the porch like a Girl Scout who’s lost all sense of boundaries? Maybe. Peer through his windows like a raccoon casing a dumpster? Probably.
I don’t have a plan.
