Page 81 of The Killer Cupcake
She found her grandmother, Bessie, in her spine, just like Carmine had warned her to do.
"Come near me again," she said, voice deadly soft, "and I'll feed you the cupcake myself."
He kissed her, forced-kissed her, and to endure it, she had to respond. She just let him have his goodbye. When he was done, he stroked the side of her face and looked at her with love as if the kiss was proof that nothing had changed. Then a smile crossed his face as he stepped back, confident he could come for her again when it suited him.
She turned and shoved open the barn door, half expecting him to follow. He walked slowly, stalking her.
Outside, his men formed a loose circle—witnesses to the execution of their love. She stopped cold, looking back at Carmelo. The raw hurt in his eyes had hardened to something worse than hate. Something final and lethal.
Her fingers found the chain at her throat. The one she'd worn hidden for two years in Butts, close to her heart like a secret prayer. She yanked hard, the links biting into her neck before snapping free. The ring—that cheap gold band he'd slipped on her finger in Mama Stewart’s, when they'd believed in forever—caught the late afternoon sun.
She held it up so he could see. So he could remember. Then she hurled it with all her strength toward the tree line, watching it disappear into tall grass and shadows.
"We're done!" The words tore from her throat. “Capice?”
He wiped his lips slowly, reminding her of his kiss. Then he winked at her.
She marched to the car, climbed in, and slammed the door. Through the window, she saw Matteo looking to his brother for orders. Carmelo just turned and walked back into the darkness of the barn. Alone.
The ride back was silent until she recognized the bend near Big Mama's road.
"Let me out here."
The car stopped. Matteo followed her out, desperation creasing his battered face. "Kathy! Why can't you forgive him?"
She gathered her things—purse, books, the ordinary pieces of a life he'd never be part of. "Let me ask you something, Matteo. If Debbie had run off with José, gotten pregnant, kept it secret—would you forgive her? Would you forgive me for helping her hide it?"
His head dropped. When he looked up, she saw the truth in his good eye.
"My father wins. You know that, right?" His voice was hollow. "Told Carmelo if he came down here and you wanted him, he was free. Could leave the marriage, the family, everything. But if you rejected him..." He spread his hands. "Then he belongs to the old man. Forever."
The weight of the news crushed what was left of her heart in her chest. Cosimo's final play—using her as the knife to cut his son's last thread of hope.
"There's no going back," Matteo continued softly. "But there's still time to go forward. You just have to forgive him."
Every cell in her body screamed to get back in that car. To run to the barn. To save him from what he'd become without her. But she was done letting her heart lead. Look where it had gotten them.
"It's over." Each word was a nail in a coffin. "Make sure he knows it. Don't come to Butts again. And I'll never go back to New York."
"Goodbye, Kathy,” said Matteo, sadly. “I tried.”
She turned and walked away, refusing to watch them leave. Only when the engine faded to nothing did she stop. Then, quietly, she turned back the way they'd come. She had another destination in mind.
CHAPTER 32
NO LONGER THE GOOD GIRL
"Ely? You hungry?" Lea called from the kitchen doorway, her voice warm and soft.
Though they weren't married yet, she'd been coming by an hour early each evening—after her shift at the Jensens' main house ended—to cook his supper and sit with him on the porch swing, planning their small wedding for spring.
"I'm good, Sugar," he said, unlacing his work boots with the same methodical care he brought to everything. Sugar—that's what he called her, sweet and necessary as she'd become to him the past year.
Lea smiled, wiping her hands on her apron. She was nothing like Kathy—shorter, rounder, with skin dark as fertile soil and a laugh that filled up empty spaces. Where Kathy had been lightning and dreams, Lea was steady rain and solid ground. Precisely what a man needed to build something lasting. A good woman.
"Let me know when you’re ready," she said, already turning back to check on the meat in the stove.
The knock came just as Ely pulled off his second boot.
