Chapter 1 - The Weight of a NameThe afternoon sun dipped below the jagged silhouette of the Appalachian peaks surrounding Cedar Hollow, casting long, cold shadows across Main Street.
My fingers, calloused from decades of handling ledgers, triggers, and expensive scotch, gripped the plastic armrests of the battered wheelchair. My clothes were deliberately chosen: a stained, frayed flannel shirt, thrift-store denim with a torn knee, and a fake beard that itched mercilessly against my jaw. To the townspeople passing by, I was just another piece of urban debris washed up in their mountain valley.
"My name," I murmured, the gravel in my voice amplified by the hollow acoustics of the alley entrance, "is Rocco."
The young woman—she couldn't have been more than twenty-two—didn't flinch. Her eyes, the color of wet slate, held a depth that didn't belong in a town this small. They were eyes that had seen hardship, the kind of quiet, grinding poverty that breaks families long before death does.
"Rocco," she repeated softly, testing the syllables on her tongue. She wore a faded canvas apron dusted with flour, the sweet, yeasty scent of baking clinging to her jacket. "Just Rocco? No last name?"
"Last names don't matter much when you're sitting on a sidewalk, miss," I replied, studying her carefully. I looked for the pity, the condescension, or the guarded suspicion I had seen in everyone else today. I found none of it.
"I'm Mia," she said, offering a hand calloused with flour and minor burns from hot oven racks. When I didn't take it—playing my part as the broken vagrant—she didn't pull back. Instead, she reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a small, warm paper bag, and placed it gently in my lap.
"It's just a cinnamon roll," Mia said, her voice dropping to a sympathetic whisper. "Not much, but it's warm. Don't let the diner owner see you eating it here; he'll call the sheriff to chase you off before dark."
Before I could ask her why she cared—why, out of the hundreds of people who had walked past me with averted eyes, she was the only one who saw a human being—she stood up, offered a brief, encouraging smile, and hurried back toward a small, weather-beaten storefront across the street with a hand-painted sign that read: Hollow Bakery.
I picked up the paper bag. It radiated genuine heat against my cold thighs.
As I watched the bell above the bakery door jingle shut behind her, a black sedan crept slowly down Main Street. Its tinted windows rolled down an inch. Even from fifty yards away, I recognized the silhouette in the back seat.
May you like
It was one of Gino's enforcers.
They found me.
