Chapter 7 - The Boston Enforcer's Arrival
The back door didn't just open; it splintered inward under a ferocious kick.
Sal Marcone stepped into the dimly lit bakery kitchen, holding a suppressed 9mm pistol in his right hand. Two other enforcers fanned out behind him, their tactical flashlights sweeping across the flour sacks and baking racks.
“Come on out, boss,” Sal called out, a cruel, mocking smirk twisting his scarred face. “Uncle Gino sends his regards. He said if you wanted to play hermit, you picked the wrong zip code.”
I remained sitting quietly behind the counter in my battered wheelchair. I signaled to Lily with a slight motion of my hand to stay hidden in the shadows of the dry-storage pantry.
Slowly, I wheeled myself out from behind the counter into the dim amber light of the bakery floor.
Sal lowered his pistol slightly, chuckling darkly as he looked at me. “Look at you. Sitting in a chair like a crippled beggar. And all this time, Uncle Gino was terrified you were building an army. You’re nothing without the suit, Rocco. You’re just a broken man.”
“Am I, Sal?” I asked. My voice was dangerously calm.
Sal raised his gun, aiming directly at my chest. “End of the line, kid. I’m taking you back in a pine box, or I’m leaving you right here in this mountain dirt. Makes no difference to Gino either way.”
Sal’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Bang.
The suppressed shot echoed through the bakery, but the bullet didn't hit me.
Before Sal could pull the trigger a second time, a heavy cast-iron rolling pin came crashing down across the back of his skull with bone-crushing force. Sal’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed facedown onto the flour-dusted floor, unconscious.
Standing behind him was Lily, holding the heavy iron rolling pin with both hands, her chest heaving as she stared down at the fallen enforcer.
Before the two remaining Boston thugs could react, the front windows of the bakery exploded inward in a shower of shattered glass.
Local mountain men—armed with hunting rifles and shotgun barrels gleaming in the moonlight—poured through the broken windows, led by the local sheriff, who had finally grown a backbone after seeing the old beggar stand up to Silas Vance.
“Drop your weapons! Federal and state warrants!” the sheriff roared, leveling a shotgun at the remaining enforcers.
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The two Boston thugs looked at the ring of hostile local faces, then down at their unconscious leader, and slowly dropped their pistols to the floor, raising their hands in surrender.
Cedar Hollow wasn't just a sleepy mountain town full of forgotten people. It was a community that protected its own. And they had adopted me long before I realized it.
