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LARK

T he evening air had grown crisp by the time I pulled into the driveway of the Victorian house where I’d grown up. Its gingerbread trim and wraparound porch were barely visible in the darkness, but I knew every inch by heart. The porch swing where Gram had told me stories on summer evenings. The window boxes she still insisted on filling with geraniums every spring. The creaky third step I always skipped.

“That you, little bird?” Gram called out as I entered, using the nickname she’d given me when I was small.

“It’s me,” I confirmed, following her voice to the kitchen. The familiar scent of her marinara sauce filled the air, bringing with it memories of countless times she and I had stood in this kitchen, making it together. Before I moved to the city. Before Gram started forgetting things.

She stood at the stove, stirring a pot with the same wooden spoon she’d used for as long as I could remember. Her silver hair was pulled back in its usual neat bun, though a few wisps had escaped to frame her face. “You’re late tonight.”

“I had to do inventory.” I didn’t mention Alessandro’s visit or the black sedan. First, I had to make a plan. She didn’t need more reasons to worry. “The sauce smells amazing.”

“Your great-grandmother’s recipe.” She tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot. “The secret is?—”

“Adding a pinch of sugar to cut the acidity,” I finished with her, managing a smile despite my churning thoughts. “And letting it simmer for exactly three hours.”

She nodded approvingly. “At least someone in this family still remembers the old ways, little bird.”

The weight of those words settled heavily between us. So much of our family history had been lost—first to the fire that had destroyed the factory, then to time and forgetting. Every recipe, every story, every tradition that remained felt precious, like fragments of a shattered mirror we were trying to piece back together.

“Help me with these meatballs?” She gestured to the bowl of mixed ingredients waiting on the counter. “Your hands are younger than mine.”

I washed up and began rolling the meat mixture into perfect spheres, like she’d taught me. The repetitive motion was soothing, helping to calm my nerves as I tried to figure out how to broach the subject of leaving. I wished it was enough to stop Alessandro’s words from echoing in my head. “How would you feel if something happened to Gram?”

“You’re quiet tonight,” she observed, adding more basil to the sauce. “Something on your mind?”

“I’m thinking about the shop.” I placed another meatball on the waiting tray. “We might need to adjust our hours.”

“Adjust our hours?” Her voice sharpened. “Why?”

I took a deep breath. “There’ve been some…incidents. Security concerns.”

The wooden spoon clattered against the stovetop. “What kind of incidents?”

“Warnings,” I hedged.

“Does this have something to do with the very well-dressed man Mrs. Swenson mentioned seeing entering the shop shortly before you closed? The one with dark, slicked-back hair.” Her voice took on an edge I knew too well. “He reminded her of someone.”

Of course Mrs. Swenson had noticed. In a small town like ours, nothing went unobserved. “He was just passing through,” I said. “Wanted to try our Matcha.”

“Come now, Lark. You’re telling me a Castellano wanted tea?” Gram’s laugh held no humor. “They only want one thing, little bird. Control.”

“He works with Alice’s new husband now,” I began, only stretching the truth a little. My understanding was he didn’t yet but would soon. “It’s because of him that his older brother was arrested and is awaiting trial. He said we need protection.”

Her eyes opened wide, and her face held an expression of disgust. “A Castellano suggesting protection? Ha! Now, where have I heard that before? He’s no different than his grandfather, father, or brother.”

I thought of Alessandro’s gentle hands as he learned to handle the delicate bamboo whisk, so different from the brutal enforcer I’d expected. How his eyes had softened when he smiled. But I also remembered the steel in his voice when he’d insisted on protecting me, the authority that radiated from him even in that peaceful setting.

“You’re wrong, Gram. Not all of them are the same.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

“A convenient change of heart.” She shook her head. “After his family destroyed so many lives? After what they did to our family’s factory? Not just ours, you know? The Castellanos caused the demise of an entire industry with their control of the unions. Between their extortion demands and the pressure from the union bosses to increase wages and benefits, there was no way any manufacturer could survive.”

I doubted that was the only reason the glove industry had declined to the point of extinction, but she was right. It certainly had added to it. “That was decades ago.”

“And yet the scars are still here.” Her voice rose. “Every empty storefront, every family that had to leave town—that’s their legacy. A legacy his brother carried on until someone finally stopped him.” She gripped the counter, her knuckles white. “Did I ever tell you that Vincenzo Castellano came to see your great-grandfather before the fire?”

I froze. This was a new story, one I’d never heard before. “Vincenzo?”

“He ran the crime family back in those days before his son, Vincent Sr., took over. Anyway, according to my mother, he walked right into the showroom, bold as brass. Said times were changing, that we needed ‘protection.’ My father told him our reputation was all the protection we needed.” Her eyes grew distant, lost in memory. “A week later, the factory burned. And who was right there to offer to buy the land for pennies on the dollar?”

My stomach churned. I thought of the threatening letter Alessandro said he’d dedicated his life to stopping, along with the black sedan that kept appearing. Was history repeating itself?

“Gram,” I began softly. “This is different. Yes, Alessandro suggested it, but we’d be staying with Alice and her husband, Pershing. You’ve met her.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything.

“You know they have a great camp on the lake, and they have people who work there who do private security for a living.” I was making some of this up as I went along, but from what I’d learned from Alice, I was close to accurate.

She studied me, tapping her finger on the table. “You want me to go to Canada Lake? Leave my home? The shop?”

“I could commute each day to keep it open. Like I said, maybe adjust the hours?—”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “We don’t run.”

“It’s not running; it’s being smart.” I moved closer, taking her hands in mine. “I’ve been looking at the books. Three of our biggest wholesale accounts canceled this week. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or if someone is putting pressure on them.”

“All the more reason to stay and fight.”

“Or maybe it’s a reason to be strategic.” I squeezed her hands. “Remember what you always tell me about the perfect cup of coffee? Sometimes you have to let it rest, let the flavors develop.”

“When the glove factory burned, the fire department called it an accident.” Gram’s voice was barely above a whisper. “But we all knew. The whole town knew. And now, here you are, trusting another Castellano.”

“It’s not like that.” But even as I continued to protest, doubt crept in. Alessandro might be different from his brother, might genuinely want to help, but could I trust my judgment? Could I risk everything we’d rebuilt?

“Your mother said the same thing.” Gram turned back to the stove, but not before I saw the tears in her eyes. “Before she ran off with that smooth-talking ‘businessman’ who turned out to be running money for a rival mob. Before she left you here with me because it was ‘safer.’”

The weight of her words pressed down on me. My mom’s occasional postcards from wherever she’d landed. The birthday calls that grew less frequent over the years. How Gram had stepped in to raise me, determined that I wouldn’t follow the same path.

“I’m not her,” I said again, more firmly this time. “And Alessandro isn’t his brother, father, or grandfather.” Why was I defending him? Before his reminder of how I’d feel if something happened to Gram, I’d been just as opposed to leaving as she was.

She looked at me over her shoulder. “So why are you shaking?”

I glanced down at my hands and realized she was right. They trembled when I reached for another handful of the meat mixture. “It’s been a long day.”

“Little bird.” The gentleness in her voice made my throat tight. “I know you want to see the good in people. But some names carry too much history. Too much pain.”

Was she right? Was he truly trying to help, or was this how it started? A gentle approach, an offer of assistance, until you were in too deep to get out from under the Castellanos’ control?

Gram was quiet for a long moment, stirring the sauce with slow, deliberate movements. “Did I ever tell you about the day your great-great-grandfather opened the factory?”

How many times had I heard her start her stories that way? “Did I ever tell you…?” Each time, I wanted to say I’d heard whatever she was about to say hundreds of times. Instead, I shook my head. Even if I said I’d heard it, she’d tell me again anyway, to remind us both what we’d lost. What we were fighting to preserve.

“He came to this country with nothing but his skill and his dreams.” Her voice took on the cadence of a familiar story. “He built everything from scratch. And when he finally hung that hand-carved sign over the door, my grandmother cried. She said it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.”

I could picture it clearly from the old photographs taken years later when Werner Hoffman, Gram’s father and my great-grandfather, took over from his dad—the proud storefront, the gleaming windows displaying fine leather gloves. A legacy of craftsmanship and honest work.

“The sign was the only thing they were able to save the night of the fire.” She shuddered. “Some burns never heal, little bird. Some debts can never be repaid.”

I moved to hug her, careful not to get meat mixture on her clothes. “I know, Gram. I know.”

She patted my cheek with her free hand. “Just promise me you’ll be careful. These people—they know how to make everything seem fine until it’s not. They know how to turn your own heart against you.”

“I promise.” And I meant it, even as Alessandro’s face floated through my mind. His earnest expression when he’d asked me to trust him. How he’d noticed the threatening letter before I could hide it.

We finished preparing dinner in companionable silence, falling into the familiar rhythm of cooking together. But as we sat down to eat, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was shifting. That despite my best intentions, I was being pulled into currents I might not be strong enough to resist.

I was about to stand to clean up when Gram put her hand on my arm. “You said we could keep the shop open?”

“Yes. It’s not that far. I can commute. But, Gram, I’m not as worried about a business as I am about you.” I caught her eye. “I need to know you’re safe. Please.” Maybe there was something in my voice or that I was pleading with her that made her back down. Whatever it was, I could feel her relenting.

“Your great-grandfather would say I’m being a coward.”

“No,” I said firmly. “He’d say you’re being wise. Living to fight another day.”

“What about the Castellano boy?”

“If you’re asking if he’ll be there, I don’t think so. Alice said something about his brother’s trial starting. Plus, it’s Pershing’s family’s camp, Gram. It doesn’t belong to him or his family.”

The excuses, the reasons, I was giving her were the same things I was telling myself. I was the one who’d received the threats she knew nothing about. I’d seen the car with the dark windows go by several times a day, slowing down when it wasn’t necessary to. I’d buried my head in the sand long enough. I wasn’t like my great-grandfather. I couldn’t stare down mobsters and ignore their warnings. Maybe if it was just me, but it wasn’t. Alessandro had known exactly what button to push when he asked how I’d feel if anything happened to the woman seated beside me.

When I raised my head, I watched her look around the kitchen at the generations of memories soaked into these walls. “One condition.”

“Name it.”

“You don’t try to handle this alone. If something feels wrong at the shop, you call for help. No being stubborn.”

I thought of Alessandro’s intensity when he’d insisted on protection, the genuine concern in his eyes. “Deal.”

“One more thing.” She fixed me with a stern look. “You bring my wooden spoon. If I make sauce while I’m there, it won’t taste right without it.”

Later, after Gram had gone to bed, I retreated to my childhood bedroom to check the shop’s accounts. The numbers on my laptop screen blurred together as fatigue set in, but they told a clear story. As I’d informed Gram, three of our biggest wholesale accounts had mysteriously canceled their standing orders in the past week. The loss of revenue would hit hard, especially with the repairs the shop’s aging equipment needed.

My phone buzzed with a text from Alice. Pershing said you’re bringing your grandmother to the camp tomorrow.

If that’s okay.

Of course it is, she replied.

As I was setting my phone down, a notification from the shop’s security system lit up the screen, saying motion had been detected in the back alley. I clicked through to the camera feed with trembling fingers, hoping it was a stray cat or drunk college kids taking a shortcut.

Instead, I watched a dark figure spray-paint something on our back door. The image was grainy in the low light, but I could make out the first two words before the person moved out of frame. We know ? —

The rest was cut off, but I knew what it said. The same words had been handwritten on the single sheet of paper enclosed in every envelope we’d received. We know what happened that night, and you will pay.

I switched to the other camera views, but whoever it was had already vanished. My finger hovered over Alessandro’s number, which Alice had insisted on programming into my phone “just in case.”

The events from earlier replayed in my mind—his concern about the letter, his insistence on protection. Had he known something like this would happen? Did it matter? Clearly, Gram and I were in danger. Tomorrow, we’d be at Canada Lake, protected. Tonight, we were still vulnerable.

I hit call, holding my breath as it rang. On the third ring, his voice came through, alert despite the late hour. “Lark? What’s wrong?”

“Someone was at the shop,” I said quietly, not wanting Gram to overhear. “Spray-painting something. I can see them on the security feed.”

“I’ll have someone there in three minutes. Are you and your grandmother secure?”

“We’re home. Doors locked.”

“Stay there. I’m sending a team to watch the house too.” He paused. “Thank you for calling.”

“I promised Gram I would.” I swallowed hard. “We’ll be ready to leave for Canada Lake in the morning.”

“Good. That’s the right decision, Lark.” The relief in his voice was palpable. “I’ll handle everything. Just don’t do anything rash tonight. Stay inside where you’ll be safe.”

“I will.” I ended the call and walked around the main level of the house, making sure all the windows were locked like the doors were.

The sound of Gram’s cane on the hardwood floors upstairs pulled me from my thoughts. I quickly went to check on her.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked, finding her in the hallway.

“Bad dreams.” She gripped her cane tighter.

I helped her back to bed, tucking the quilt around her shoulders like she used to do for me. As I turned to leave, she caught my hand.

“I didn’t tell you the whole story earlier,” she said, her voice thin with exhaustion.

I sat on the edge of her bed, noting how fragile she seemed in the dim light from the hall. “What do you mean?”

“Your grandfather wanted more for your mother than this town could offer. A real future, not just scraping by.” Her eyes grew distant. “But she was always drawn to the wrong crowd. The flashy cars, the easy money.”

My breath caught. “Like the man she left with?”

Gram nodded, but her eyes were hooded. The same thing happened every time the subject of my mom leaving came up. Something told me there was a lot more to the story that I’d probably never learn.

“Promise me something,” Gram said, squeezing my hand. “Promise me you won’t go looking for trouble like she did.”

“I won’t. I promise.” As I kissed her good night and returned to my room, I couldn’t help wondering if the past was already repeating itself. Had she put her trust in a man she shouldn’t? Was I doing the same thing?