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“I mean, technically, yes. He ordered you to repent.”

“Hah! Did you get a deposit?”

“I told him repentance starts at forty-eight dollars a dozen, and he said that was a bit rich for his taste. I suggested that, if he didn’t have the budget for repentance, he should start with some good ol’ humility and go from there.”

I kiss two fingers and fire them at her with an imaginary gun. “This is why you’re essential, Jo. I’ve never loved you more.”

Honestly, callers like that are few and far between. Most of the attention actually isn’t awful at all. Contrary to what Vivian and Connor had me thinking, a huge chunk of humanity is made up of good, sweet, decent-hearted people.

Some of them tell me things. They share stories they’ve never been brave enough to tell their friends, about heartache and burned relationships. Some buy cupcakes and tell me they were so inspired that they left husbands, wives, fiancés, churches, jobs, or entire states after watching me walk out of my mother’s house.

I never know what to say to those people.

Good for you sounds too cheerful when a woman finishes telling you how she’s abandoned twenty-three years of marriage and moved into her cousin’s basement.

I’m sorry sounds ridiculous when she’s smiling about it.

Usually, I just give them a cookie. That seems to work just fine.

The money helps, too. By the third week of January, we’re breaking records for bakery sales. Priya and I huddle together at my desk before opening each Monday and review wages, ingredients, utilities, taxes, and the repairs I have postponed. If the pace holds, this will be our strongest quarter in years.

It’s giving us some badly needed breathing room. Thanks to the influx of happy customers, I’m able to authorize overtime, place larger ingredient orders, and add the money we need for the wheezing walk-in compressor to the repair account.

I pay everyone else before I pay myself, same as always.

But this month, I pay myself, too.

And I almost consider sending Kane Makov a check for his contributions.

Because it’s not just TikTok gawkers and sexually liberated divorcées going through an Eat, Pray, Love phase of their life who are funding this burst of revenue.

Another new element has joined my customer base.

And they’re… Well, let’s just say “a little different.”

Most of them wear all black. They pay cash only, every time, and they have a significantly higher rate of face tattoos than the average population.

But my God, they love their sweets.

This is a new and unexpected wrinkle in the stereotype of the Russian gangster. Men who look capable of dissolving a body in vats of industrial acid are lining up beneath my chalkboard menu and debating in angry streams of their native language the upsides of raspberry versus apricot jam.

They also tip obscenely.

“Your terrifying boyfriend’s fan club is here,” Priya murmurs one day when the Bratva men turn out in force.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Fine. Your extortionist with benefits.”

“Who said anything about benefits?”

Priya looks pointedly at my mouth, as if the kiss happened four weeks ago but left a permanent stain behind. I don’t know how she always knows these things, but she does. She has a sixth sense for illicit sexual contact.

Meanwhile, at the counter, two broad men in matching black coats pretend not to hear us. I recognize one from Orthodox Christmas. Yuri, I think. The other has a spider tattoo crawling over his shaved scalp and is holding a pink bakery box so carefully that you’d think it contained an organ for transplant.

“Ms. Dorsey,” Yuri says solemnly. “Twelve honey cookies, please.”

I arch a brow. “Didn’t you buy eighteen yesterday?”