A Muffin Top Christmas

by Tabatha Kiss

  McCallister slides his hat off and scratches behind his ear. “Yes,” he nods.

  Anna’s jaw sags. “And we’re allowing this why?”

  “We’re not. Obviously.” He looks at me. “But Nolan’s already shot one person tonight so we have to take his threat seriously.”

  “Is Tommy okay?”

  “I asked if anyone needed medical attention and Nolan said, ‘No, Evey’s got it,’ but we have an ambulance standing by.”

  My lips twitch. That’s my Evey. Selfless, even at gunpoint.

  “So, what’s next?” Anna asks, still pacing.

  “We have a team en route with a transport vehicle to take him back to Lancaster,” he answers.

  “And only him, right?”

  “Of course. Hopefully, he’ll see it, and it’ll buy us a little time until he can give us an opening.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  I stop listening. Nolan Shank won’t hesitate to kill Evey, I’m certain of that. One wrong move, one hint of foul play, and she’s gone forever. My son will grow up without his mother. I’ll grow old without my wife.

  I think back to our last kiss. It was just a casual peck on the cheek. Evey was running late, as she usually is. I was packing up the last of the peppermint snickerdoodles to sell off to the last-minute Christmas Eve rush.

  Zach’s down for his nap, she told me. I’ll see you tonight.

  We kissed once and that was it. She grabbed a cup of coffee, slipped the baby monitor into my pocket on her way out, and that was the last time I saw her.

  She’s coming back. We both will.

  It’s fucking Christmas.

  “I’ll go with him.”

  Anna and McCallister pause and stare at me.

  “Uh…” she chuckles. “No, you won’t.”

  I look at him instead. “If he agrees to let Evey and Tommy walk, and I see with my own eyes that she’s safe, then I’ll go with him.”

  He hesitates. “That’s not usually how we do these things.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Vincent…” Anna shakes her head. “Nolan isn’t that stupid. He obviously has no plans to let you leave that van. We lock you two in there, only one of you is coming out.”

  “Good.” I look at McCallister. “Make the arrangements. I’ll fill you in, just give me thirty minutes.”

  He flexes his jaw and nods. “Okay. We’ll set it up.”

  Anna throws up her hands. “Uhh… no.”

  I stand from my chair and walk into the kitchen. She says my name but I ignore it as I list off the necessary ingredients in my head and open the refrigerator.

  Butter, eggs…

  “Vin, what are you doing?”

  I set them on the counter beside my mixing bowls and measuring cups. “I’m making cookies,” I tell her.

  Anna plants herself across the counter from me. “You’re making cookies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what I do.”

  She gawks at me, growing concerned. “Okay, but you understand why I find it a little strange that you’re making cookies now, right?”

  “You were right, Anna,” I say, leveling off a cup of flour and dumping it into a bowl to mix with other dry ingredients. “I’m not a soldier anymore. If I were, I’d already have blood on my hands but I made a promise to myself the first time I held my son that I never would again. I won’t cause harm with the same hands that I change his diapers with — but I’ll make cookies, so I’m making cookies.”

  Her brow furrows. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”

  I set the whisk down. “I’m not a soldier anymore,” I repeat. “I’m a baker. I can’t punish Nolan Shank the way I could before… but I can take a page out of Mom’s book.”

  She pauses. “… Eh?”

  I gesture to the mess of flour and dough and crushed candy canes littered on the counter between us.

  Anna stares at me for several silent moments. Finally, she sighs and reaches for the plate of baked cookies we munched on earlier. “I’m gonna need another cookie,” she says.

  I smile and pick up my whisk. “Save me one.”

  Chapter 8

  Evey

  “Don’t you just love Christmas?”

  Nolan sits backward on a chair in front of us, staring down with his pistol balanced on one knee.

  “The lights, the songs…” he says. “It’s my favorite time of year.”

  I keep my head down. Tommy hasn’t let go of my arm for a second since Nolan hung up the phone. He’s probably scared of what I’ll do and honestly, so am I.

  “Evey?”

  I hold my breath, throwing all of my focus away from Nolan.

  “Eveeeey—”

  “Leave her alone,” Tommy snaps.

  “What? Just because I want to see her lover die a bloody, horrible, excruciating death doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

  I glare at him and he smiles.

  “There she is,” he says. “That spark.”

  “Go to hell,” I say.

  “I probably will… and it’ll be worth it.”

  I stare a bit too longingly at the bottles of vodka lined over our heads. There’s nothing I want more than to bash his face in with it right now but I can’t take the risk.

  “What’s your boy’s name?”

  I grit my teeth. “Why should I tell you?”

  Nolan leans forward. “Because I have a gun pointed at your head. Your boy. What’s his name?”

  I exhale. “Zachary.”

  He nods with approval. “That’s nice. Strong. I’m sure he’ll get over the loss of his father very quickly. Don’t you worry.”

  Tears swell in my eyes as I look down again.

  “What?” he asks. “Is that not helpful? I’ve been in prison for eight years, so… it’s hard for me to tell.”

  The phone rings and Nolan hops out of his chair to answer it.

  “Hello? … Vincent!”

  Tommy tightens his grip on my arm as my head jerks up.

  Nolan nods. “A wise decision.”

  My heart aches. I knew Vincent would choose to save me but I wasn’t ready for that damned look of amusement flooding Nolan’s pathetic face.

  “You want to what? … Okay. Fine.” He turns the phone towards me. “He wants to talk to you.”

  I hesitate, locked in place on the floor while Nolan rolls his eyes.

  “Well?” He holds it out an inch further. “We don’t have all night. Santa’s coming.”

  Tommy releases me and I push off the floor. I cautiously moving towards Nolan, keeping one eye on the gun as he presses it against my ribs and sets the phone up to my ear.

  “Vincent?”

  “Evey, are you okay?”

  I inhale a deep breath, feeling warmth seep into every inch of me. Just the sound of his voice is enough to soothe and calm me to the core. “I’m okay,” I say.

  “Listen, everything is—”

  “And that’s enough.”

  Nolan pulls the receiver away and speaks into it. “If I let you two ramble for too long, it’ll devolve into you hang up, no you hang up and that’s just… boring. We doing this or not, Vincent?”

  He stabs my gut with the gun, pushing me away but I can’t bring myself to move. I can still hear Vincent on the other end, strong and steady as he always is and my heart pounds even harder with rage.

  I grab a bottle of vodka off the shelf.

  Tommy gasps. “Evey—”

  My instincts turn on me, triggering a fight response I didn’t know I had. I lunge into the office and crack the bottle on top of Nolan’s head. It instantly shatters, spilling alcohol everywhere and the glass crumbles in my hand.

  I drop it and take a step back as Nolan calmly shifts to look at me. A line of red blood slides off his head and down his left cheek, hugging the scar as it trails down his face.

  He pokes his tongue out the side of his mouth and licks the blood. �
��Um… ow.”

  I try to jump back in time but his fist slams against my cheek.

  “Evey!” Tommy moves to stand but he cringes in pain and collapses back down.

  I fall to the floor, seeing lights and tasting blood, and Nolan is on me in seconds.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” he growls, grabbing my arms and spinning me around to face him.

  My ears twitch with the sound of Vincent screaming my name into the phone. The receiver hangs down, tapping against the side of the desk a few feet away.

  “Vincent!” I scream at it.

  Nolan pulls me closer and beads of alcohol drip onto my face from his hair. “You know, I was going to let you two have one last kiss but I’m just not in the giving mood anymore.”

  He slams me down, bashing my head against the concrete floor and tears spring to my burning eyes.

  Tommy shifts closer but Nolan draws his gun.

  “Now, now…” he warns. “You wouldn’t want to get shot twice, would you?”

  I roll over, cradling my throbbing head, as Nolan stands and steps into the office to grab the phone.

  “Now, Vincent,” he says. “Before I do something I won’t regret.” He drops it onto the cradle and stomps to me. “It was nice to meet you, Evey Ryan. Merry Christmas.”

  I stare up at him, squinting to keep my vision in focus. “You think this will set you free?” I ask through a blanket of tears.

  Nolan smirks. “You misunderstood, ma’am. I’m not the slave in that story. I’m the god.”

  He steps over me and I cower in fear as he passes from the storeroom to the bar. Tommy whispers my name, urging me to stay put, but I crawl across the floor to follow Nolan instead.

  An armored van is outside, inching backward towards the front doors. I pull myself up to stand at the bar and look out the windows ahead of me. The police stay back with nervous hands hovering over their side arms and I catch sight of Monica’s terrified eyes amid the small crowd gathered beyond the barricade.

  Nolan waits, his smile growing every second, until the van stops in front of him. He pulls the entrance doors and grabs metal latch on the back to open the van.

  Vincent sits inside with his back against the right wall. He looks past Nolan, his eyes instantly falling on me and my split lip. Anger flashes on his face but he stays calm and his gaze grows softer.

  I wipe the tears from my cheeks and Vincent smiles as Nolan slams the metal doors behind them.

  Chapter 9

  Vincent

  The officers slide the metal locks into place, trapping the two of us inside. The van rolls forward, slowly navigating through the crowded, snow-covered street.

  Nolan sits down across from me, his face twisted into a victorious smirk. “I’ve waited a long time for this moment,” he says.

  I throw on a smile and reach for the pastry box sitting beside me. “Cookie?” I offer, flipping the lid off and tilting it at him.

  He blinks with confusion, no doubt annoyed that I didn’t respond to his oh-so-scary remark. “You brought cookies?” he asks.

  I grab one off the top and take a bite. “It was my mother’s favorite recipe — the peppermint snickerdoodle. I figured I’d make a batch for my last meal.” I moan as the delicious, minty sugar spreads across my tongue. “So good.”

  “Snickerdoodle?”

  “You’ve never had one?” I lean forward. “Please, I insist. One bite will change your life. Half of my bakery’s yearly revenue comes from these things.”

  He doesn’t move. “How does a man like you end up in a bakery?”

  “How does a man like you end up in prison?” I counter. “We made choices.”

  I shake the box, tempting him further and he finally reaches in and takes a cookie.

  “What’s in it?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Flour, eggs, a shit-ton of sugar, and a mother’s love.”

  Nolan leans back and sniffs it, blinking as that intense peppermint powder fires up his nose. He takes a small bite. “Not bad…”

  “Help yourself,” I say, setting the box down. I finish my own cookie as the van rocks softly back and forth. “I’m curious, Nolan. Are mob families different than normal ones? Did your mother ever bake cookies and sweets for you and your brothers?”

  He takes a second, larger bite. “Don’t all mothers?”

  I laugh. “Oh, not Evey, no. I mean… she’s a damn chemist behind the bar but I wouldn’t trust her with fondant.”

  His lips twitch. “Fondant?”

  “It’s a kind of icing,” I explain. He stares blankly at me. “You roll it out like dough and… Never mind. It’s a cake thing. Anyway, Nolan, I wanted to take a moment and thank you for sparing Evey.”

  “No boy should have to grow up without his mother.”

  “Exactly,” I nod. “Fathers? We’re a dime-a-dozen. Disposable, even. But a good mother?” I gesture to the half-eaten cookie in his hand. “My mother taught me that recipe when I was fourteen years old and I still remember that like it was yesterday. I’ve never changed a word of it.”

  Nolan sways on his seat. “Should do something about the aftertaste.”

  I snap my fingers. “Oh, right. I did change it a bit. My mother never laced it with potassium cyanide.”

  His face turns white with rage. He reaches into his coat and grabs for his gun.

  I kick forward, nailing him in the groin so hard he topples to his knees and drops it before he can fire. “Not gonna lie, she probably thought about it,” I joke. “I can be kind of a jerk.”

  I grab his arm and twist it behind him until I hear a bone snap. Not sure which one. Don’t really care, either.

  He cries out in pain. “You fucking, piece-of—”

  “Calm down,” I tell him, holding him in place. “I didn’t give you enough to kill you. You’ll just feel like shit for a while.”

  He spits onto the floor. “I’m going to cut you open and—”

  “Let’s review…” I say over his threat. “Evey and I have bested your disgrace of a mob family with a muffin, a cupcake, and now, cookies. What should we use next? Cake pops? That might be fun…”

  “Fuck you!”

  He launches upward but I shove him back down.

  “I’m telling you, Nolan. You really should calm down. Hopping around like this is only going to make it feel worse once you start—”

  Nolan purges onto the floor, vomiting and shaking, and I nod my head.

  “And there it is.”

  I let go of him and he falls face-first into his own spew.

  He speaks between thick, wet heaves as he struggles to hold himself up. “You’re going— to pay— for this.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I pat his back. “Let it out, big guy.”

  “My family— is— is—”

  “Is going to spend the rest of your pathetic lives in solitary confinement?” I finish. “Honestly, how did you think this would end? We’re literally driving in circles around my block right now.”

  “Silva—”

  “I am a Boston treasure. A pillar of the community. I’m handsome. I’m a war veteran. Sure, youthful mistakes were made but you’d be surprised what people are willing to overlook for a decent peppermint snickerdoodle.”

  He tries to kick off the floor but I set my foot on his back to keep him down.

  “Nolan…” I lean over him, putting all my weight on his spine. “Listen up because I’m only going to say this once. I never want to hear from you or anyone in your fucking family ever again. The Shanks are dead and, for the next several hours, you’re certainly going to wish you were.”

  “You should just kill me now.”

  “On Christmas?” I ask. “What am I, an asshole?”

  I stand up tall and slap the roof three times, signaling the driver and the van comes to a slow stop.

  “I’ll tell you what…” I grab the pastry box and drop it by Nolan’s head. “You can have the rest if you want. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to face your father
and brother after this. Maybe you don’t want to at all, so… Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.”

  He smacks the box away. “Fuck you, Silva.”

  The metal locks slide free and the van doors open onto the snowy street in front of the bakery. Nolan barely lifts his head but I see the rage filling his eyes as a dozen officers stand there with weapons drawn.

  I grab the gun off the floor and hop outside to join them, glancing back to look at Nolan one last time. “See? I told you one bite would change your life.”

  He pushes up on shaking arms as I slam the doors closed.

  “Vincent!”

  I turn around as Evey rushes through the band of officers. She pauses with wild, disbelieving eyes and I make a silent promise to never put her through something like this again.

  My Evey.

  She races into my arms and I kiss her, tasting the salty tears on her face. I hold her closer and she sobs, but the longer I hold her, the more those sobs become laughs. The officers disperse around us, pushing against the cheering crowd and urging them to go home.

  “I love you,” she says, resting our foreheads together.

  “I love you, too, Evey…” I sigh at her busted lip. “You couldn’t have waited five more minutes?”

  Her cheeks turn a brighter red. “Sorry…”

  “Does it hurt?”

  She smiles. “No.”

  “Tommy!”

  We look over my shoulder to see the paramedics wheeling Tommy out of the bar on a stretcher.

  Monica slips past the barricade and rushes over to him. His face turns a bright red. “Tommy, are you okay?!”

  He nods with his head down. “I’m fine, Mon…”

  Evey takes my hand and we walk over to join them by the ambulance.

  “What happened?” Monica asks him.

  “I—uh…”

  Evey clears her throat. “He took a bullet for me,” she says. “Jumped right in front of it.”

  Monica gasps. “Really?”

  Tommy’s eyes twitch between them. “Yeah. Of course. She’s my baby sister.”

  Evey smiles. “And he’s my big brother. A real, badass hero.”

  “Well, I…” He takes a confident breath and puffs out his chest. “I guess…”

  Monica’s eyes sparkle at him. “I’m coming with you,” she says as she pulls herself into the ambulance.