All Chapters of Marked By Mistake: The Baker's Secret: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

(Roman's POV)Ivy's call came in at half past six, breathless and sharp with fear, and by the time I reached the elementary school, I found the parking lot was already empty, afternoon pickup long since finished, no trace of any dark sedan with a cracked taillight anywhere within three blocks in any direction. Streetlights flickered on one by one against a sky already bruising toward evening, and I walked the perimeter twice myself before I trusted the report enough to call her back."He was gone before I even got here," I told her, standing in the empty lot with my phone pressed to my ear, frustration and fury tangled together in equal, useless measure. "I have people canvassing the area now. If he comes back, we will know.""He knows where she goes to school, Roman." Ivy's voice shook, thin and frightened in a way that made my chest ache. "He knows her schedule. That is not a coincidence, that is reconnaissance.""I know." I did know, and the knowing sat heavy and cold in my gut the

Roman's POV"I still do not understand how this happened," Marcus said, staring in open horror at what remained of the third tier, currently listing at an angle no cake should ever achieve, buttercream sliding slowly, inexorably toward the floor."The heating system in this room is broken." Ivy's voice had gone thin with the particular, barely restrained panic of a professional watching her work collapse in real time. "It is eighty degrees in here. My buttercream cannot survive eighty degrees.""Can you fix it?""I can attempt CPR on a cake, Marcus, that is not the same as fixing it."I crossed the room to examine the ancient, clanking radiator in the corner, currently pumping out heat like it had something to prove, and gave it one firm, decisive kick that did absolutely nothing except make the clanking marginally louder."That was not helpful," Ivy informed me."I am aware."Amaya, perched on a nearby chair looking somewhere between amused and mortified on Marcus's behalf, finally s

Ivy's POVDaylan Ferris found me alone at the coat check during the pack's midwinter gathering, an event I had only attended because Roman had asked so earnestly I had not found it in myself to refuse, and something in the deliberate, unhurried way she approached told me the encounter was not accidental."Ivy." She said my name with the particular, careful politeness of someone who had rehearsed the greeting in advance. "I do not think we have properly met." She said it so calmly it sent an uneasy chill down my spine."Daylan. It is nice to finally put a name to the face." I kept my voice light, though every instinct I had went immediately on guard."Likewise." Her eyes moved over me with an assessing, unhurried thoroughness that reminded me uncomfortably of her father. "Your daughter is lovely. Hazel, is it? I saw her earlier with Roman. They seem remarkably close for such a short acquaintance.""Kids attach quickly." I pointed out"Do they now." Something sharpened behind her polite

Ivy's POVI did not sleep. I lay there instead, phone face down on the nightstand like putting it out of sight could undo the words still burning behind my eyes, until the ceiling above my bed had gone from black to the thin, grey blue of early morning, and somewhere around five I finally gave up entirely, pulling on a sweater and padding into the hall closet where a water stained shoebox had sat untouched on the top shelf for longer than I wanted to admit.I had not opened it since the move. Some part of me had always known exactly why.The photographs inside were curling at the edges, colors gone slightly warm with age, and I sat cross legged on my bedroom floor in the grey half light, sorting through five years of my life before everything, Mari at sixteen with braces she hated, Mari and me at a bonfire senior year, arms slung around each other, laughing at something neither of us would remember by morning. And underneath those, further down, a handful I had forgotten I even kept,

Ivy's POVRoman left not long after the call, apology etched into every line of his face, promising to come back the second he could, and I stood alone in my own kitchen for a long while after the door closed behind him, heart still racing from words I had waited months to hear and had still, somehow, found a way to leave unfinished at the exact moment they finally arrived.I feel the same way.I had meant it completely. I had also, in that same charged silence, come so close to telling him everything that the words still sat heavy and unspent in my chest hours later, a confession postponed rather than abandoned.The mail arrived at noon, same as always, and I almost did not notice the single envelope tucked among the bills and flyers until I was halfway through sorting them, my own name written across the front in the handwriting I had come to recognize instantly, sickeningly, the same careful script from every postcard since the first.I opened it standing at the counter, because so