Page 53 of The Wrong Man

The sales assistant approaches with a practiced smile. “Can I help you find something?”

“Baking supplies,” I say. “Everything someone would need to bake. Properly bake, not just...” I gesture vaguely. “Amateur stuff.”

Her eyebrows rise slightly, but she’s too professional to comment on the obvious disconnect between my appearance and my request. I’m aware of how I must look. Dark clothes, hard face, the kind of presence that makes people cross to the other side of the street. Not exactly the typical customer for a shop that sells pastel-colored stand mixers and cake tins shaped like flowers.

“Is this for yourself, or a gift?” she asks.

I hesitate. What is Dylan to me? Not a gift recipient. Not a friend. Not a... anything I have a word for.

“Someone I’m taking care of,” I say finally.

Something in my tone must convey more than I intended, because her expression softens. “Someone special, then. Let me show you our professional range.”

An hour later, I’m loading boxes into the back of my car. A stand mixer in brushed steel, because Dylan said it would be amazing even though he could manage without one. A complete set of mixing bowls in graduated sizes. Measuring cups and spoons, both metric and imperial. Whisks, wooden spoons, silicone spatulas. Baking trays and cake tins and a muffin pan and something called a bundt tin that the sales assistant insisted was essential.

I also bought a kitchen scale. Digital, precise to the gram. Because Dylan said baking is all about precision.

The grocery shopping is easier. I have his second list, written in neat handwriting on a piece of paper I’ve been carrying in my pocket all morning, and it contains things I know and understand. Things I’ve heard of before. Flour, sugar, butter, eggs. The basics. But I also add things he didn’t ask for. Fresh fruit. Vegetables. Proper meat from the butcher counter instead of the packaged stuff I usually buy. If I’m going to feed him, I’m going to feed him well.

By the time I pull into the trading estate, the back of my car is full and my wallet is considerably lighter. I don’t care. The money means nothing. What matters is the look on Dylan’s face when he sees what I’ve brought.

I catch myself on that thought as I cut the engine.

When did his happiness start mattering so much to me? When did I start planning my days around his comfort, his recovery, his smile?

It’s dangerous. I know it’s dangerous. In my line of work, attachments are liabilities. People you care about become leverage, pressure points, weaknesses that enemies can exploit.

But Dylan isn’t leverage. He’s not a pressure point. He’s just... Dylan. Soft and sweet and so utterly out of place in my world that sometimes I forget he’s there against his will.

I shake my head and start unloading boxes.

It takes three trips to get everything inside. I stack the boxes in the kitchen, then go to the bedroom to tell Dylan they’ve arrived.

He’s sitting up in bed, reading a book I found in one of my cupboards. Some old thriller from the eighties that I don’t remember buying. He looks up when I enter, and I’m struck again by how much better he looks. Color in his cheeks. Clarity in his eyes. The haunted, hollow look that defined his first days here has faded into something softer.

“The supplies are here,” I say. “If you feel up to coming to see them.”

His face lights up.

It’s the only way to describe it. His whole expression transforms, brightening like the sun coming out from behind clouds. The change is so dramatic, so genuine, that something in my chest does a slow, painful flip.

“Really? You got everything?”

“Everything on your list. And some other things I thought might be useful.”

He’s already pushing back the covers, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His movements are still careful, still measured, but there’s a strength and an eagerness to them that wasn’t there yesterday.

“Can I see? Right now?”

“That’s why I came to get you.”

He practically bounces out of bed, and I have to fight back a smile. He’s like a child on Christmas morning, all barely contained excitement and impatience. It’s endearing in a way that makes my chest ache.

I’ve never known anyone like him.

In my world, people are hard. They have to be. Survival demands it. Even the ones who seem soft have edges underneath, defenses honed by years of navigating violence and betrayal.

Dario’s boy, Molly. Sweet on the surface, charming and bright. But underneath that charm is a man who spent years as a sex worker, who learned to read people and situations with the precision of a predator. He knows exactly how dangerous the world is and has made his peace with it.