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“Everyone.”

He closes the trunk and waits until I am inside before returning to the car.

The house is dark and newly mine. I take the containers to the kitchen, put my envelope beside them, and go upstairs.

My new bedroom still smells faintly of fresh paint. The photograph of Kane kissing me stands on the bedside table.

My phone shows eighty-three messages in the Makov chat. Niko has sent the family photograph again with a caption.

Evidence that Kane Makov once experienced happiness. Download before he destroys it.

I open the full image. As always, my first instinct is to inspect myself and find everything that’s wrong. My dress pulls across my middle. My hair is messy. My skin is imperfect.

Then I stop searching for flaws and look again at Kane.

He is looking at me.

For the first time in my life, I save a family photograph.

Just because I like where I am in it.

31

DELILAH

The woman at the register has driven from Poughkeepsie to buy a cinnamon roll and ask whether I can ruin her boyfriend’s life with Microsoft Office.

I am holding a tray of hot apricot danishes when she makes the request.

“PowerPoint only,” I tell her. “Excel gets too violent.”

She laughs so hard that she knocks her purse off the counter.

Priya points at me from the espresso machine. “Stop encouraging them.”

“I’m providing customer service.”

“You’re building a revenge consultancy.”

“It’s called ‘diversifying our revenue streams,’ Pri.”

The woman buys the danishes, too.

That has been my life all month long. People arrive from every borough and half the Hudson Valley because they saw the Christmas video. They take photographs under the bakery sign. They buy almost everything in the case by noon. They ask me to autograph receipts, spatulas, and several divorce petitions.

At first, I was a little gun-shy about the whole overnight virality thing. The first three or four times someone started gushing that they recognized me from the TikTok or whatever, I wanted to hide in the walk-in until they went away.

Then the fifth person came in and placed a six-hundred-dollar order.

I decided then and there that maybe fame wasn’t so bad after all.

We’ve had to change a few things around here to make sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves. The bakery now requires payment in advance for every order above two hundred dollars. We cap custom cakes at eighteen per week. Priya handles online requests, Cameron controls pickups, and Jolene has permission to hang up whenever a caller calls me a fat bitch, calls me a lying wife, or declares the whole thing a half-assed grassroots publicity stunt preying on our worst insecurities as a society.

Jolene, in particular, is really enjoying her new duties.

“Fourth one today,” she announces from the office doorway. “A man from Ohio thinks adultery is a private matter and should be handled by the man of the household as he sees fit.”

“Gross. Did he order anything?”