Chapter One #2
“Alessandro.” She repeats it slowly, like she’s tasting the syllables. Her pronunciation is perfect, with the proper Italian inflection. “That’s a beautiful name. Italian?”
“Yes. My family is from Naples.”
“No kidding? My grandparents are from Sicily. Russo is about as Italian as it gets.” She grins at me over a white amaryllis bloom. “Small world.”
Russo. The same surname as the family that’s been trying to muscle into my territory for the past six months. The family that made a move on one of my warehouses last week. The family I’m currently at war with.
It’s a common name, I tell myself. It doesn’t mean anything.
But old habits die hard, and I file the information away.
Elena starts building the arrangement with sure, steady hands.
She hums along with the music. ”Silver Bells” is playing and I find myself relaxing despite every instinct that tells me I shouldn’t be here.
That this is a distraction I can’t afford.
Men like me don’t get to stand in flower shops and watch beautiful women create art.
“You know what I love about flowers?” she says suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence. “They’re honest. A rose is always a rose. It doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. It just is. Beautiful, temporary and real.”
She looks up at me then, and there’s something in her gaze that makes me think she’s not just talking about flowers.
“People should be more like that,” she continues. “Honest. Real. The world would be a better place, don’t you think?”
I think about my world, where honesty gets you killed and being “real” is a luxury no one can afford. Where I wear expensive suits like armor and keep my face carefully blank because showing emotion is weakness.
“Perhaps,” I say carefully.
She studies me for a long moment, her head tilted to one side. I have the uncomfortable sensation she’s seeing right through me, past the expensive clothes and the cold mask, down to something I keep locked away.
“You’re dangerous,” she says finally, and my entire body goes tense. “Aren’t you?”
Every muscle in my body coils, ready to move. My hand twitches toward the gun holstered at my side, hidden beneath my coat. Does she know? Has someone talked? Is this a setup?
But then she laughs, a warm, musical sound that eases some of the tension in my shoulders.
“Not like that. I mean you’re dangerous to someone’s heart. I bet you leave a trail of broken hearts everywhere you go.” She shakes her head, returning to her arrangement. “Those intense, mysterious types always do.”
Relief and something else, something warm and unexpected, floods through me.
She thinks I’m a heartbreaker. If only she knew how laughable that is.
I haven’t had a relationship in years, haven’t wanted one.
My world doesn’t allow for softness, for connection.
The women who pass through my life know the score, one night, maybe two if they’re lucky, and then nothing. No strings. No complications.
No flowers.
“I think you have the wrong idea about me,” I say.
“Do I?” She positions a piece of pine with the precision of a surgeon. “You walked in here looking like you wanted to murder someone, wearing a suit that probably costs more than my rent, and you’re buying flowers for your mother. Classic reformed bad boy behavior.”
“I’m not reformed.”
The words come out harsher than I intended, and she looks up, startled. But then her expression softens into something that looks almost like understanding.
“No,” she says quietly. “I don’t suppose you are.”
The moment stretches between us, loaded with something I can’t quite name.
Outside, the December sky is darkening, and the fairy lights strung throughout the shop glow warmer in response.
Elena’s face is shadowed and golden by turns, and I wonder what it would be like to trace the curve of her cheekbone with my thumb, to see if her skin is as soft as it looks.
I shouldn’t be thinking these things.
I definitely shouldn’t be feeling this pull toward her, this magnetic attraction that makes me want to stay in this flower shop forever, breathing in pine and cinnamon.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. Once. Twice. Three times.
Marco’s emergency signal.
Fuck.
I pull it out, glancing at the screen. The message is brief: Greco spotted. Two blocks east. Three men.
Sergio Greco. Underboss of the Russo family, the bastard who ordered the hit on my warehouse. Who’s been systematically trying to provoke me into an all-out war.
And he’s two blocks away from this flower shop. From Elena.
I look up and find her watching me, a small frown creasing her forehead.
“Is everything okay?”
“I have to go.” I pull out my wallet, extracting several bills without counting them.
It’s too much, probably way too much, but I don’t care.
“Keep the change. Have the arrangement delivered to—” I pull out one of my business cards, the legitimate ones that list me as CEO of De Luca Imports. “This address.”
She takes the card, her fingers brushing mine. The contact is brief, electric.
“Alessandro—”
“I’m sorry.” And I am, more than she could possibly know. “I have to go. Now.”
I’m moving toward the door before she can respond, my hand already reaching for the weapon I pray I won’t have to use. Not here. Not near her.
“Wait!”
I pause at the door, looking back despite knowing I shouldn’t.
Elena is standing behind her worktable, holding my business card in one hand and a white amaryllis bloom in the other. In the warm glow of the fairy lights, with Christmas music playing softly and flowers surrounding her like a living painting, she looks like something out of a dream.
Something I have no right to want.
“Will you come back?” she asks.
I should say no. Should cut this off before it begins, before I drag her into my dark world and ruin something pure and good.
“Yes,” I say instead.
Her smile could light up the entire city.
“Good. I’ll be here.”
I push through the door into the December cold, the bell chiming behind me like a warning. Marco is waiting at the corner, his expression grim.
“Boss, we need to move. Greco’s headed this way.”
I cast one last look back at the shop. Through the frosted glass, I can see Elena’s silhouette as she returns to her work, completely unaware of the violence that stalks these streets. Unaware she just smiled at a monster.
Unaware said monster would burn the entire city down to keep her safe.
“Let’s go,” I tell Marco, falling into step beside him. “But we’re not engaging. Not here.”
“Boss—”
“Not here,” I repeat, my tone leaving no room for argument.
Because two blocks isn’t far enough. Not when she’s standing in a shop full of windows, surrounded by delicate flowers and soft light. Not when the thought of a stray bullet finding her makes my blood run cold in a way that has nothing to do with the December weather.
We round the corner, and I catch sight of Greco and his men. They haven’t seen us yet. We could take them, Marco and I, with the two men I have stationed in the car nearby. We could end this here and now.
But I don’t.
Instead, I watch them pass, memorizing faces, noting weapons, cataloguing threats. Planning for later, when there’s no flower shop full of warmth and light and honey-eyed women nearby.
When we’re clear, Marco looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“You want to tell me what the hell that was about?”
“Later,” I say, pulling out my phone to text the rest of my team. “We’ll deal with Greco on our terms, not his. Set up surveillance. I want to know everywhere he goes, everyone he talks to.”
“Sure, boss. But that’s not what I’m asking about.” Marco’s known me too long, seen too much. “You never back down from a fight. Especially not with Greco. What’s changed?”
I think about Elena, about the way she looked at me like I was just a man instead of a monster. About her talking about flowers being honest, about people being real.
About her asking if I’ll come back.
“Nothing changed,” I lie. “Just being strategic.”
Marco doesn’t believe me, I can see it in his face. But he’s smart enough not to push. We climb into the waiting car, and I give my driver the address of my downtown office.
As we pull away from the curb, I catch a glimpse of Petals & Pines, its windows glowing warm against the dark street.
And for a moment, I let myself imagine a different life.
One where I could walk into that shop every day.
Where I could make Elena laugh. Where I could be the kind of man who deserves someone like her.
But I’m not that man.
I’m Alessandro De Luca. I’ve killed people. I’ll kill more. My hands are stained with blood that no amount of flower-scented soap could wash clean.
And yet.
I pull out my phone and send a message to my assistant: Send white roses to Petals & Pines. Every week until I say otherwise.
Then another message, this one to Marco: Find out everything about Elena Harper. But be discreet. I don’t want her spooked.
He reads it, raises an eyebrow at me, but simply nods.
The car merges into traffic, carrying me back toward my world of shadows and violence. But my mind stays in the flower shop, wrapped in pine and cinnamon and the memory of honey-colored eyes.
I’ll go back, I promised her.
What I didn’t tell her is that I don’t think I could stay away if I tried.
And that terrifies me more than any rival family ever could.