Chapter 11 – Viviana
Smoke fills the sky before I see the flames.
I turn the corner onto Halsted and stop cold. The glow at the end of the street pulses red and orange, flickering off buildings like a siren without sound. My legs move before thought catches up. I run.
Torrisi Blooms is burning.
The windows are gone. Glass litters the sidewalk. Flames twist through the beams where the roof used to be. The vines I’d trained along the front have turned to ash. It smells like scorched metal and rain-dampened death.
My breath tears at my ribs. A yellow tape cuts across the entry, flimsy against the destruction. A cop lifts a hand, voice drowned by sirens. I ignore him. I push forward.
Someone grabs my shoulders.
“Miss, you can’t go in—” A firefighter steps into my path. His suit is soot-streaked, face slick with sweat. “It’s not safe. We’re still containing the rear wall.”
I don’t answer.
“If you cross that line, we’ll have to detain you,” the chief says, voice flat. “This isn’t a film. You’ll choke on smoke and bring down what’s left of the walls.”
I just stare past him at the ruin. At the blackened bones of the only thing that ever felt mine.
Torrisi Blooms is gone.
My hands hang limp at my sides. I can’t move. Can’t cry. Everything is heat and smoke and a memory breaking apart inside my skull.
A man coughs behind me. The fire chief steps forward, pulling something from a charred box. He walks slowly, like every step is borrowed time.
“We found this in the back,” he says. “Under the old display table.”
He holds out the box. Inside, nestled in ash, lies my mother’s locket. The silver chain is blackened, the clasp half-melted. But it’s still whole. Somehow.
I reach for it. My fingers shake. It’s warm, almost too warm, like it remembers everything that burned around it.
My throat closes. Still no tears. Just this tight, awful stillness.
The man nods. “That’s all we recovered.”
I close the lid. “Thank you.”
His eyes soften. “I’m sorry. The structure’s totaled. It lit too fast, too hot. Looked targeted.”
I flinch. “Targeted?”
He glances over his shoulder. “We’re still figuring it out.”
I already know.
My feet carry me closer to the caution tape again. Just enough to see the windowsill—part of it still intact. On the scorched stone ledge, someone has traced words through the soot:
Walk away.
It’s not a threat. Not a plea. It’s a command. Mocking and final.
I take a step back. One more.
That’s when I hear his voice.
“Viviana!”
I turn. Ignazio.
He jogs toward me, breath hitching like he just got there. Hair damp from the drizzle. Shirt collar open. No coat. Just a too-clean expression and a hint of something in his eyes I can’t read anymore.
He stops in front of me, panting. “Thank God. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
I say nothing. I glance at his coat—no water on the shoulders. He wasn’t running in the rain. He was already close.
His hand reaches for my arm. I pull away.
“I was in the area,” he says quickly. “Heard the scanner. Came as soon as I could.”
I stare at him. “How did you know it was the shop?”
He blinks. “I didn’t. I just—when I saw the address—”
“You were in the area?”
“Yeah.”
“In uniform?”
Pause. “No. I was off-duty.”
His voice is too smooth. Too rehearsed. The same voice he uses when he asks for dahlias for his aunt.
He didn’t call it in. No backup. No paperwork. He didn’t even check if I needed medical attention.
I take another step back. He notices. He tries again.
“I’ll help you relocate,” he offers. “There’s an emergency program. Temporary lodging. We can figure this out.”
“No,” I say.
His mouth opens. Shuts. “Viviana…”
I look past him. At the glow behind him. The flames are dying down, but the smell of ruin lingers. Wet ash and chemical death.
This was no accident. This was precision. Punishment.
“Who knew about the dock?” I ask, voice quiet.
His head tilts. “What?”
“Dock Seven. Who else knew I was there?”
He blinks again. A beat too long.
“Viviana, I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“You ever see a flower burn, Ignazio?”
He falters. “What?”
“Doesn’t scream. Doesn’t flinch. It just withers, curls in on itself. Petal by petal. Like it was never alive to begin with.”
I take one more look at the shop. Then turn back to him.
“You can stop pretending.”
His face hardens. Just for a second. Then the concern returns. “You’re in shock. Come on—let me drive you somewhere safe.”
“No.”
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
“I already am.”
We stand there a moment longer.
The box is still in my hands. My sanctuary is gone. But I’m still standing.
My legs ache from standing too long. The wind bites my skin. But I don’t move.
The building’s bones are blackened. The roof has collapsed inward like it gave up halfway through a scream. I can’t smell flowers anymore—just char, wet brick, and scorched dreams. The smoke has thinned, but its ghost lingers in my hair, under my nails, between my teeth. I taste ash every time I breathe.
And yet I stay.
I sit on what used to be the front step. The cement is cracked, warm from the fire’s heat, and scattered with half-melted glass. Somewhere behind the tape, an engine growls and clicks. The last fire truck.
The soot on the broken windowsill spelled it clearly enough: Walk away. No subtlety. No second chance.
I don’t cry. Not because I’m brave. Because I’m empty.
“Viviana.” The voice comes low, just above my shoulder.
I don’t turn. I know it’s him. Dario doesn’t approach like other people. He folds into the edges. Doesn’t ask if he’s welcome.
He just is.
I hear his boots crunch over gravel and glass as he walks closer. No greeting. No attempt at comfort. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay. I don’t think I’d be able to lie anyway.
We stand together in front of what’s left of my life.
He walks ahead of me, then pauses. “You want to see inside?”
I nod, and he parts the twisted remnants of the caution tape like they’re threads instead of barriers.
Inside, it’s worse.
The walls are black with smoke. The back counter’s collapsed into itself. The refrigerator where I used to store orchids is a melted mess. The terrarium I once built for Valentine’s Day specials is shattered, the pebbles and glass glinting like a broken mosaic.
My boots crunch as I step inside.
I kneel near the back. Not even on purpose. My body just folds there, where the display table used to be.
A single rose petal—browned, curled, but somehow intact—rests near the ashes. I reach for it. It crumbles between my fingers.
Then I feel him kneel beside me. He doesn’t speak.
My locket is in his hand.
He must’ve picked it up from the box the fire chief gave me earlier. I hadn’t noticed when it slipped from my grasp. It’s still blackened along the edge, the silver chain burned in two. He wipes it clean with his sleeve—slow, precise—and places it back in my palm without a word.
“This was the last thing I had,” I whisper.
Dario looks at me. His face doesn’t soften. But it steadies.
“Not anymore,” he says.
I want to believe him. That I haven’t lost everything. That the person I was before this still exists in some corner. But the truth is heavier than the smoke.
That version of me died with the first flame.
“I thought I’d feel empty,” I say, staring at the locket.
He sits down fully now, legs crossed. Not close enough to touch, but not far either. “And?”
“I just feel… clear.”
He watches me for a beat. Then nods, just once. “Clarity’s dangerous.”
I let the locket fall back into my lap.
“You think Corradino did this?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. I already know. I knew the second I saw the soot-written message. This wasn’t just about the manifest. This was about erasing me.
“Corradino thinks you’ll break,” he says instead.
I lift my chin.
“He’s going to wish I had.”
Dario doesn’t smile, but something flickers in his eyes—like the final glow of a dying ember. He sees it now. I’m not walking away.
“This was my line,” I say. My voice is steadier than I expect. “And I just crossed it.”
The wind howls through the frame of the building, sweeping smoke and cold air around us. My teeth grit against it.
I stand up. He rises with me.
I step forward—not toward the exit, but deeper inside. Toward what used to be the workbench where I arranged centerpieces. I stop where my sister’s photo once sat. Only a melted nail remains.
“I’m not leaving,” I say without looking at him.
His voice is quiet behind me. “I didn’t think you would.”
I turn to face him fully now.
His presence is a contradiction—stillness wrapped in violence. I used to see the danger in him first. Now I see the quiet restraint. He hasn’t tried to fix me. Hasn’t lied to soften the blow. He just shows up. And stays.
“I don’t want pity,” I say.
“You haven’t asked for it.”
“What now?”
He looks around—at the blackened walls, the ash-coated floor. Then he looks at me.
“Now?” he echoes. “Now we hurt them back.”
And I believe him.
Not because he’s promised safety. But because I’ve seen him kill for it. Bleed for it. Stand beside me without hesitating when the world caught fire.
I walk toward him. The edges of my coat drag through the soot.
When I reach him, I don’t touch his hand. I just hold his gaze.
“I’m not afraid of them anymore,” I say.
Dario nods once. “Good.”
I step through the doorway—what’s left of it—and onto the wet pavement. Smoke clings to my skin like a second name. But I don’t wipe it away.
Behind me, Torrisi Blooms lies in ruins.
In front of me, the war begins.