Chapter 4 - Gabriel
She goes to the flower market every Tuesday and Friday.
I learned this during those days of surveillance before the gala—logged it alongside every other detail of her small, careful life.
The vendor she prefers for roses, a weathered Greek man who saves his best blooms for her.
The way she moves through the stalls with purpose but stops often, distracted by color or texture or some quality only she can see.
The coffee she buys from Bean Corner afterward, large and black, which she drinks on the walk home.
Today is Friday. She'll be there.
And so will I.
I've waited five days since the gala. Five days of watching her unravel through security feeds and surveillance reports. Five days of patience, which is not my strongest virtue, but which the situation demands.
She hasn't called the police. I knew she wouldn't—she's too smart for that, too aware of how the world works—but I wanted to be certain.
I wanted to give her time to understand her position.
To realize that she's alone with what she saw, that no one would believe her, that coming forward would destroy her and leave me untouched.
Now she knows.
Now she's ready for the next lesson.
I dress carefully, casually—dark jeans, a charcoal sweater, a coat that costs more than her monthly rent but doesn't look like it. I want to appear approachable. Normal. The kind of man she might meet at a party and find charming. Not the man she saw standing over a corpse with blood on his hands.
That man is still here, of course. He's always here. But he's not the one she's going to meet today.
The flower market occupies a converted warehouse on the edge of the arts district.
High ceilings, industrial lighting, the smell of vegetation so thick it coats the back of your throat.
Vendors crowd narrow aisles with buckets of blooms—roses, lilies, orchids, things I couldn't name and don't care to learn.
I've never been here before. I've never had reason to be.
Now I have a reason.
I arrive early, positioning myself near the entrance where I can watch without being seen. The market is busy at this hour, full of florists, event planners and restaurateurs stocking up for the weekend. I scan the crowd with practiced ease, cataloging faces, tracking movements, waiting.
She appears at 9:47, exactly on schedule.
She looks terrible. Dark circles under her eyes, her hair pulled back in a messy knot, her shoulders hunched as if bracing against a blow. She's wearing jeans and a gray sweater—the same sweater she wore to the estate, I realize, which sends an unexpected pulse of pleasure through my chest.
She moves through the market like a woman walking through a minefield. Her eyes dart constantly, scanning faces, checking corners. Every few steps, she glances behind her, a nervous tic she probably doesn't even notice.
She's looking for me.
She won't find me. Not until I want her to.
I follow her at a distance, weaving through the crowd, keeping other bodies between us.
It's easy to be invisible when you know how.
Most people move through the world without truly seeing it, their attention absorbed by phones and shopping lists and the mundane concerns of their mundane lives.
I've learned to exploit those blind spots, to exist in the spaces where no one thinks to look.
She stops at Georgios's stall. The old Greek greets her with a smile that fades when he sees her face.
"Poppy, koukla mou, you look tired. You sleeping?"
"Not much." Her voice carries to me, thin and strained. "Do you have any white roses? I need them for a funeral arrangement."
"For you, always the best." He moves to his buckets, selecting blooms with practiced care. "You want I should set aside the dahlias? Black ones coming next week. Very beautiful."
She flinches at the word. Dahlias. Black dahlias. The flower I left on her doorstep, the message she can't ignore.
"No," she says, too quickly. "No dahlias. Not for a while."
Georgios frowns but doesn't push. He wraps the roses in brown paper, takes her cash, pats her hand with grandfatherly concern. "You take care of yourself, koukla. Eat something. Sleep. Whatever it is, it passes."
She nods without conviction and moves on.
I watch her make her way through the rest of the market.
She's mechanical, joyless, selecting flowers without any of the care I observed before the gala.
Her hands shake slightly as she counts out cash.
She drops a coin at one stall and nearly bumps into another customer reaching down to retrieve it.
She's coming apart. Slowly, quietly, in ways that only someone watching closely would notice.
I've been watching very closely.
Part of me wants to prolong this—to stay hidden, to let her paranoia build until she can't function at all. There's pleasure in watching someone unravel, in knowing you're the cause even if they can't see you. The anticipation is almost as satisfying as the act itself.
But I'm tired of waiting. I've been patient for five days, and patience is not what I feel when I look at her.
I want to see her face when she realizes I'm standing in front of her. I want to watch her try to reconcile the monster with the man. I want to feel her hand in mine and know that she can't pull away, can't scream, can't do anything but stand there and smile while her world collapses around her.
I want to play.
I let her finish her shopping. Let her move toward the exit, her arms full of wrapped bouquets, her eyes still scanning. She's almost to the door when I step into her path.
"Excuse me—"
She flinches. A full-body jerk, like I've struck her. The flowers in her arms tremble, and for a moment I think she's going to drop them.
Then she looks up and sees my face.
The blood drains from her cheeks. Her lips part, but no sound comes out. Her eyes go wide with a terror so pure, so absolute, that I have to suppress a smile.
There you are.
"I'm so sorry," I say, keeping my voice warm, apologetic. "I didn't mean to startle you. Are you all right?"
She stares at me. Her mouth works silently. I can see her mind racing, trying to reconcile what she's seeing with what she expected. I'm not wearing a tuxedo. I don't have blood on my hands. I'm just a man in a crowded market, offering a polite apology.
But she knows. She knows.
"I..." She swallows hard. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure? You've gone quite pale." I tilt my head, letting concern crease my brow. "Here, let me help you with those."
I reach for the flowers in her arms. She jerks back, a reflexive movement, and one of the bouquets slips from her grip. I catch it before it hits the ground—the white roses, wrapped in brown paper, the funeral arrangement.
"Careful," I say, handing it back to her. My fingers brush hers in the exchange. She shudders.
"Thank you." Her voice is barely a whisper. She clutches the flowers to her chest like a shield, like they could protect her from anything.
"Wait." I let recognition dawn on my face, slow and warm. "I know you. You're the florist from the gala last weekend, aren't you? The Dark Masquerade?"
She flinches at the name. A tiny movement, almost imperceptible, but I catch it.
"Yes," she manages. "I did the arrangements."
"I thought so. They were extraordinary." I smile—not the smile I wore in the study, but the one I use for charity dinners and board meetings. The one that makes people trust me. "I'm Gabriel Ambrose. I don't think we were properly introduced."
I extend my hand.
She stares at it like I'm offering her a serpent. Which, in a sense, I am.
The moment stretches. Around us, the market continues its bustle—vendors calling out prices, customers haggling, the mundane commerce of ordinary life. No one notices the woman frozen in front of me, trembling, her face the color of chalk.
No one sees what's really happening here.
Slowly, as if moving through water, she shifts the flowers to one arm and takes my hand.
Her skin is cold. Her grip is weak. But she does it. She shakes my hand and doesn't scream, doesn't run, doesn't call for help.
Good girl.
"Poppy Rivers," she says. Her voice is steadier now, though I can hear the effort it costs her. "It's nice to meet you."
"The pleasure is mine." I hold her hand a beat longer than necessary, feeling her pulse flutter against my palm like a trapped bird. "I have to say, I've been thinking about your work all week. The dahlias, especially. Black dahlias are so difficult to source, and yours were perfect."
Something shifts in her expression. A flicker of something beneath the fear—anger, maybe, or the beginning of understanding.
She knows I'm playing with her. She knows I left that dahlia on her doorstep.
And she knows there's nothing she can do about it.
"Thank you," she says. "I'm glad you liked them."
"Liked them? I was enchanted." I release her hand, but I don't step back. I want her to feel my presence, my proximity, the way I'm taking up space in her world. "In fact, I was hoping to find a florist for some upcoming events. Private affairs, very exclusive. Your work would be perfect."
Her jaw tightens. "I'm not sure I'm available—"
"I'd pay double your usual rate. Triple, if the work is exceptional." I pull a card from my pocket—heavy cream stock, embossed lettering, just my name and a phone number. "Think about it. There's no pressure."
I hold out the card. She doesn't take it.
"Mr. Ambrose—"
"Gabriel, please."
"Gabriel." The name seems to cost her something. "I appreciate the offer, but I don't think I'm the right fit for your... events."
"Why not?"
The question hangs between us. I watch her struggle with it, watch her search for an answer that won't give her away. She can't tell me the truth. She can't say because I saw you kill a man in the middle of a crowded flower market.
All she can do is stand there, trapped, while I smile at her.
"I just don't think I am," she says finally. "But thank you for thinking of me."
"The offer stands." I tuck the card into the pocket of her sweater before she can stop me. My fingers graze her collarbone through the fabric, and I feel her whole body stiffen. "Take some time. Consider it. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of each other, Poppy Rivers."
I let her name roll off my tongue like a promise. Like a threat.
She doesn't move. Doesn't breathe. Her eyes are locked on mine, and I can see everything in them—the fear, the anger, the helplessness. The desperate, futile wish that this wasn't happening.
And underneath all of that, something else. Something I've been looking for since the moment she appeared in that doorway.
Recognition.
She sees me. Not the mask, not the public face, but the thing underneath. And some part of her—some small, dark part she probably doesn't even acknowledge—isn't running from it.
Not yet.
Then I step aside, clearing her path to the exit.
"Have a lovely day," I say. "Be careful with those flowers. They're fragile."
She doesn't respond. She walks past me, clutching her bouquets, her spine rigid, her steps just slightly too fast. She doesn't look back.
I watch her go. Watch her push through the exit and disappear into the gray morning light. Watch the door swing shut behind her, cutting off my view.
Then I allow myself to smile.
The encounter lasted less than five minutes. To anyone watching, it was nothing—a polite conversation between strangers, a businessman complimenting a vendor's work. There's nothing she could report, nothing she could point to as evidence of threat or menace.
But she felt it. She felt me.
And now she knows that there's nowhere she can go, nothing she can do, that will put her beyond my reach. I can find her in her home. I can find her in the market. I can find her anywhere.
She belongs to me now. She just hasn't accepted it yet.
I leave the market and step into the cold morning air.
My car is waiting a block away, my driver patient and discreet.
I could go to the office, attend to the work that's been piling up while I've been distracted.
Josiah has been handling things, but there are decisions only I can make, meetings only I can take.
Instead, I pull out my phone and dial.
"Sir?" Hutton's voice, flat and professional.
"She's leaving the market now. Follow her. I want to know where she goes, who she talks to, what she does for the rest of the day."
"Understood."
I end the call and stand there for a moment, breathing in the cold air, letting the anticipation settle into my bones.
Five days ago, she was a stranger. A woman I'd watched, wanted, wondered about.
Now she's something else entirely. A project. A puzzle. A game I'm going to enjoy winning.
I think about the fear in her eyes when she recognized me. The way her hand trembled in mine. The way she said my name, like it was a curse she couldn't escape.
Gabriel.
She'll say it again. She'll say it many times, in many ways, before this is over.
Screaming it. Whispering it. Moaning it.
I haven't decided yet which one I want most.
The driver opens the car door for me. I slide into the back seat and pull out the sketch from my pocket—the serpent and the dahlia, her hand's work, her mind's creation. The paper is soft now from handling, the creases worn. I've looked at it so many times that I could redraw it from memory.
The serpent coiled around the flower, mouth open, whispering secrets.
She drew this before she knew what I was. Before she understood what was circling her.
But some part of her knew. Some part of her felt the predator's gaze and responded not with fear, but with art. With beauty. With a vision of darkness and intimacy intertwined.
That's what sets her apart from all the others. That's why I can't stop thinking about her, can't let her go, can't be satisfied with simply watching from the shadows.
She's not just prey.
She's something else entirely.
And I'm going to find out exactly what.
The car pulls away from the curb. Through the tinted window, I watch the flower market recede, watch the ordinary world go about its ordinary business.
Somewhere out there, she's walking home with trembling hands and a business card burning in her pocket. She's thinking about me. Fearing me. Hating me.
Soon, I think. Soon you'll understand.
You were always meant to be mine.