Chapter Four
Angela was elbow-deep in the cooler, pulling stems for tomorrow's anniversary arrangement, when the back door opened.
She knew before she turned around. Knew from the way the air changed, the way the hair rose on the back of her neck, the way her body understood danger before her brain caught up.
Three men. The back room of Shore Blooms suddenly felt very small.
"Closing time," the tall one said.
Tony. She'd learned his name last week when he'd come with the suits, standing behind them like a dog waiting to be let off its leash.
He wasn't wearing a suit tonight. Jeans, work boots, a jacket that strained across shoulders built for violence.
The scratch on his cheek from her van's broken mirror hadn't fully healed.
The two behind him were new. Younger, hungrier, with the kind of restless energy that said they were here for more than conversation.
"Shop's closed," Angela said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Door was locked."
"Was." Tony smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Locks don't mean much when people stop listening."
He stepped forward. Angela stepped back, her hip hitting the worktable behind her. Scissors. Floral wire. Her pruning shears, the good ones with the sharp blades, sitting six inches to her right.
"Mr. Vitale's done being patient." Tony kept coming, slow and deliberate, enjoying the way she had nowhere to go. "You've had weeks to think about his offer. Weeks to do the smart thing. And instead you keep saying no like that word means something."
"It means I'm not interested."
"See, that's the problem." He was close now. Close enough that she could smell cigarette smoke and cheap cologne and something sour underneath. "You don't get to be not interested. This isn't a negotiation anymore."
His hand closed around her upper arm. Squeezed hard enough to bruise.
Angela's heart slammed against her ribs. Fight or flight screaming through her blood, nowhere to run, nothing to do but—
"Let go of me."
Tony laughed. Actually laughed, like she'd told a joke. "Or what? You'll call the cops? File a report? Lady, nobody's coming to save you. Nobody gives a shit about a florist in Margate who can't take a hint."
He shoved her backward. Her shoulders hit the cooler doors, cold glass biting through her shirt, the metal handle digging into her spine. The two men behind him spread out, blocking the path to the front of the shop.
Trapped.
"Here's how this works," Tony said, pressing closer, his body pinning her against the cooler. "You're going to say yes. You're going to smile and nod and do exactly what Mr. Vitale tells you to do. And if you don't—"
His hand came up to her throat. Not squeezing. Just resting there, fingers curled around her neck, thumb pressing against her pulse point.
"—we find out what happens to pretty florists who think no is an answer."
Angela's hand found the pruning shears.
She didn't think. Didn't plan. Just grabbed and swung, driving the sharp blade into the meat of Tony's forearm with every ounce of fear and fury she had.
He screamed.
Blood sprayed across the white roses in the cooler behind her. Tony stumbled back, clutching his arm, staring at the metal embedded in his flesh like he couldn't believe what had just happened.
"You crazy bitch—"
The two men lunged for her. Angela ripped the shears free and swung again, catching one across the knuckles, sending him howling backward. The other grabbed her wrist, twisted until pain shot up her arm, and the shears clattered to the floor.
Then the back door exploded inward.
Angela didn't see him clearly at first. Just movement—fast, brutal, efficient—and then the man holding her wrist wasn't holding anything because he was on the floor with his arm bent wrong and his face pressed into the concrete.
The other one tried to run. Got three steps before a hand caught the back of his jacket and slammed him face-first into the cooler doors. Glass shattered. Blood smeared across white petals. He slid down and didn't get up.
Tony.
Tony was backing toward the door, his wounded arm cradled against his chest, his eyes wide and wild. The blood from the shears dripped steadily onto the floor, mixing with the water from broken vases and the scattered petals of destroyed arrangements.
"You don't know who you're messing with," he spat. "Vitale's going to—"
The man who'd come through the door didn't answer. He just kept coming, steady and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world. Like Tony's threats were noise that didn't deserve acknowledgment.
Tony ran.
The back door banged against the wall as he fled into the parking lot, his footsteps echoing off the asphalt, the sound of a car engine starting and tires squealing.
And then silence.
Angela stood pressed against the cooler, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, her hand throbbing where the shears had been wrenched away. Two men lay unconscious on her floor. Glass and flowers and blood surrounded her like the aftermath of a hurricane.
And in front of her stood the man who'd just torn through three attackers like they were made of paper.
He wasn't tall—maybe five-eleven—but he filled the space like he was the only thing in it that mattered. Solid build. Worn leather jacket with patches she couldn't read in the dim light. Dark hair, darker eyes, a face that looked carved from something harder than flesh.
When those eyes found hers, Angela's breath caught for a reason that had nothing to do with fear.
"You hurt?"
His voice was low. Controlled. The kind of calm that came from violence being so familiar it didn't raise his pulse anymore.
"I—" She looked down at her hands. Scratched. Shaking. But intact. "No. I don't think so."
He moved toward her, stepping over the unconscious men like they were furniture. Angela should have backed away. Should have been terrified of this stranger who'd just put two men in the hospital without breaking a sweat.
She didn't move.
He stopped in front of her. Close enough that she could see the patch on his jacket now—a crown with playing cards, the words BOARDWALK OUTLAWS stitched beneath. Close enough that she could smell leather and motor oil and something warmer underneath.
"Angela Basile." It wasn't a question.
"How do you know my name?"
"You brought flowers to my grandmother's grave for two years. Every week." Something flickered in those dark eyes. Something that looked almost human beneath the lethal surface. "You never charged me for the funeral arrangement."
Recognition sparked through the adrenaline haze. The quiet man who'd stood beside the casket, face like granite, accepting condolences without really hearing them. She'd wondered about him afterward. Wondered what kind of grief carved lines that deep into someone so young.
"The Kelly service," she whispered. "You're—"
"Edge." His hand came up, caught her chin, tilted her face toward the light. Checking for damage. Claiming territory. Both at once. "Those men work for someone who wants to use your shop. They're going to keep coming back. Understand?"
Angela's heart was pounding again, but this time it wasn't fear. His fingers on her skin felt like a brand. Like possession. Like something she should push away but couldn't.
"I can't just—"
"You can't stay here. Tony ran, which means he's calling for backup right now. They'll be here in minutes." Edge released her chin, but his eyes didn't leave hers. "You're coming with me."
It wasn't a question. Wasn't even really a statement.
It was a command.
And somehow, despite everything—despite the blood on her floor and the terror still clawing at her chest and the absolute insanity of getting on a motorcycle with a stranger who'd just broken two men like they were nothing—Angela found herself nodding.
"My purse is in the front."
"Get it. Thirty seconds."
She grabbed her bag from beneath the register, hands still shaking, mind racing through everything she should be doing instead of this. Calling the police. Locking the doors. Waiting for help that would never come fast enough.
Edge stood by the back door, one of the unconscious men's phones in his hand, scrolling through something with a frown that made his face look even harder.
"They'll burn this place down," he said when she came back. Matter-of-fact. Like he was reporting the weather. "If they can't have it, they'll make sure you can't either."
Angela looked around at her shop. Four years of work. Eighty-hour weeks. Everything she'd built from the wreckage of a childhood that had tried to destroy her.
"Then I guess I better not let them have it."
Something shifted in Edge's expression. Not quite a smile—she wasn't sure his face knew how—but something that looked like respect.
"You're coming with me," he said again.
This time, his voice was calm.
But his eyes promised violence to come.