Chapter Nine
Two days into her compound exile, Angela discovered that doing nothing was its own kind of torture.
She'd paced the guest room until she knew every crack in the floorboards.
She'd stared out the window at the marina until the boats blurred together.
She'd scrolled through her phone—the one Edge had cleared of any tracking apps—reading worried texts from the Castellano family about their wedding arrangements and feeling her chest tighten with every unanswered message.
By the third morning, she was ready to climb the walls.
"You look like hell," Molly said when Angela wandered into the clubhouse kitchen. The tattooed woman was making coffee strong enough to strip paint, her ink-covered arms moving with practiced ease.
"I feel like hell." Angela slumped into a chair at the scarred wooden table. "I'm not built for sitting around."
"Nobody is." Molly slid a mug across the table. "That's why we find things to do."
"Like what?"
"Like whatever you're good at." Molly's gaze was assessing. "Rosa mentioned you're a florist. Said your shop was something special."
The mention of Shore Blooms hit Angela like a punch to the chest. "Was. Might still be. I don't know anymore."
"So show me."
Angela blinked. "What?"
"Show me what you can do." Molly jerked her chin toward the window. "Block's daughter turns seven tomorrow. Grace was going to pick up a grocery store cake and some sad balloons. You could do better."
It wasn't a question. It was a challenge.
Angela found herself standing before she'd decided to move. "I'd need supplies."
"There's a grocery store two blocks from here. Nothing fancy, but they've got a flower section." Molly was already pulling car keys from her pocket. "Come on. I'll drive."
The grocery store flower section was exactly as pathetic as expected—wilted carnations, dyed daisies, roses that had seen better days.
But Angela had worked with worse. She moved through the buckets with practiced hands, selecting stems by instinct, discarding the truly hopeless and finding potential in the merely neglected.
"You actually know what you're doing," Molly observed from behind her shopping cart.
"Four years of practice." Angela added a bundle of baby's breath that needed trimming but had good bones. "Plus a grandmother who taught me that beauty is everywhere if you know how to look."
By the time they returned to the compound, Angela had transformed. Not on the outside—she was still wearing borrowed clothes and hadn't slept properly in days—but something inside her had clicked back into place. She had materials. She had purpose. She had something to do.
She commandeered the kitchen table and got to work.
Rosa drifted in first, drawn by curiosity.
Then Grace—a small woman with kind eyes who ran a bakery and immediately understood what Angela was creating.
Tamara appeared with her phone, snapping pictures of Angela's hands as they worked.
Even Jenna, quiet and watchful, settled into a chair to observe.
"I haven't seen arrangements like this outside of Atlantic City hotels," Grace said, watching Angela wire together a cascade of pink and white blooms. "Where did you learn?"
"Trial and error, mostly." Angela trimmed a stem at an angle, muscle memory taking over. "I took over Shore Blooms from the previous owner. She'd been doing traditional work for thirty years—funeral sprays, hospital bouquets, nothing exciting. I wanted to do something different."
"Different how?"
Angela paused, considering. "Flowers aren't just decoration. They're communication. The right arrangement can say 'I'm sorry' or 'I love you' or 'I'm thinking of you' better than any words. I wanted to make arrangements that actually said something."
The women exchanged glances Angela couldn't quite read.
"That's beautiful," Rosa said.
"It's just flowers."
"No." Tamara looked up from her phone. "It's really not."
The birthday arrangement took shape over the next two hours.
Pink roses for a little girl who loved pink.
White daisies because they were cheerful and bright.
Baby's breath woven throughout like clouds in a sunset sky.
Angela fashioned a crown of smaller blooms—something the birthday girl could wear if she wanted—and wrapped the whole arrangement in pink ribbon she'd found in the compound's surprisingly well-stocked craft supplies.
When she finished, she stepped back and felt something she hadn't felt since the men in suits first walked into her shop.
Pride.
"That's gorgeous." Grace was beaming. "Block's going to lose his mind. Lily's been talking about a princess party for months."
"It's not much," Angela started, but Rosa cut her off.
"Stop that. It's exactly what it needs to be." She touched Angela's arm, brief but warm. "You made something beautiful out of grocery store scraps in a warehouse kitchen. That's not nothing. That's a gift."
The afternoon drifted by in a haze of conversation and coffee and the particular warmth of women who'd chosen to accept her.
Angela learned things without asking—that Rosa's laundromat was the unofficial hub of neighborhood gossip, that Grace's bakery supplied half the compound's celebrations, that Tamara ran an in-home daycare with the same fierce protectiveness the brothers brought to their territory.
She didn't learn about their histories with their men. Nobody offered, and Angela didn't ask. But she saw the way they talked about the club—with clear eyes and no illusions, but also with a kind of loyalty that couldn't be faked.
These women had chosen this life. And they didn't regret it.
Throughout the afternoon, Edge appeared.
Not for long. Not with any obvious purpose. But he moved through the compound's common areas like a ghost, checking windows, exchanging words with brothers, his eyes always finding Angela no matter where she was.
The first time, he nodded at the flower arrangement taking shape on the table. Said nothing. But something in his expression shifted—surprise, maybe, or approval.
The second time, he brought her a bottle of water. Set it down beside her without comment. His fingers brushed her shoulder as he turned away, contact so brief she might have imagined it.
The third time, he stopped to actually look at what she'd created.
"For Block's daughter," Angela explained, suddenly nervous. "Molly said she was turning seven."
"She is." Edge studied the arrangement like he was memorizing it. "Lily's been talking about princesses for weeks. Block threatened to rent a bounce house."
"Please tell me he didn't."
"Ghost talked him down." The corner of Edge's mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "But it was close."
Angela laughed—actually laughed, for the first time since the flower shop—and something in Edge's expression changed. Softened. Warmed.
"You're good at this," he said.
"I should hope so. It's my job."
"Not the flowers." His eyes held hers with an intensity that made her breath catch. "Fitting in. Finding your place. Making yourself useful instead of waiting to be rescued."
Angela's face heated. "I don't know how to wait."
"I noticed."
He left without another word, but Angela felt his attention like a physical weight for the rest of the afternoon. Every time she looked up, he was somewhere in her peripheral vision. Watching. Waiting. Present without hovering.
It should have felt suffocating.
It didn't.
By sunset, Angela needed air.
She found her way through the compound's maze of hallways to a door that opened onto the marina dock. The bay spread out before her, orange and gold light dancing on the water, the shore town lights just beginning to twinkle in the distance.
Margate was out there somewhere. Her shop. Her life. Everything she'd built and might never get back.
She sat on the edge of the dock, legs dangling over the water, and let herself feel the full weight of everything that had happened.
The fear. The violence. The strange warmth of being accepted by women who had no reason to trust her.
The even stranger heat of being watched by a man who'd killed for her and would probably do it again without hesitation.
"Beautiful view."
Angela didn't jump. She'd known he was coming. Had felt him approaching the way you feel a storm on the horizon.
Edge settled beside her on the dock, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. The sunset painted his face in shades of fire, softening the hard lines, making him look almost approachable.
"The shore towns," she said, nodding toward the distant lights. "Ventnor. Margate."
"Home."
"Yours or mine?"
"Both." He was quiet for a moment, watching the light fade. "The brothers were impressed today. Block's already calling you the flower whisperer."
Angela snorted. "That's ridiculous."
"Maybe. But you made his daughter's birthday better than he could have. That means something."
She looked at him—really looked, without the fear and adrenaline that had colored every previous interaction. He was beautiful in a hard way. Sharp edges and dark eyes and a stillness that should have been unnerving but instead felt like safety.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Protecting me. Bringing me here. All of it."
Edge didn't answer immediately. When he did, his voice was lower than before. Rougher.
"Because you deserved protection and no one else was going to give it." His eyes found hers. "Because you remind me of someone I couldn't save, and I'm not making that mistake again."
"Your grandmother."
"She was stubborn too." Something flickered in his expression. Pain, old and deep. "Too proud to ask for help. Too determined to handle everything herself. By the time I realized how bad things were, it was too late."
Angela's heart clenched. "I'm not her."
"No." Edge's hand covered hers on the rough wood of the dock. Warm. Solid. Claiming. "You're not. But you're still mine to protect."
The words hung between them, heavy with meaning neither of them was ready to address.
Angela turned her hand over. Laced her fingers through his.
The shore town lights glittered in the distance. The bay stretched out dark and endless. And two people who'd found each other through violence sat in silence, watching the sun disappear below the horizon.
Neither of them let go.