Chapter 7 - The Last PetalTwo months later.
The spring sun was warm and golden, casting brilliant light across the cobblestone courtyard of a restored stone villa overlooking the Hudson River.
The city was quiet. Vance Moretti was serving multiple life sentences in a maximum-security federal penitentiary, his syndicate permanently dismantled by federal task forces acting on the encrypted files Luca had handed over. The shadows that had haunted Luca’s life for a decade had finally been swept away.
I stood in the center of the villa's sunlit garden, wearing a simple, elegant ivory dress, arranging a bouquet of white roses and green eucalyptus.
Behind me, heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel path. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me backward against a warm, solid chest, and a familiar chin rested gently on my shoulder.
"You're going to ruin those flowers if you squeeze them that hard," Luca murmured into my ear, his voice rich and steady, completely healed from the injuries he sustained that night.
I turned around in his arms, wrapping my hands around his neck, looking up into his dark, smiling eyes. "I'm practicing. My shop reopens in the city next week, remember?"
"I remember," Luca said, his hands sliding down to rest securely on my hips. "Though I still think it's a terrible idea for you to work in downtown Manhattan when you could live like a queen up here with me."
"I'm a florist, Luca, not a mob wife," I teased, though my heart fluttered just like it had the first night we met. "I need my shop. I need my independence."
"You have your independence," Luca whispered, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss to my lips. "You just happen to have a very dangerous, very devoted watchdog attached to you for the rest of your life."
I smiled, pulling him closer.
On the wooden garden table nearby sat a small, crystal vase holding a single, perfect red rose—and beside it, a folded note written in Luca's familiar, sharp handwriting.
I didn't need to open it to know what it said.
Some men leave destruction in their wake. Some men leave shadows.
May you like
But Luca Rocco had written his claim on my heart in ink that time could never wash away.
And for the first time in my life, I wasn't running from the dark. I was walking straight into the light, hand in hand with the man who owned my soul.
