Chapter 4 - The Rules Maggie Refused to Follow
The photograph was twenty years old.
Vincent and Luca DeSantis had once stood together.
Not enemies.
Friends.
That truth was worse.
Vincent dismissed everyone except Maggie.
“Tell me.”
He walked toward the window.
“Our fathers worked together. Luca and I grew up together.”
“And Anthony?”
“Loved him like a brother.”
Maggie understood before Vincent finished.
“Luca killed Anthony?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Told by whom?”
Vincent turned.
“My father.”
A new possibility entered the room.
An ugly one.
“What if he lied?”
Vincent’s expression warned her not to continue.
Maggie continued.
“What if Luca didn't kill Anthony?”
“My father is dead.”
“Dead people can still lie.”
Vincent stared at her.
Then laughed once without humor.
“You really have no survival instinct.”
“Apparently I used it all opening a flower shop.”
He stepped closer.
“I’m assigning two men to you.”
“No.”
“Maggie.”
“No.”
“Someone threatened your life.”
“So teach me what to watch for. Give me an emergency number. Put cameras outside. But nobody follows me into grocery stores.”
“This isn't negotiable.”
“Then you're negotiating alone.”
He looked furious.
She looked equally furious.
Finally Vincent exhaled.
“One man.”
“Outside the shop.”
“And home.”
“Across the street.”
“Close enough to reach you in thirty seconds.”
“Forty-five.”
“Thirty.”
“Forty.”
“Done.”
Maggie smiled.
Vincent looked appalled.
“Did you just bargain with me over your kidnapping response time?”
“Yes.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
His expression changed.
Maggie realized what she had said.
Neither moved.
Vincent lifted a hand.
His fingertips brushed a loose strand of blonde hair from her cheek.
“I really don't,” he said.
Then he kissed her.
Not violently.
Not possessively.
Carefully.
As though Maggie Sullivan was the one thing in his life he was terrified of breaking.
When they separated, Maggie whispered, “Your negotiating technique is unethical.”
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
The next weeks became almost normal.
Almost.
Vincent helped in the shop.
Maggie met his mother.
He took Maggie to St. Catherine’s, where the women remembered him as “the handsome sad man with roses.”
He hated that.
Maggie loved it.
Then strange things began happening.
A delivery arrived that Maggie had never ordered.
Black roses.
Thirty-six.
No card.
Vincent ordered them destroyed.
The following morning, someone painted a number on the alley wall.
“Eleven forty-seven,” Maggie said.
Vincent stared.
“Mean something?”
“No.”
He lied badly.
She noticed.
That evening, Maggie searched through the photograph again.
On the back, beneath ASK HIM ABOUT ANTHONY, something else had been pressed into the paper.
She tilted it beneath a lamp.
Numbers.
11-47.
She called Vincent.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Maggie looked outside.
Her security man’s car was gone.
She called him.
Voicemail.
Then the shop phone rang.
Not her cell.
The landline.
Maggie answered.
“Hello?”
A man breathed softly.
Then said, “Ask Vincent what happened at 11:47.”
“Who is this?”
“He knows.”
The line went dead.
Maggie immediately locked the door.
Too late.
A shadow moved behind her.
She turned.
Daniel stood inside the flower shop.
May you like
This time he wasn't nervous.
This time he was holding a gun.
