The Mafia Boss Was Dumped in Her Flower Shop—Then She Said, “You Still Have to Pay for the Roses”

The next afternoon at 3:15 PM, the bell above Sullivan’s Flowers rang again.

Maggie was sitting on a low wooden stool behind the counter, holding a magnifying glass and a tiny pair of brass tweezers, attempting to extract a microscopic splinter of rose thorn from the base of her left thumb.

She didn't look up immediately. "Be right with you. Feel free to look around—the lilies are on sale."

"I don't need lilies."

Maggie froze.

She set the tweezers down on the wooden cutting board, wiped her hands on her apron, and looked up.

Vincent Moretti was standing in the middle of her shop.

He was wearing a different suit today—navy pinstripe, tailored with the same terrifying precision as the charcoal one—and a dark grey silk tie. He held a silver-headed walking stick in his left hand, though he didn't appear to lean on it. His posture was completely straight, his dark eyes sweeping over the buckets of delphiniums, eucalyptus, and baby’s breath with slow, methodical efficiency.

There was no heartbroken woman waiting for his roses today.

In fact, he was entirely alone, save for a massive, six-foot-four man in a dark overcoat standing outside the shop's glass door, staring intently at the transit bus across the street.

"Mr. Moretti," Maggie said carefully. "Did the roses wilt?"

"No," Vincent said.

He walked toward the counter, his leather shoes clicking quietly on the old terrazzo floor. He stopped directly across from her, setting his silver-headed cane against the oak lip.

"I went to St. Martha's," he said.

Maggie blinked. "You actually went?"

"I don't usually take advice from people who smell like wet dirt," Vincent said smoothly, "but I had thirty-six roses in the back of my car and a driver who was looking at me like I was about to order a hit on a delivery boy."

Maggie leaned back against her stool, folding her arms across her canvas apron. "And?"

"Mrs. Bernadette Kowalski," Vincent said.

"What about her?"

"She is eighty-four years old," Vincent continued, his voice completely flat, though a strange, dark ember of humor flickered deep in his eyes. "She lives on the second floor of St. Martha's. She lost her husband in 1994. When I walked into the common room and handed her eighteen long-stemmed red roses, she accused me of being a union organizer sent by her late husband's local."

Maggie covered her mouth with one hand, a short, involuntary snort escaping her nose.

"And the other eighteen?" she asked, her voice muffled behind her fingers.

"Mrs. Rose Chen," Vincent said. "She took them, informed me that red was an auspicious color for avoiding bad luck, and then spent twenty minutes telling me that my suit was too tight across the shoulders and that I looked like I needed a hot meal."

Maggie couldn't stop it this time. She let out a full, clear laugh that rang out through the small shop, shaking her head as she picked up her tweezers again.

"They sound lovely," Maggie said. "See? I saved your afternoon."

"You made me spend forty minutes discussing union pensions with an eighty-four-year-old woman in a wheelchair," Vincent replied. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, heavy silver box, and set it on the glass counter.

Maggie looked at the box. It was sleek, unbranded, and tied with a dark ribbon.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Peppermint chocolates from the bakery on 24th Street," Vincent said. "Mrs. Kowalski informed me that if I returned without them next Tuesday, she would have her nephew look into my tax records."

Maggie looked up from the box, meeting his dark eyes. "You're going back next Tuesday?"

"I don't like unfulfilled obligations," Vincent said simply. "And Mrs. Kowalski claims she knows who killed the alderman in 1982."

Maggie stared at him for three full seconds, trying to determine if he was joking. His face was entirely devoid of emotion, a blank wall of cool Italian marble, but the tiny, imperceptible line at the corner of his mouth told her everything she needed to know.

"You're an odd man, Mr. Moretti," Maggie said, reaching out to slide the silver box toward herself.

"I am a busy man, Miss Sullivan," he corrected her. He looked around the shop again, his eyes lingering on a stack of unpainted wooden shipping crates sitting in the corner near the back office door. "Your inventory is sparse."

"It's a Tuesday," Maggie said, defensively pulling her canvas apron tighter. "My primary truck from the regional market doesn't come until four in the morning tomorrow. What you see is what survived the weekend weddings."

Vincent stepped closer to the counter, leaning his broad hands against the glass. He smelled faintly of expensive sandalwood soap, tobacco, and clean rain.

"I need arrangements," he said.

Maggie paused. "For what?"

"A memorial dinner," Vincent said. His voice dropped half an octave, the faint thread of humor instantly vanishing, replaced by that cold, dark stone tone she had heard on the phone yesterday. "This Friday. At the Grand Ballroom on Twenty-Second Street. One hundred and fifty guests. Dark colors. No carnations. No baby’s breath."

Maggie raised her eyebrows. "One hundred and fifty guests? Mr. Moretti, that’s a massive order. Most people book that three months in advance."

"I am not most people," Vincent said calmly. "And the previous florist encountered an sudden... conflict of interest this morning."

Maggie didn't ask what kind of conflict of interest caused a commercial florist to drop a contract forty-eight hours before a hundred-and-fifty-person event. In River North, asking too many questions about sudden business cancellations was a good way to end up with your shop's windows kicked in.

"I'd need double my usual deposit," Maggie said, reaching for her ledger. "Short notice means I have to pay my wholesaler cash on delivery for emergency freight from Holland."

Vincent pulled out his wallet again.

"Name your price, Miss Sullivan," he said softly. "Just make sure the flowers don't look like they came from a grocery store."

Maggie looked at him—at his sharp suit, his cold eyes, and the quiet, absolute authority that seemed to radiate from his shoulders like heat from a radiator.

"They won't," Maggie said, pulling a pen from her apron pocket. "I don't do grocery store flowers. And if you attempt to cancel on Friday, Mr. Moretti..."

Vincent paused, his wallet open in his hand. "Yes?"

"You're still paying for the stems," Maggie said flatly.