The flower shop looks innocent.
That’s what makes it wrong.
I stand on the sidewalk with Damian’s hand firm at my lower back, staring at the window filled with roses and tulips and baby’s breath like this is any normal evening, like I’m any normal woman on any normal date. The collar is hidden under my coat, warm and solid against my throat. Every time it pulses with the faintest hum, I remember exactly who I’m with.
“Wolfe,” I murmur, glancing up at him. “You brought your prisoner to buy peonies?”
A corner of his mouth pulls, almost a smile but too strained. “Walk.”
The bell over the door chimes when we step inside. The scent of soil and sweetness hits me at once—damp earth, cut stems, pollen. A middle–aged woman behind the counter looks up, eyes brightening.
“Evening, Mr. Wolfe,” she says like she’s greeting a kind regular, not the man who owns half the city’s fear. “Back again?”
Back again.
How many times has he come here and I never knew?
“Just passing through, Vera,” he replies smoothly. “Don’t let us interrupt.”
He guides me past buckets of lilies and hydrangeas, past shelves of tiny succulents in painted pots. I brush my fingers over one of the leaves, needing something soft to anchor myself with, and catch Vera watching us with quiet curiosity.
Damian leads me to the back, through a door that says EMPLOYEES ONLY. My heart kicks once against my ribs.
“This is where you kill me,” I whisper.
He doesn’t even slow. “If I wanted you dead, Aria, you wouldn’t be wearing my coat.”
My cheeks heat. The coat hangs heavy around my shoulders, smelling like his cologne and gunpowder and something darker underneath. He slides a keycard from his pocket, taps it against a hidden panel by what looks like an old storage freezer. The wall clicks, then shifts, opening into a narrow staircase descending into shadow.
“After you,” he says.
“Such a gentleman.”
He lowers his voice until it’s a threat and a promise at once. “You have no idea how hard I’m trying.”
I swallow and start down.
The air cools with each step, the sounds of the city fading behind us. At the bottom, another door. Another lock. Damian’s fingers brush the small of my back when he leans around me to open it, and my breath stutters traitorously.
The door swings inward.
Candlelight spills into the corridor, warm and flickering. The restaurant is small, carved out of rock and concrete, ceilings low enough to feel secret but not suffocating. Tables are scattered at deliberate distances, each dressed in black linen and glass. Soft music hums low—piano and something stringed, nothing with words. There are no windows. No exits visible other than the one we used.
My prison brain catalogs all of that in an instant.
My human brain gets stuck on the fact that this is beautiful.
A host appears, not surprised at all to see Damian. “Mr. Wolfe,” he says, bowing his head slightly. “Your table is ready.”
Of course it is.
We’re led to a corner alcove, half–hidden by a curved wall. It feels like a cave and a spotlight at the same time. Damian waits until I sit before taking his own seat across from me, his posture relaxed in that deliberate, lethal way I’ve seen at a thousand meetings, but his eyes… tonight they’re softer. Or maybe I’m imagining it.
The host pours water, sets down menus. Damian doesn’t glance at his.
“I already ordered,” he says when we’re alone.
I arch a brow. “Controlling much?”
“You hate reading long menus,” he replies without missing a beat. “Too many choices.”
I freeze. “How would you know that?”
His gaze holds mine, steady, unapologetic. “I watch you.”
“That’s not creepy at all.”
“Don’t ask the devil to be harmless, Aria.” His lips twitch again. “You won’t like the result.”
Despite myself, I laugh—quiet, surprised. His eyes sharpen at the sound, like I just handed him a weapon and he doesn’t know whether to use it or worship it.
For a moment, we just look at each other. No gunfire. No bosses. No chains. Just the quiet awareness that we’re sitting across from someone we were never supposed to want.
“I had college plans,” I blurt.
His brows draw together. “What?”
“You said you already ordered, and my brain panicked, so now I’m talking.” I exhale, staring at my hands. “I had this whole life mapped out. College. Internship. Maybe grad school in Europe. I used to think I’d work in museums. Art, history, old things with quiet stories.”
Damian leans back slightly, studying me. “And instead you’re in an underground restaurant with a man who’s burned half those stories to ash.”
“At least it’s not boring,” I mutter.
He huffs—it’s not quite a laugh, but it’s not mockery either. “No, Aria Navarro. You’ve never been boring.”
The way he says my name makes my stomach twist.
“What about you?” I ask, lifting my chin. “Did you have plans before… everything?”
The candle between us burns low. His face flickers in and out of shadow.
“For a long time, my only plan was survive.” His voice is rougher now, stripped of the polished crime lord veneer. “Before Navarro, I thought about… leaving. Driving until the city disappeared in the mirror. Buying a place by the ocean where no one knew my name. Maybe working with my hands instead of breaking things all the time.”
I picture Damian in worn jeans fixing boats or building furniture, not wearing suits that smell like death and power. The image hurts somehow.
“You could still do that,” I say softly.
His gaze hardens. “No. Men like me don’t get clean exits.”
“Who decides that?” I whisper. “You? The Syndicate? Navarro’s ghost?”
Silence stretches. Our food arrives—pasta with truffle, roasted vegetables, a bottle of red wine that probably costs more than my car used to. The server retreats. Damian pours for both of us, his hand steady even though something inside him clearly isn’t.
“I decided,” he says at last. “The day Navarro chained me to that chair, I decided I would never be weak again. That I would rule the same world that tried to bury me in it. That I would never beg, never kneel, never—”
He cuts himself off, jaw tight.
“Never be at anyone’s mercy,” I finish quietly.
His eyes lift to mine. There it is—the boy from the footage on the USB, older now, wrapped in scars and fury and tailored suits, but still there.
“You’ve seen too much,” he mutters.
“Not enough.” My throat feels tight. “I can’t pretend this is just… some enemy I’m sleeping in the penthouse of. You keep bleeding for me, Damian. You keep killing for me. You keep—” I swallow around the word. “—wanting me.”
His hand flashes out, catching my wrist over the table. Not hard. Not punishing. Just… grounding.
“Careful,” he says, voice low. “You start labeling what this is, and I might not be able to let you walk away from it.”
“I’m collared in your tower,” I say, meeting his stare. “I was never walking away.”
Something in his expression fractures.
We eat in pieces between shards of conversation. He orders the dishes I like without asking because he’s observed every flinch, every lingering glance, every time I went back for another bite in the tower cafeteria. I tell him about the one time my father took me to a museum and I realized the only reason he liked art was because it could be stolen and sold. He tells me about his first deal, when he was nineteen and shaking so hard he dropped his gun twice before pulling the trigger.
There are moments when we forget to be enemies.
It’s terrifying.
When the plates are cleared and only the candle remains, worn almost to nothing, Damian reaches across the table. His fingers hover over mine like he’s asking without words.
I let my hand turn palm–up in answer.
His touch is warm, rough, calloused. He traces the faint scar on my thumb from the knife in the garage. The dining room has emptied out without me noticing. It feels like the whole world has narrowed to his hand on mine, his eyes on my face, the collar humming faintly at my throat like a second heartbeat.
“If we weren’t… this,” I say, voice barely louder than the candle’s hiss, “what would we be?”
“Dead,” he answers immediately.
I blink.
“Aria,” he continues, a dark smile curling his lips, “I run a syndicate. You’re Navarro’s daughter. There is no version of this where we meet at a coffee shop and argue about music.”
I should be offended. Instead, I huff a laugh that tastes like resignation. “What do we argue about then?”
“Everything.” He stands, coming around the table. My pulse spikes. He holds out his hand. “Come here.”
“You’re very bossy, you know that?”
“Occupational hazard.”
I slide my fingers into his. He pulls me to my feet, then closer, until my body is flush to his. One hand settles on my waist, the other rises to the nape of my neck, thumb brushing the hidden edge of the collar. A shiver ripples through me.
“Last chance to run,” he murmurs.
“I tried that,” I breathe. “Didn’t stick.”
His chest rises on a sharp inhale. Then his mouth is on mine.
It’s nothing like the angry, explosive almost–kisses that came before. This one is slow, deliberate, devastating. He kisses me like he’s been starving and finally allowed to eat, but scared the meal will vanish if he reaches too fast. His lips are warm, tasting like red wine and danger. My fingers knot in his shirt, pulling him closer, because there is no universe where I don’t answer this.
He deepens the kiss gradually, like he’s testing how much I can take before I break. His hand tightens at my waist, dragging me against the hard line of his body. A soft sound escapes me; his answering groan vibrates through my bones.
When he finally pulls back, both of us breathing hard, his forehead rests against mine. The candle flickers out.
“Now you understand,” he whispers, voice wrecked. “Why you can’t leave me.”
My heart hammers so loud I’m surprised he can’t hear it.
“I understand,” I say, fingers still fisted in his shirt, anchoring myself to the only monster who ever stood between me and the dark. “But I’m not the only one who can’t walk away anymore, Damian.”
His silence is answer enough.
Down here, beneath the flower shop and the city and the Syndicate, nothing feels safe. Not the man holding me. Not the future rising up like a storm.
But for the first time, it feels like it might be ours.