💐 The Flowers She Received Made the Mafia Boss Lose Control

Chapter 03 - The Envelope Under the Door

Hazel did not bend for the envelope immediately. Fear had never helped her read a room, and panic was a luxury reserved for people who had never watched bills pile beside a hospital bed or learned the difference between a warning and a promise.

Adrian's face had gone bloodless. 'How did he find this place?'

'He didn't,' Hazel said, though she knew the lie had no weight. Callum Sullivan found what he wanted. That was one of the few dependable laws left in Chicago.

The storage facility lights flickered. Somewhere down the corridor a cart squeaked once, then went still.

Hazel crouched and picked up the black envelope. It was not sealed. Inside was a single photograph taken less than an hour earlier: Hazel entering Unit 19 beneath her umbrella. On the back, in Callum's hard, controlled handwriting, were seven words.

Tell your architect I dislike being studied.

Adrian swore under his breath. 'He thinks I'm the man sending you flowers.'

'You are the man sending me flowers.'

'Not for the reason he thinks.'

Hazel folded the photograph and placed it in her coat. 'Men like Callum don't care about reasons until after something has been broken.'

A slow clap echoed outside the unit.

Milo stepped into view, broad shoulders filling the half-open door, rainwater shining on his black coat. Behind him stood two silent men Hazel had seen in Sullivan elevators and never liked.

'Evening, Ms. Reed.' Milo's voice was polite. That made it worse. 'Boss wants a conversation.'

Adrian moved toward the drafting table drawer.

Hazel did not look at him. 'Don't.'

'Hazel—'

'Don't give them a reason.'

Milo watched the exchange with mild interest. 'Smart woman.'

'Where is Callum?' she asked.

'Car outside.'

'Then tell him if he wants a conversation, he can come in like a grown man.'

One of Milo's men almost smiled. Milo did not. 'He said you'd say that.'

The corridor seemed to hold its breath. Then another set of footsteps approached, unhurried, the sound of expensive shoes on stained concrete. Callum appeared beneath a dying fluorescent bulb, dressed in the same dark charcoal suit he had worn that morning, open collar exposing the faint edge of the tattoos at his throat.

He looked first at Hazel, then at Adrian, then at the plans on the drafting table.

'Interesting place for a date.'

Hazel lifted her chin. 'Interesting place for a surveillance operation.'

'I prefer the word protection.'

'Of course you do.'

Callum stepped inside the unit. The space shrank around him. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Some men announced danger; Callum carried it quietly, like a second skeleton.

'Mr. Vale,' he said. 'Architect.'

Adrian swallowed. 'I don't want trouble.'

'Then you chose the wrong woman to invite into a storage unit.'

Hazel cut in before the room tilted into violence. 'He isn't my lover.'

Callum's eyes returned to her. Something moved in them too quickly to name. Relief, perhaps. Or anger at having been relieved.

'What is he?'

'A problem from before you.'

'Everything before me still reaches me eventually.'

Adrian spoke then, foolishly brave. 'Ask him about St. Bartholomew's.'

Callum went completely still.

Hazel felt the temperature change in the room. 'What is St. Bartholomew's?'

Callum's gaze remained on Adrian. 'A church.'

'A fire,' Adrian corrected. 'A ledger. A dead man named Thomas Reed.'

Hazel's father's name struck the concrete between them like a dropped glass.

Callum turned to her slowly. 'Your father was Thomas Reed?'

Hazel had imagined this moment for three years. She had expected satisfaction, fear, maybe triumph. Instead she felt tired enough to sit on the floor.

'Yes.'

For the first time since she had known him, Callum Sullivan looked younger than forty-two. Not softer. Not innocent. Just wounded in a place he had thought no one could reach.

'Hazel,' he said, and her name was no longer an order. 'Your father saved my life.'

Milo had once told Hazel that Callum did not believe in coincidences. Hazel had answered that coincidences were merely lazy patterns, and men liked to call them fate when they lacked the patience to read them properly. Milo had laughed then. He was not laughing now.

Callum's arrival did not make Hazel feel safe. That irritated her too, because some part of her body betrayed the rest by relaxing when he stepped into the light. Safety was a dangerous misunderstanding. Callum was not safety. He was force pointed in her direction, and for the moment that direction happened to serve her.

Adrian kept looking from one armed man to another, recalculating the courage that had seemed sufficient when the evening began. Hazel almost pitied him. Almost.

'You should leave,' she told him.

'With them here?'

'Especially with them here.'

Callum heard the exchange and said nothing. That silence was worse than accusation. It asked questions his pride would not let him speak in front of witnesses. Did you trust him? Did he touch you? Did you smile for him? Did you use me the way he says you did?

Hazel wanted to answer none of them. She wanted to answer all of them with brutal honesty. Yes, she had used Callum. Yes, she had also protected him. Yes, Adrian had been useful. No, Adrian had never made her forget where the exits were.

When her father's name entered the room, every smaller question fell away.

Thomas Reed had been a ghost, a wound, a bedtime story with no ending. Hearing Callum say that name as if it belonged to his own pain made Hazel feel briefly unmoored. Their histories, which she had kept in separate locked drawers, had been tangled long before they met.

Then the alarm began to scream, and history stopped being memory. It became men with guns.

Before she could answer, the storage facility alarms began to scream.