💐 The Little Bouquet That Made the Mafia Boss Believe Again

Chapter 02 - The Maid in the Doorway

The young woman took one step into my study and immediately regretted it.

I watched it happen. Her whole body leaned toward the child, but her eyes warned her not to cross the room too quickly. People who have lived around power learn strange manners. They learn that love itself can look like trespassing.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Vitali,” she said. “She slipped away from the staff room. I told her to stay with Mrs. Alvarez.”

Her voice was steady, but her hands were not.

Sophie hugged the stuffed rabbit to her chest.

“I didn’t break anything.”

“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”

The woman looked at me, startled by my gentleness. That should have offended me. Instead, it made me tired.

“What is your name?”

“Claire Bennett.”

I searched my memory. Six weeks ago, Enzo had asked to hire additional staff for the wedding. Temporary help, he had said. Quiet people. Reliable people. Names on a list I had signed without reading, because men who have lost the use of their legs are still expected to run households, companies, alliances, and the feelings of everyone too uncomfortable to look directly at them.

“And Sophie is your daughter?”

“Yes.”

The child nodded proudly. “My full name is Sophie Rose Bennett, but Mommy only uses all of it when I color the wall.”

Despite the day, despite Bianca’s letter burning a hole against my heart, a laugh nearly escaped me.

Claire saw it and looked even more frightened.

“Come here, sweetheart,” she said.

Sophie walked to her mother, then stopped and looked back at me.

“You can keep the bouquet. Since yours got ruined.”

Something flickered in Claire’s face.

Embarrassment. Pain. Recognition again.

I touched the little bouquet. Its stems were wrapped in a faded blue ribbon, not the expensive ivory silk used throughout the wedding. This ribbon was older, softened by years, tied by hands that knew how to preserve things.

“Where did you hear that sentence?” I asked.

Claire went still.

“What sentence?”

“Good people shouldn’t be left alone.”

Sophie answered before her mother could.

“Mommy says it when people cry.”

Claire closed her eyes for one second.

I knew that gesture too. Not her face. Not exactly. But the discipline of holding oneself together in front of a child.

“Where did you learn it?” I asked Claire.

“My grandmother used to say it.”

“Your grandmother’s name?”

She lifted her chin. “Ruth.”

A good lie is smooth. Hers had a seam.

I was opening my mouth when someone knocked on the study door. Once. Firmly.

“Sir,” Enzo called. “I need to speak with you.”

Claire reached for Sophie’s hand.

“I should go.”

“No.”

The word left me sharper than I intended. Sophie’s fingers tightened around her mother’s skirt.

I softened my voice.

“Please stay a moment.”

Enzo entered only after I gave permission. His face held the controlled distress of a man who had discovered a second disaster before the first had finished bleeding.

He glanced at Claire, then Sophie, then the bouquet in my lap.

His gaze lingered on the blue ribbon.

“Enzo,” I said.

He looked up quickly.

“What happened?”

He held out something small on his palm.

A gold cufflink.

Not mine.

“Found near the north corridor,” he said. “Beside the service stairs.”

Claire’s face changed before she could stop it.

I noticed.

Enzo noticed me noticing.

“The bride?” I asked.

“She did leave the house,” Enzo said carefully. “But not through the front.”

I took the cufflink.

It bore a crest I knew too well: a hawk stamped inside a circle.

Raffaele Vitali.

My cousin.

My father’s brother’s son.

A man who smiled at family dinners as if loyalty were a pleasant story other people told children.

“What was Raffaele doing near Bianca?”

Enzo’s silence answered first.

Then he said, “Security footage from the north corridor is missing.”

Claire drew Sophie closer.

Sophie whispered, “Mommy, is Mr. Lorenzo still sad?”

The room had become too quiet.

I turned the cufflink between my fingers.

Outside, below the windows, guests were still leaving my ruined wedding. Somewhere among them, Ferretti was probably enjoying the taste of humiliation with his champagne.

“Find Raffaele,” I said.

Enzo lowered his voice.

“He left twenty minutes before the letter arrived.”

My hand closed around the cufflink.

That was when Sophie spoke again, small and clear.

“The bride lady was crying by the stairs.”

Claire inhaled sharply.

I looked at the child.

“What did you say?”

Sophie looked at her mother, then at me.

“She gave me the flowers,” she said, pointing to the bouquet on my lap. “She said if I saw the sad man in the chair, I should tell him she was sorry.”