Page 17 of Protected By the Mafia

“I can get into a woman’s head,” she said while she was explaining, “but it’s harder to understand the way a man might look at this scene. And I want my store to be as inviting as possible, to everyone.”

Cristiano was tempted to tell her he was not the best suited to this job. He didn’t know jack shit about flowers. He knew roses came in at least three colors, and he knew that half the ones he personally thought looked decent other people wrote off as weeds. The only other thing that came to mind as he slowly walked through the store and pointed out his first impressions of various displays was that Felicity had a painting of some sort of pretty purple flowers on her living room wall.

That actually gave him an idea, so while he paused to let Iris jot down some notes on whatever he’d just said, he pulled out his phone. Like the stalker he’d turned into since he’d first laid eyes on the woman probably still soaking in his tub, he’d taken pictures of most of her apartment while he’d been there. For research purposes.

He found the picture of the painting quickly enough and zoomed it in to study the flower. He’d definitely not seen it so far, and they’d already gone through half the shop. So he opted for an image search.

The word Foxgloves popped up on his screen at the same time as Iris asked, “Did something come up?”

Cristiano put his phone away without closing out of the search, so he could read up on it later. “No. Just checking something.”

She smiled at him. “I’m sorry if this is totally crazy. I just didn’t know how else to get reliable input.”

He shook his head. “It’s fine. Though I’m not sure my answers will be very helpful.”

She laughed softly. “Maybe it can be a learning experience for both of us, then. You can share your initial impressions with me, and gain a little bit of a better eye for when you have a real reason to walk through aisles of flowers. Like if you have a fight with your girlfriend and need to apologize, or just want to get her something she’ll like for her birthday.” She held up a finger, her other hand holding her notebook close. “Not all women prefer roses, you know.”

Cristiano let his gaze drift down the back wall, in the direction of the sole remaining aisle. A crazy, insanely dangerous idea flitted through his mind. He knew he shouldn’t. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, anything and everything he said to Iris today would get back to Dante. The only smart thing was to keep his mouth tightly shut. On the other hand, it might not hurt to plant a seed. A very small, carefully worded seed.

He glanced down at Iris again. “What do you know about Foxgloves?”

She blinked up at him. “Foxgloves?” She drummed her fingers on the back of the notebook. “Oh! I remember. They’re beautiful, kind of bell-shaped, sometimes purple or pink or white, and grow on stalks. But they’re extremely toxic. The entire plant is poisonous, even deadly.” She made a pained face. “You weren’t thinking of gifting them to someone, I hope?”

“No,” he said slowly. The analogy rolled on repeat in his brain and he barely bit back his smile. Foxglove. A beautiful, unexpectedly deadly flower. Look, but don’t touch. Exactly like his Felicity. She was the beautiful, he was the deadly.

“Forgive me for being nosy,” Iris said, “but if you aren’t looking to give them to someone, why did you want to know?”

Her question sobered his strange excitement. He couldn’t just say he’d seen a picture of them at his lover’s place, because it was not out of the question that another man would be sent to her apartment in search of her. He had to be craftier than that, and as vague as possible. “There’s a woman—”

He was interrupted, for better or worse, by a shrill, insistent beeping from his pocket. A sound that could only mean one thing.

Iris jumped, startled by the intrusive noise.

Cristiano scowled and snatched his phone out again. The alarm cut off when he opened the attached notification. “Motherfucker.” There’d been a break-in at one of his storehouses. The one where he was holding Tristán Garcia.

“Cristiano…?” The hesitancy in Iris’s voice was hard to miss. Sort of like the alarm that had interrupted their conversation, and their flower-perusing.

Thumb moving over the screen of his phone, Cristiano turned to her and reached out, encouraging her to move with him toward the exit. They had half a store to get across, but fortunately, it wasn’t busy. He didn’t give a shit about the old lady behind the counter who’d been eyeing them since they walked in. “Sorry. Need to get you home,” he said to Iris.

“Oh. Can I—” She blew out a breath and set to work tucking her notebook away. “Right. Okay.” She glanced to the side as Ernesto stepped into view.

Cristiano met the older man’s stare. “I’ll follow you, make sure you get inside safely. But I won’t be able to stay.” He brought his phone to his ear.

Iris glanced between him and her usual escort. It was obvious she wanted to ask and just as clear she wasn’t sure she should.

Cristiano’s bigger concern was the delay. Having the boss’s fiancée vulnerable on the street when one of their undisclosed locations had been successfully hit was a fucking problem.

“Don’t bitch at me,” Mikey said when the line connected. “I just got the fucking alert. I’m looking into it.”

“I need to know what fucking happened, Mikey,” Cristiano snapped back. “You said that house was secure. Why did I not at least get an alert in real goddamn time? How long ago were we hit? How many other locations?”

Ahead of him, Iris stumbled and spun back around, barely past the store’s entry. Her eyes were wide with concern. “Dante, is he—”

Cristiano made a sharp gesture toward the black sedan at the curb, which he knew belonged to his cousin and therefore had to be the vehicle she’d arrived in. “Our first priority is getting you to a safe location. You can call him from the car.”

“Ma’am,” Ernesto said almost simultaneously.

In Cristiano’s ear, Mikey cursed and said, “No other locations. At least nothing showing yet. That was one of yours, right? Is that where you—”

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