"Nobody is allowed between these pretty little thighs but me....and if anyone tries...𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦."
~
They call him The King-a ghost who rules the world's most powerful mafia from the shadows. No face. No mercy. No mistakes.
And beside...
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Kaia hadn't spoken about the roses.
She didn't need to.
The vase sat on her desk now, thorns still sharp, stems too red, like something pulled from the underworld. She didn't throw them away. She didn't move them. She just let them sit—like a reminder. Like a dare.
Luca had seen the note. He didn't say a word. But she felt him watching her the rest of the night like he was trying to memorize her heartbeat in case it stopped.
She worked late again. The Black Orchid had emptied by then, the music softened to a velvet hum through the walls. Her office door was cracked, a sliver of golden light spilling across the tile like a blade.
She didn't move much. She barely breathed.
Eventually, the screens dimmed. The lamp clicked off.
And she was alone.
The suite upstairs was silent when she entered. Gold fixtures, marble floors. Clean. Untouched. A place that didn't feel like hers, not really. Just somewhere she existed. Somewhere, the air didn't hurt her lungs.
She peeled her coat off slowly, the weight of the day still clinging to her spine like phantom hands. Her shoulder ached. The scar on her back throbbed. Her chest still burned on colder nights—tonight, it was infernal.
Kaia sat on the edge of her bed and let the silence crawl up her throat.
She didn't cry.
But she didn't sleep either.
Not for hours.
And when she did—when her body finally caved—her mind did not.
It was raining in the dream.
Soft at first. Barely there.
She stood in the courtyard of a house she didn't recognize. Limestone walls. Ivy strangled the corners. And all around her, wilted roses. Crimson petals turned black with rot. A thousand of them. All dead.
Then came the sound.
Boots.
She turned too late.
The flash came next—white, blinding, wrong. Not a gunshot. A scream. Her scream. Echoing across the cobblestones like it didn't belong to her.
"Run," someone whispered. A girl's voice. Her own?
She did.
But the path never changed. No matter how far she went, she ended up in the same place. The same courtyard. The same roses. And this time, blood bloomed from the ground beneath her.
