Chapter 2 - The Man Outside the Flower Shop
The first thing Amelia noticed about Dominic Moretti was that nobody introduced him.
Nobody needed to.
The black sedan stopped directly outside Brooks and Bloom.
Two men in dark coats emerged first.
They did not look like ordinary drivers.
They looked at windows.
Doorways.
Roofs.
People.
Then Dominic stepped onto the sidewalk.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a dark wool coat over a black suit. His hair was nearly black, his expression controlled, and there was something about the way the two men positioned themselves around him that made pedestrians instinctively create space.
Amelia lowered the cold cloth from her cheek.
“Oh,” she said.
Isabella took another sip of tea.
“That would be my son.”
Amelia stared at her.
“That?”
Isabella smiled.
“I did warn you he was difficult.”
The shop door opened.
Dominic entered.
The small brass bell above it rang once.
Amelia had heard that bell thousands of times.
Delivery drivers.
Customers.
Friends.
People asking whether roses were romantic or apologetic.
It had never sounded like a warning before.
Dominic’s eyes found Isabella immediately.
He crossed the shop in three long steps.
“Mother.”
Isabella remained seated.
“Dominic.”
He looked at her wrists.
The bruises.
Then at Amelia’s swollen cheek.
His face changed.
Not dramatically.
His eyes simply became colder.
“What happened?”
“The situation is handled.”
“No.”
Isabella sighed.
“Here we go.”
Dominic looked toward one of the men behind him.
“Rafael.”
The man immediately reached for his phone.
Amelia stood.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at her.
Dominic’s gaze settled on her properly for the first time.
His eyes were dark brown.
Almost black from a distance.
Up close, Amelia saw something she had not expected.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For Isabella.
That softened her for approximately two seconds.
Then he said:
“Who hit you?”
Amelia folded her arms.
“That depends on why you’re asking.”
Dominic seemed genuinely confused.
“Why else would I ask?”
“If the next step involves someone disappearing mysteriously into Lake Michigan, I’m not giving you a name.”
Silence.
Rafael looked down.
Isabella covered a smile with her teacup.
Dominic stared.
“Do people normally accuse you of murder during introductions?”
“I still haven’t been introduced.”
Isabella placed her cup down.
“Amelia Brooks, my son, Dominic Moretti. Dominic, this is the woman who prevented two security guards from treating your mother like stolen luggage.”
Dominic looked at Amelia’s cheek again.
“You stepped between them?”
“Yes.”
“And someone struck you.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Police have her name.”
“That was not the question.”
“That’s the answer you’re getting.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Isabella stood.
“Vanessa Clark. Manager of Bellamy & Hart.”
Amelia looked betrayed.
“Isabella.”
“My son was going to learn in thirty seconds.”
Dominic turned toward Rafael.
“Find out who owns Bellamy & Hart.”
“No.”
Amelia’s voice stopped him again.
Dominic slowly looked back.
“Excuse me?”
“The police are handling the assault and the false accusation.”
“Police handle crimes. I handle problems.”
“That sentence is not reassuring.”
“It was not meant to reassure you.”
“Then maybe practice.”
Isabella laughed.
Dominic closed his eyes briefly.
“Mother.”
“Yes?”
“You walked out of the house without security.”
“I went shopping.”
“You turned off your phone.”
“I wanted silence.”
“You went into a boutique alone.”
“I am seventy-one, Dominic, not seven.”
“You have enemies because of me.”
The warmth disappeared from Isabella’s face.
“And that is exactly why I occasionally want to live one hour without being treated as your liability.”
The words hit Dominic.
Amelia watched his anger redirect inward.
He became quiet.
Then he said:
“You could have been hurt.”
“I was hurt.”
He looked at the bruises.
“I know.”
“And the woman who helped me did not know my last name.”
Dominic looked toward Amelia.
“That matters to you?”
“It should matter to you.”
He did not answer.
Amelia moved behind the counter and began rearranging flowers that did not need rearranging.
The adrenaline from the boutique was fading.
Her cheek hurt.
Her hands had started shaking.
She wanted everyone gone.
Dominic noticed.
“We need a doctor to look at your face.”
“No.”
“You may have a fracture.”
“I’ve had worse customer complaints.”
“This is not funny.”
“It becomes funny or I start crying.”
That silenced him.
Amelia turned away.
Isabella saw what her son did not.
“Dominic, give her room.”
He stepped backward.
Immediately.
Amelia noticed that too.
For a man who looked like he could order buildings emptied, he obeyed his mother remarkably well.
A few minutes later, Dominic persuaded Isabella to leave only after she agreed that Amelia would first accept a ride to urgent care.
Amelia refused.
Dominic offered again.
She refused again.
Finally Isabella said:
“If she says no a third time, you are proving her assumptions about you.”
Dominic stopped.
“Fine.”
Amelia blinked.
“Fine?”
“Yes.”
“No car?”
“No.”
“No secret medical team?”
“No.”
“No helicopters?”
“Do you normally travel by helicopter after being slapped?”
“I don’t know how billionaires work.”
Dominic’s expression changed slightly.
“You know who I am?”
“Your mother just said Moretti, and I do own internet access.”
Isabella laughed.
Dominic did not.
That name meant something in Chicago.
Everyone had heard stories.
Some true.
Some exaggerated.
The Morettis controlled shipping companies, warehouses, restaurants, commercial property, and a network of private businesses that seemed to touch half the city.
They also had a history stretching into parts of Chicago that respectable newspapers described carefully.
Organized crime.
Political influence.
Private enforcement.
People who owed Moretti companies did not joke about late payments.
Amelia looked at Isabella.
“You left this part out.”
“You didn’t ask the correct question.”
“I asked if he was a bad man.”
Dominic’s eyes moved to his mother.
“What did you tell her?”
“That you worry too much.”
“Mother.”
“And that normal is not your strongest category.”
Amelia almost smiled.
Then Dominic’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face hardened.
“When?”
A pause.
“Who authorized that?”
Another pause.
“Do nothing until I arrive.”
He ended the call.
Isabella watched him.
“What happened?”
Dominic looked at Amelia.
“Bellamy & Hart’s security footage is being erased.”
Amelia stopped.
“The police already copied the part with the bracelet.”
“Not all of it.”
“Why would anyone erase the rest?”
Dominic looked toward Isabella.
That was when Amelia understood.
The missing bracelet accusation might not have been the most important thing that happened inside the boutique.
“Mother,” Dominic said quietly, “why were you really there?”
Isabella’s expression changed.
The gentle elderly woman drinking tea disappeared.
In her place stood someone far sharper.
“I saw something in their online catalog yesterday.”
“What?”
“A bracelet.”
Amelia frowned.
“The diamond one?”
“No.”
Isabella reached into her purse and removed an old photograph.
A younger Isabella stood beside a handsome dark-haired man.
Her late husband.
Dominic’s father.
On Isabella’s wrist was a distinctive emerald-and-diamond bracelet.
“My husband gave me this thirty-nine years ago.”
Dominic became still.
“I remember it.”
“After your father died, I donated it to the Moretti Family Foundation auction.”
“That was twelve years ago.”
“Yes.”
“It sold.”
“For eight hundred thousand dollars. The money was supposed to fund the children’s cardiac wing.”
Amelia understood before Dominic spoke.
“You saw it at Bellamy & Hart.”
Isabella nodded.
“Listed privately under a different history.”
Dominic took the photograph.
“Are you certain?”
“I wore it for twenty-seven years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the foundation records say the buyer took it overseas.”
Dominic’s gaze hardened.
“And if it never left Chicago—”
“Then somebody may have stolen from the foundation.”
The flower shop became very quiet.
Amelia looked toward the street.
Two men in dark coats now stood outside.
For the first time, she was glad they were there.
Dominic picked up his phone.
“Rafael, nobody from my organization contacts Bellamy & Hart. Police get the evidence first.”
Isabella raised an eyebrow.
“That sounds unusually civilized.”
Dominic glanced at Amelia.
“I am adapting.”
“Slowly,” Amelia said.
His mouth almost moved into a smile.
Almost.
Then Amelia noticed an envelope beneath the front door.
It had not been there earlier.
She walked toward it.
Dominic immediately said:
“Do not touch it.”
She stopped.
Rafael entered wearing gloves and picked it up.
No postage.
No address.
Only Amelia’s name.
Inside was a photograph.
Amelia leaving Bellamy & Hart with Isabella.
Taken from across the street less than an hour earlier.
Across the bottom, written in black marker:
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT WALKING.
Dominic looked at the photograph.
Then at Amelia.
His voice became dangerously quiet.
“Now this is my problem too.”
Amelia met his eyes.
“No.”
She looked toward the police station number still saved on her phone.
“It’s evidence.”
For the first time, Dominic Moretti did not argue.
But the expression on his face told Amelia something else.
May you like
Whoever had frightened Isabella inside Bellamy & Hart had now noticed the flower-shop owner who refused to remain silent.
And Dominic Moretti was not the only dangerous person paying attention.
