Chapter 9.

A delivery man stands behind an arrangement so large I can barely see his face around it, a mountain of deep red roses wrapped in black paper.

"Sign here, please."

I do, still staring at the flowers like they might be a mistake meant for another apartment. They aren't. The card tucked between the stems has my name on it, Elena's name, in handwriting too deliberate to belong to anyone but him.

"I intended to set the mood for our dinner. All you have to do is be breathtaking, Carino. — R.”

Sweet, almost. Except nothing about Rafael Marchetti does anything by accident, and even his flowers read like a claim staked before the evening's even started.

I set the flowers on the dining table and I'm still smiling at the card when the doorbell rings again.

This time it's not the delivery man. It's four, and a garment rack rolling behind them like a small parade, someone already unzipping a bag of makeup before I've fully opened the door.

"Is this Miss Elena?" the woman in front asks politely, glancing at a clipboard before her eyes catch on the roses behind me. "Mr. Marchetti sent us for you. He really did all that, huh.”

They move through the apartment like they've done this a hundred times, rolling the wardrobe into the living room, laying out brushes and palettes across the counter with practiced efficiency.

"Please, have a seat," the stylist says, already combing her fingers through my hair, testing its texture. Another woman kneels at my feet with a tray of polish, and a third starts pulling dresses off the rack one at a time, holding each up against me like she's solving an equation.

"You're so lucky," the nail tech says, glancing at the roses. "My boyfriend can't even pick up food without complaining."

"When his people called," the stylist adds, quieter, "I canceled a client I've had for three years. Didn't even think twice." A small, nervous laugh. "Who says no to a Marchetti?"

"Everyone acted like it was an emergency," the third woman mutters, threading a needle through a hem that needs no fixing at all. "Like we were being deployed, not booked."

"He's just generous," I offer, testing the room.

"He's just powerful," the stylist corrects, gently, like she's teaching me something I should already know. "There's a difference. Be careful which one you fall for."

The room quiets a beat too long before the nail tech breaks it with a laugh, shaking it off.

"Anyway. Let's make you breathtaking. That's what your man wants, isn't it?" Her eyes flick toward the card still sitting open beside the roses, and something in her expression says she's already read every word of it.

We all laugh, and the afternoon settles into its rhythm, hands in my hair, brushes against my cheekbones, a rotation of dresses I somehow don't hate.

I let them have Elena, warm, a little vain about the compliments, giving just enough to keep the room easy without giving them anything real.

By evening, the woman in the mirror looks like someone built for exactly tonight, dark silk, diamonds Rafael apparently insisted on, not one hair out of place.

I text Isa from the burner the moment Marcus arrives, then tuck it into the drawer beside Daniel's handkerchief and close it, sealing off two different lives at once.

……

The restaurant sits alone on the water, private, unmarked, exactly the kind of quiet Rafael would choose if he wanted somewhere secluded without it feeling like a threat.

He's already standing when I arrive, and something in his face when he sees me isn't performance. Not entirely.

"You look unreasonable, Elena," he says, pulling out my chair. "I mean that as a compliment.”

"I'll take it as one."

Over the meal, I let him have real pieces of me, careful ones. My mother's side of the family, Cuban, loud, the kind of household that argues over food the way other people argue over politics. My love for buildings older than both of us, the way I've always been able to read a room before anyone opens their mouth in it.

He listens like it costs him something to pay that much attention.

"Growing up the way I did," he says eventually, swirling wine he hasn't finished, "you learn fast that nobody wants you. They want what your name buys them. I stopped being able to tell the difference around fourteen."

"That sounds lonely."

"It was." He looks at me a beat too long. "It still is, mostly."

We walk the marina after, and it's easier than I expect it to be, him stealing food off my plate before dinner even properly ends, me mocking his taste in wine, both of us finding a rhythm that has nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with two people who, for one evening, forget what they're supposed to be doing to each other.

He notices things. The way I go quiet near loud groups. The way I flinch, barely, at a car backfiring two blocks over. He doesn't comment on either. He just angles his body slightly between me and the noise, like it's instinct rather than performance.

That's the part that scares me more than anything he's said tonight. He's not just charming. He's attentive. And attentive men are so much harder to lie to.

His phone rings, sharp against the quiet. He checks the screen, jaw tightening before he answers.

"Talk to me." A pause. His voice drops, flat and cold, nothing left of the man who'd been feeding me dessert two minutes ago. "Find him. Tonight." Another pause. "Y cuando lo hagas, córtale un dedo si es lo que hace falta para que hable." (Trans: And when you do, cut off a finger if that's what it takes to make him talk).

He doesn't know I understood every word of it.

He doesn't send me away. He just turns half a step further from me and keeps his voice low, and I catalog what I can without looking like I'm trying, a name, a delay, a debt someone's about to pay in blood for missing a window that was never theirs to control.

When he hangs up, I ask, careful, soft. "Everything okay?"

"Just business." He studies me for a second like he's deciding how much to hand over, then decides against it, same as always. "Nothing that needs to touch tonight."

I don't push. I don't have to. I already have more than I came for tonight, a name, a threat, proof of exactly how far Rafael Marchetti is willing to go when someone costs him money.

"You don't have to stay," I say, watching him carefully. "You could've handled that without me here."

He takes my face in both hands, thumb brushing my cheekbone. "I'm not leaving you tonight, Elena. Not for that. Not for anything."

We smile, and it feels dangerously real.

"Come," he says. "I want to show you something.”

…….

A yacht sits at the end of the dock like something built to be admired rather than used, sleek and dark, his name stenciled small near the stern.

"You own this?"

"I own a great many things I rarely use." He watches me take it in, amusement flickering. "Come see the parts worth seeing."

Inside, it's absurd, marble, soft lighting, a bedroom that looks lifted from a film I definitely didn't imagine myself standing in tonight. I let myself look wide-eyed at all of it because some of the wonder isn't even fake.

He draws me close once we're alone, pulling me against his chest, his voice low, certain.

"Be mine, Elena." His hand slides along my jaw. "You'd have all of this and more, if you decided you wanted it."

"You're dangerous." My voice shakes, and this time I don't have to fake it. "I don't belong in your world. I don't want to spend every day of my life watching my own shoulder."

Something shifts behind his eyes, quieter than I expect.

"Then let me watch it for you." His forehead drops to mine, his hand curling gently at the back of my neck. "Nobody touches what's mine, cariño. Not while I'm breathing."

The space between us disappears, his mouth a breath from mine, and for one terrifying second, I forget which version of me is about to let him close it.