I push through the glass door. Bells chime overhead.
"Señor Baev!" Irma emerges from the back room, wiping her hands on her apron. Her salt-and-pepper hair pulls back in its usual neat bun. Deep laugh lines mark her face. "So early this morning."
Her father started this shop forty years ago. Built it into something that survived every economic downturn. Now Irma runs it while he spends his mornings drinking coffee and spending time with his wife and grandkids.
"The white roses yesterday." I stop at the counter. "Tell me about that order."
Her hands go still on the ribbon she's been working on. Worry creases her forehead. "I got the standing order reactivated." She straightens. "Didn't want to fall from your graces, Señor Baev. So when the order came through again, I filled it right away."
"Who placed the order?"
"It came through the system." She gestures toward the computer tucked beneath the counter. "Same account you always used. I thought..." She trails off, reading something in my face. "Did I do something wrong, Señor Baev?"
"You didn't do anything wrong, Irma. But from now on, you take flower orders directly from me. No automated systems. No online requests. If someone claiming to be me contacts you through any other method, you call this number immediately."
I slide a card across the counter. Plain white, nothing but ten digits printed in black ink.
She picks it up carefully like it might bite her. The shop settles into silence.
Outside, a delivery truck rumbles past. Someone's already started hosing down the sidewalk two doors down.
Her hands tremble slightly against the counter. Irma's staring at the card like it's a death sentence. If I don't give her something normal to focus on, she'll have a heart attack. "I need white lilies."
Irma's expression shifts with relief. "Of course, Señor Baev. Whatever you need." Her shoulders drop as she writes down my order. "I'll need thirty minutes."
"I'll wait," I say
She disappears into the back room, where the real work happens. The cooler door opens and closes. Water runs. Scissors snip through stems with rhythmic precision.
Twenty-eight minutes later, Irma emerges carrying the perfect arrangement for my Solnishko. White lilies bloom tall and elegant, their petals still tight enough to last days.
"Beautiful work," I tell her.
Irma slides the arrangement into a specialized carrier, stabilizing the stems with wet foam wrapped in protective plastic. The whole thing fits into a white box designed to travel without damage.
I hand her five hundred-dollar bills.
"Señor, this is too much—"
"Keep it. And remember. Direct contact only from now on."
The carrier sits in the passenger seat during the drive back to the penthouse. At every stop and turn, I check to make sure nothing shifts.
I pull into the underground parking, finding my reserved spot near the private elevator. As I cut the engine, my thoughts drift to Fee waiting upstairs. This intense urge to drown in her presence is new territory for me.
I've felt love before. Felt obsession. Felt need. But this is different—deeper, more consuming. The anticipation of seeing her again after just a few hours apart is almost unbearable. What the fuck has she done to me?
I carefully lift the vase from its carrier. Viktor approaches from his post by the elevator, ever vigilant.
"Viktor." I nod toward the empty carrier still in the passenger seat. "Get that and toss it."
He moves immediately, retrieving it with efficient movements. "Anything else, sir?"
"Anything unfamiliar while I was out?" I scan the garage instinctively, searching for shadows that don't belong.
"Nothing to report." Viktor's voice remains level and professional. "All clear."
I nod once and walk toward the elevator. The need to get back to Fee, to eliminate all threats circling us, burns more intensely than any mission I've undertaken before. Every moment hunting these ghosts from my past is time I could be with her.
