Page 91 of The Bratva King

They have some kind of connection I don’t think I’ll ever have with Luke. I watch them sometimes, and I swear they are having full conversations without saying a word.

I collect the cards and shuffle for the next hand. My table is steady today. Some D-list celebrity is having her bachelorette party, and her friends are extra noisy. I think the people at my table are trying to get away from the screeching women, who freak out over every roll of the dice and every card dealt.

Normal people living normal lives.

I’ve never been normal.

But for the first time in five years, I’m starting to forget that.

I’m relieved when my lunch break comes and am starting toward the break room when one of the security guys stops me.

“Collins.”

I turn. “Yes?”

“You’ve got a delivery.”

I look up, confused. “A delivery?”

“They’re bringing it over now.”

One of the floor attendants appears with a massive crystal vase filled with two dozen white roses. Perfect and pristine. Gorgeous.

White roses.

Just like the one on the windshield.

The attendant thrusts them at me. “Lucky girl.”

I can’t breathe. I’m staring at the roses like they might explode. My hands are shaking as I reach for them.

It’s Nikolai, I tell myself. It has to be Nikolai. This is a romantic gesture. A real one. Not one that’s an apology for beating the shit out of me or forcing me to clean blood from the foyer.

Nik isn’t Matteo.

He gave me a car this morning. He’s setting up a bedroom for Luke. He’s spoiling us. This is just another kind gesture after I fought him about staying.

That’s all this is.

But I remember the last time I saw white roses. I can still feel what the tightness around my eye felt like where it had swollen to the size of a golf ball. He’d given me a dozen after that beating.

And before that. The roses he used to leave on my pillow after he hurt me. Like flowers could erase bruises.

“You okay?” the attendant asks.

I force myself to smile. “Fine. Just surprised.”

I carry the vase to the break room.

The cloying sweetness wafts up and makes my stomach turn.

It’s Nikolai. It has to be.

He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know about Matteo. He has no idea what white roses mean to me.

But what if it’s not him?

What if someone else sent them? Someone who knows what they mean?