I nod, keep my eyes on the road. I want to be out of the city. Want to have her behind the gates of my property, safely locked away in her own tower.

“Maybe they were left there by accident,” she says. “I wonder if they were for someone else.”

Her phone dings and she looks at it again, shakes her head.

“Sergio, you were weird about the flowers.”

I nod.

“Am I missing something?”

I glance at her, don’t want to worry her, so I lie. “I just really don’t like the smell. They remind me of funerals.”

“That’s cryptic.”

“Death is.” I merge onto the highway.

A weight settles alongside us in the car and the silence feels heavy. She’ll see through my lie. I know it. But I don’t want to have the discussion about the flowers. Not yet.

“Sergio,” she finally says once we pull through the gates of my house. “Is there something about the flowers that I should know?”

I park the car, kill the engine. I climb out and the front door of the house opens as Natalie steps out of the car.

She looks at Eric and the man standing beside him, then at me.

“What’s going on?”

I meet her worried gaze, shift my attention to opening the back door, lifting Pepper out and setting her on the ground. The dog’s too old to hop out of the car on her own. “Let’s get her settled.” I take a step toward the house but she puts a hand on my arm.

“Sergio?”

I take a deep breath in, turn to her. “I don’t think the flowers were left by accident.”

15

Natalie

“What are you talking about?”

I’m forcing in every breath I take, trying to stay calm.

“Let’s go in,” Sergio says, his eyes dark on mine when he takes my arm and walks us up the stairs to the front door.

I glance over my shoulder at the tall iron gates in the distance.

“In, Natalie. Now.”

“Are we in danger?” I ask, Pepper loping beside us.

He doesn’t answer but greets the men when we get inside. “Natalie, you know Eric. This is Ricco.”

I glance at Ricco. He’s big, kind of brutish looking, and he nods at me in greeting. I shift my gaze back to Sergio.

He’s watching me, and I know he’s weighing his words. “Ricco’s going to keep an eye on you while you’re at school.”

I pull my arm free, step backward. Pepper’s fur brushes against the backs of my legs. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Another man will be stationed at your house.”

“What—”