The Woman with the Flowers

Contents Title Rights Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Acknowledgements Also by Jessica Gadziala About the Author Stalk Her! Guide Contents Start of Content The Woman with the Flowers — Jessica Gadziala Copyright © 2023 Jessica Gadziala All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review. "This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental." CHAPTER ONE Cesare It didn’t matter how long I’d been back in the city, I still couldn’t seem to get used to the casual informality of walking into the capo-dei-capi’s brownstone without knocking. “Hey Ant,” I greeted, nodding my head to one of my younger cousins who was standing on the front stoop, a white bandage wrapped around his hand. “The fuck happened now?” I asked, nodding toward it. I’d never met someone as prone to getting injured as Anthony Costa. It was almost a running fucking joke in the Family at this point. Except it wasn’t funny when the man had nearly been disemboweled, shot, and in a serious car accident. To that, Ant raised his hand, snorting at his palm and shaking his head. “Nothing exciting this time. Burned my hand on my coffee.” “Gotta be more careful or Lorenzo is gonna have you rolled up in fucking bubble wrap,” I told him. “He in?” I asked, nodding toward the door. “Yep. He’s waiting for you.” I suspected as much since my old man told me he was looking for me. Then gave me a lecture about not having my phone charged at all times. He’d chosen retirement a while back, before, even, the shift when Lorenzo took his father’s place as boss of all bosses. That didn’t mean, however, that he wasn’t full of advice. Both asked for and otherwise. “You coming in?” I asked, reaching for the door. “Nah. I’m waiting for Brio. He’s the bagman this week. But…” he said, waving a hand out. “Lorenzo wants him to have a babysitter so he doesn’t end up doing snow angels in someone’s blood,” I finished for him. Every Family had to have their resident psychopath. Brio was ours. “Yep,” Ant agreed, giving a nod goodbye as I moved inside. I wouldn’t mind a brownstone eventually. Someplace with some room to spread out, maybe a little yard out back for some kids to play in, a nice kitchen to have home-cooked meals in. I felt like I was playing catch-up trying to get back into the Family business since coming back from Maine where I’d been handling shit for years. So, yeah, I was a ways off from having the kind of money I’d need to drop on something that could easily cost anywhere from two to twenty million. “There you are. Your old man called to say you were on your way,” Emilio said as I walked into the dining room, finding him shuffling through some paperwork for, I imagined, one of the legitimate businesses. Emilio wasn’t the same man he’d been back before I needed to hide my ass out in Maine after fucking the wife of a Lombardi Family capo. Stupid? Yeah. Reckless? Absolutely. But, hey, it was a story to tell to the young bloods in twenty or thirty years when I was one of the old-timers. Back before I’d left, Emilio had been a kind of light, carefree guy. Content to be the second-in-command to Lorenzo because he simply didn’t want that kind of serious responsibility in his life. Now, though, there was some kind of darkness in him, some void that he didn’t seem to even try to fill anymore. The only real thing that reminded me of the old Emilio was the bold belt buckle he had on—a silver cassette tape with Sinatra’s Greatest Hits written on it. “Yeah, I got myself a lecture about having my phone charged,” I said, waving it with its power bank attached and plugged in. “They wouldn’t be old-timers if they didn’t give us shit and tell us what they think we should be doing, right?” he asked, shuffling his papers into a stack. “Right,” I agreed. “Hey, Enz,” I said as Lorenzo Costa himself came walking in. It was a strange thing to go away and come back to the kid you used to sneak liquor and cigars suddenly running New York City’s biggest crime organization. “Cesare,” he said, clamping me on the shoulder as he passed. “Your old man lecture you?” he asked, shooting me a knowing smile. “He would never miss the chance to do something like that,” I said, but my tone was light. My old man might be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he was a good man who only had my best interest at heart. Even if the fucker clearly needed to pick up a hobby so he could mind his own business for a change. Sculpture. Coin collecting. Fucking bird watching. Something. “Is everything alright?” I asked, not accustomed to being tracked down and called in. To that, Lorenzo sighed a bit as he sat down, rolling his neck. “Maybe? Maybe not. Hard to say.” “Okay. What’s up?” “Maine,” he said, giving me a nod and a look I immediately understood. It was a look that said he was shipping my