Since When Have You Had an Admirer?" The Flowers Were Meant to Make the Mafia Boss Jealous—But the Card Exposed Who Had Been Watching Her

Since When Have You Had an Admirer?" The Flowers Were Meant to Make the Mafia Boss Jealous—But the Card Exposed Who Had Been Watching Her

The roses arrived at Robert Castellano’s mansion at exactly 7:30 on a Tuesday morning, and Susan Mitchell knew, before anyone spoke, that something about them was wrong.

Not because they were red.

Not because there were three dozen of them, packed so perfectly in white paper that they looked less like flowers and more like a declaration of war.

It was because the man carrying them into the dining room looked afraid.

James Whitaker, Robert’s driver, had spent twelve years opening doors for politicians, bankers, judges, and men who smiled like gentlemen while making threats under the table. James did not scare easily. But that morning, as he stepped across the marble floor with the bouquet in his arms, his shoulders were tight, his expression careful, and his eyes flicked once toward the head of the dining table before landing on Susan.

“Delivery for Miss Mitchell,” he said.

The clink of Susan’s spoon against Robert Castellano’s coffee cup sounded much louder than it should have.

Robert had been reading a financial brief, his suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair, his white shirt sleeves buttoned neatly at the wrists. Morning light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him, cutting his hard profile in gold. He did not move at first. Only his eyes lifted.

And when he saw the roses, something in the room changed.

Susan felt it before she understood it. The air tightened. The quiet, polished breakfast routine that had governed the mansion for eight months broke apart under the weight of those red flowers.

“I wasn’t expecting anything,” she said.

Her voice sounded too small, too guilty, though she had done nothing wrong.

Robert set the papers down. Slowly.

“Since when have you had an admirer?” he asked.

The question was calm. Almost casual.

That made it worse.

James stopped near the dining room entrance, still holding the bouquet as though it might explode. Mrs. Chen, the housekeeper, froze halfway through setting down a plate of sliced fruit. Even the young gardener outside the glass wall seemed to pause with a hose in his hand, sensing some invisible danger inside.

Susan forced herself to look at Robert. “I don’t.”

His dark eyes stayed on hers. “You don’t know who sent these?”

“No.”

“Think carefully.”

The words were not loud. They did not have to be. Robert Castellano had built an empire by speaking softly enough that men leaned in, then regretted hearing him clearly. The public knew him as a real estate developer, a private equity shark, a donor to hospitals and museums. The streets knew another version of his family name, older and colder, a name people did not use unless they had locked doors behind them.

Susan knew both versions existed.

And still, after eight months in his house, she had never been afraid of him.

Until this moment.

“I am thinking carefully,” she said, swallowing. “I don’t know.”

Robert’s jaw flexed once. That was the only sign of anger he allowed himself.

“James,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Take them to the kitchen.”

Susan blinked. “Mr. Castellano, they’re addressed to me.”

His gaze did not leave her face. “I know who they are addressed to.”

The possessiveness in his tone landed between them like a match dropped in gasoline.

For months, Susan had told herself she was imagining things. She had imagined the way Robert noticed if she skipped lunch. She had imagined the way he came downstairs earlier on the mornings she worked. She had imagined that the small library off the east hall had been left unlocked because he knew she liked reading in there during her break. She had imagined that a man like Robert Castellano could look at his private waitress as anything other than staff.

But jealousy was difficult to imagine when it stood six feet away from you, wearing a tailored shirt and the expression of a man who had just been challenged.

James carried the roses away.

Susan remained beside the table, her fingers gripping the linen napkin so tightly her knuckles ached.

Robert stood.

He did not rush toward her. He never rushed. He crossed the room with the controlled grace of a man who knew the world would move for him if he waited long enough. When he stopped in front of her, the scent of his cologne—cedar, smoke, something expensive—made her pulse jump.

“You are certain?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“No boyfriend?”

“No.”

“No man from your past who might think he has rights here?”

Part 2: The question struck too close to a bruise she had hidden for three years.

Susan looked down. “No one has rights over me.”

The answer changed his face.

Not much. With Robert, nothing ever changed much. But the anger in his eyes shifted, giving way to something sharper and more alert.

“Good,” he said quietly.

It should have felt like approval.

Instead, it sounded like a promise.

He stepped back first, as though the distance cost him something.

“Finish breakfast service,” he said. “Then take the rest of the morning off.”

“I don’t need—”

“You do,” he said. “And if another delivery comes, a call, a message, a person at the gate, you tell me immediately.”

Susan lifted her chin. “Because I work for you?”

Robert looked at her for a long second.

“No,” he said. “Because someone knows where you are.”

That was the first moment she realized his anger was not only jealousy.

It was fear.

And fear, on Robert Castellano, was more dangerous than rage.

By nine o’clock, the black Bentley had left the mansion and was cutting through San Francisco traffic toward the Castellano Tower downtown. Susan watched it disappear through the front window, then made herself breathe.

Mrs. Chen came up beside her, wiping her hands on her apron.

“You okay, honey?”

Susan gave a faint laugh. “I don’t know.”

“That man looked ready to buy every flower shop in the city and burn half of them down.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

Mrs. Chen raised one eyebrow.

Susan sighed. “Probably not.”

The older woman touched her arm. “Flowers are not always romance. Sometimes they are bait.”

Susan turned sharply. “What does that mean?”

Mrs. Chen looked toward the kitchen, where James had placed the bouquet on the island. “It means men like Mr. Castellano don’t react to flowers. They react to messages.”

Susan walked into the kitchen.

The roses were beautiful, almost aggressively so. Their petals were flawless, deep red with blackened edges. She saw no card at first. Then, tucked beneath the ribbon, she found a small cream envelope.

Her name was written across the front.

Susan.

The handwriting made her stomach drop.

She knew it.

For three years she had tried to forget it: the slanted S, the heavy pressure of each stroke, the way the letters leaned forward like they were running out of patience.

David.

Her ex-fiancé.

Her almost-husband.

The man who had walked out on the worst night of her life because grief had made her inconvenient.

Mrs. Chen saw her expression. “Open it.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Then don’t.”

But Susan already was.

The card inside had only one sentence.

I know what he is. Let me save you before he owns you too.

For a moment, the kitchen tilted.

Not because David had found her.