Mysterious Roses

She reluctantly glanced up because if she pretended to ignore him, it will only prove that he was making her uncomfortable and that he was having an effect on her.

Her eyes subtly scan the man standing by the chair left to his dad. She almost didn't recognize him as the spoon slips from her fingers and lands on the plate.

He was tall. Very tall, taller than she remembered him to be. Even beneath his clothing, she could tell that his body was hard and fu*king lethal. Lean, but packed with muscles. His sharp black suit clinged to his body, showing off his broad shoulders, thick arms and a trimmed waist. With his chin held up like a true Moretti man, he held an air of arrogance and danger around him as he stared at his father through those emerald eyes of his. His face was devoid of any mortal emotion and for the first time, Rai felt cautious of Luca Moretti.

As if he could smell her fear, his cold eyes sweep her way in a calculating way and Rai immediately averted hers, not wanting him to see the anything through her.

Luca took his seat and as if the air wasn't choking on itself a moment ago, everyone begins to chat and digs into their dinner.

Rai doesn't lifts her eyes throughout the dinner and surprisingly enough, she doesn't feels him looking her way as if he couldn't care less about the intruder at his family gathering.

A small smile blooms on her lips at the thought. maybe he has overgrown from his strange infatuation with her after all he was a man.

Heir to Moretti fortune and the future head of the Moretti Conglomerate. He could have anything in the palm of his hand. Why would he bother with a simple woman like her when he could have any woman in the world he desired to mess with for a day. for a night.

As if Mrs. Moretti could hear her sighing in relief, he clears is throat.

"So Rai. What courses you took in college?" Rai was so taken aback by his sudden question that she found herself tongue tied. Everyone shared the sentiment as a hush spreads over the room.

she cursed at the old man invardly. she felt Luca's burning gaze on her as he sat and watched her silently. the thought that she was being watched in such an intense way unsettled her but she refuse to look at him.

It was no news that Salvatore Moretti didn't really approve of her so it was suspicious that he would even talk to her.

What was the old man thinking?

"Hmm?" he smiles at her slyly and Rai's goes stiff even when she had prepared for this moment a countless times.

"Fine Arts." She lied smoothly and ger voice came out curt. Sebastian cocked his head at her.

"Oh? I thought you studied something useful like politics and law."

"They weren't my interests."

"It would have made much more sense then…"

"What?" her heart bobbed in her throat. That was it. This clever than needed man was going to expose her and then shoot her execution style in the lawn of his mansion in front of all his men to set an example out of her.

"Did you say your parents were Italian?" this made Rai frown and Aunt Isabelle straightened in her seat. Her mouth opening and closing like a fish as if she wasn't sure if she should interfere but one look from her cold husband and she stilled.

"I am an Italian." Rai stated. It was true. The reason she was chosen for this job.

"Is that so?" she wanted to sucker punch his thick throat and twist the fork in his eyeball.

"What do you mean, uncle?" Rai blinked innocently despite the deranged and blood thirsty thoughts taking refuge in her mind. she realized she had Luca's full attention now the way she felt him raise his head through her peripheral vision

Her eyes shift to him slightly and they lock in with his wicked ones. Only now she could sense a wall and couldn't see behind his emotionless eyes. Fuck knows what he was thinking. Probably getting off on her discomfort which was so unlike him. He used to run for her defense whenever his asshole father picked on her. something told her that Luca wasn't that easy to fool anymore and that he might be able to pry through her mask if this charade continued.

"I don't mean anything, Rai Daughter." She almost rolls her eyes at the fake endearment but stopped because a pair of dark eyes were silently watching her. Reading her every move.

"It's just that we don't know much about your father. for all we know he could have been an Irish smut or a Russian bastard." His blatant accusation shot straight through that dark corner of her heart and her fist trembled as she tried to talk in to herself to not over throw this table and slit his throat.

"Your jokes are getting humorless." She bit out and it was too late when she realized what she just said.

Salvatore squinted his beady eyes at her and Rai gulped. To say that the man didn't scare her sometimes will be an understatement. Sometimes he terrified her the way he looked at her. Like a poisonous predator who caught his prey.

Isabella immediately stepped in to save the dinner night that supposedly went down the shit hole and tried to salvage the mood.

The ever perfect wife. She deserved a life much better than being a prisoner wife of a mobster with no Morales whatsoever.

"So Rai. When do you plan on having your own family? You're already what…? Twenty nine?" rai choked on a piece of vege as she struggled to regain her bearings. Emmy rubbed her back with a devilish glint in her eyes that screamed of trouble.

"Right? I've been setting her up for blind dates and she never shows up. Poor men." Emmy fired and rai non too subtly glared at her. Telling her to shut the fuck up or she will murder her in her sleep.

"What? Don't look at me like that. Am only trying to save you from ending up as a spinster. He he," rai flushed red from head to toe. She was right though. Rai was nearly thirty but she didn't have any plans to get married. It was something off her agenda and she didn't have any spare time to entertain a man who will only hinder her kind of life.

"I don't have time Emmy. I am too busy to think about anything else right now." She said in her defense and shrugged nonchalantly. part of it was true though.

"I will get going. "Luca suddenly shot to his feet and deadpanned in his deep voice. then he was gone without a backward glance.

aunt Isabelle and emmy stared at his back with tensed shoulders and shared a confused look with each other before shrugging and continuing with their dinner but Rai could see straight through their troubles eyes.

Rai didn't pay much attention to Luca's abrupt and rude departure. She had a feeling that she was off the devil's radar now so she relaxed in her seat. She chatted a bit more with the two woman regarding Emmy's upcoming wedding and it was a little after ten pm when she excused herself for the night.

On her way home, she fished out a burner phone from under her car seat and switched it on while maneuvering the car with the other hand.

She dialed a number and waited for the call to connect. She had a foreboding feeling that she was being followed so she shrinked further into her seat as her hand right hand left the steering wheel and retrieved a gun from under her seat.

"Yes?" A lazy voice sounded from the burner phone.

"Mark, I think someone's following me."

"Interesting. Let me check." She heard a few ping pong of the keyboard. Her eyes were fixed on the rear view mirror and really, a sleek black Mercedes Benz was following her over a little distance. Rai's eyes hardened thinking about all the possible scenarios that could go wrong if she tried to take matter in her hands right then and there. She could lead them to a more secluded area to capture and torture the information out of them but it could be any one. If it were one of Salvatore's men, she would be playing right into his awaiting hands since he didn't trust her and her acting smart would be the nail to her coffin.

"Strange. I can't locate any vehicle on the same path as you..." Mark murmured making Rai frown in confusion.

"Careful Rai," mark warned and the line went dead.

So she decided to play the dumb woman and drove straight to her apartment complex. It was a gated community with top notch security and she smirked knowing they will have to leave the car behind and follow her if they had more sinister plans for her.

Rai parked her car and acted as if it was any normal day for her and that she wasn't clutching a gun with a death grip.

To her surprise, the car took a turn and rolled straight through the gates. The guard waved the car to a stop and she watched as a hand shot out with the resident card stubbed between his fingers.

So it was just another resident.

Huh.

Maybe she had been on edge the past few weeks and it was taking a toll on her.

Shaking her head, she hurriedly stepped inside the local elevator and pressed the button for the ninth floor. Within a minute, she was locking her door as she punched in keys on the key pad lock.

The door slid open with an audible click and Rai wasn't ready for the sight that awaited her as she instinctively took a steo back and gasped in shock.

A huge Bouquet of deep red roses was lying on the small table right beside the door. Rai eyes widened in sheer horror because someone had been in her apartment.

She cocked her gun out and removed the safety. she took feather light steps inside her apartment Her moments alert and ready to pounce like a panther. She shifted through her apartment and whenever she would look behind a door or a curtain with her gun ready to shoot, she would be prepared for someone to jump from the shadows and take her down but there was no intruder in her apartment or any sign of possible break in.

Except the mysterious roses.

Quickly hiding her Gun and locking the main door, her eyes bore into the bouquet. She gently picks it up with distrust written all over face when she spotted a card shoved midst the roses.

She plucks it out. Her mind was spiraling with confusion and curiously of knowing why the fuck would someone leave flowers in her home.

She unfolded the card and her heart sank reading the words over it.

'Missed me?'