Chapter 2 - The Red Dahlia Warning
The dinner began at eight o'clock sharp. Piper and Josie were relegated to the staging pantry off the main dining room, ostensibly to monitor candle heights and replace any wilting arrangements between courses.
Through the narrow pane of the pantry’s double door, Piper watched the dinner unfold. The atmosphere was stifling. Ten men sat around the long mahogany table, their laughter hollow and their body language rigid. At the head of the table, Dante sat like a modern king, swirling amber bourbon in an antique glass, rarely speaking, yet commanding the entire room's gravitational pull.
""Piper, come look at this,"" Josie whispered from the stainless-steel prep table.
Piper walked over. Josie had pulled apart one of the spare floral boxes that had been delivered directly to the club by an unknown courier earlier that afternoon. Tucked underneath the damp packing paper lay a bundle of dark, blood-red dahlias.
Wired into the stems was a small, laminated luggage tag. On it was written a single sentence in neat, cursive script:
The garden burns at midnight, Little Bird.
A chill ran down Piper’s spine. ""Little Bird.""
Her father had called her Little Bird when she was a toddler, running barefoot through the greenhouses of Monroe Florals. Nobody outside her immediate family had ever heard that nickname.
""Who sent this?"" Piper demanded, her voice shaking as she lifted the tag.
""It was in the bottom crate from Everly Events,"" Josie said, her eyes wide with mounting terror. ""Piper... what is going on? What did Camille get us into?""
Before Piper could answer, the dining room outside fell deathly quiet.
Piper peered through the viewing glass. A man sitting on Dante’s right—a slick, silver-haired gentleman named Marcus Vance, the head of an offshore freight syndicate—had placed his hands flat on the table.
""You're squeezing us too hard, Moretti,"" Vance said, his voice loud enough to pierce the thick oak door. ""The river docks have operated under our terms for twenty years. Your father respected that boundary.""
Dante set his bourbon glass down. The gentle clink of crystal against wood sounded like a gunshot in the silent room.
""My father is dead,"" Dante replied, his voice chillingly level. ""And the river docks were built with Moretti steel. If you don't like my percentages, Marcus, you are welcome to find another harbor. Of course, getting your cargo out of Kentucky without my trucks might prove... challenging.""
Vance’s face darkened with fury. ""You think you're untouchable because you sit behind heavy gates and surround yourself with ghosts. But even empires burn from the inside out.""
Vance reached inside his jacket.
In a fraction of a second, the pantry door flew open. Piper didn't think; she reacted entirely on instinct. Seeing the silver glimmer of a barrel reflecting off the chandelier, she shoved the rolling cart of water pitchers straight into the dining room.
The heavy stainless-steel cart crashed into Vance’s chair with a deafening rattle, knocking him off balance just as a silenced gunshot erupted with a muted phut.
The bullet shattered a crystal decanter directly behind Dante’s head.
The room descended into utter pandemonium. Chairs scraped against the floor, shouts echoed off the ceiling, and Luca lunged across the table, tackling Vance to the ground.
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Dante hadn't flinched. He hadn't even ducked. He slowly stood up, brushing a tiny shard of glass from his lapel, his dark eyes fixed entirely on Piper, who stood frozen behind the tipped service cart.
""Miss Monroe,"" Dante said calmly amid the chaos, ""your timing is as unconventional as your floral arrangements.""
