Chapter 10 - The Last White Rose
One year later, Isabella Romano turned eighty-six.
She insisted that the previous birthday "didn't count" because the cake had been interrupted by gunfire.
Sophie refused to design another suspended floral structure.
"Absolutely not."
Isabella looked offended.
"I survived."
"The ceiling barely did."
"So roses on the tables?"
"Roses on the tables."
"Four thousand?"
"Eight hundred."
"One thousand."
"Nine hundred."
"Done."
Massimo stood in the doorway of the floral warehouse watching the negotiation.
Sophie noticed him.
"You were supposed to be at a meeting."
"I finished."
Isabella looked between them.
"He's lying."
Massimo sighed.
"Nonna."
"You left early."
"I delegated."
"That is what men call running away when they are in charge."
Sophie smiled.
A year had changed almost everything.
Lorenzo Romano had pleaded guilty to conspiracy, financial crimes, obstruction, and charges connected to Matteo's death.
Carlo had testified.
Vittorio Vitale had done the same.
The investigation had reached public officials, contractors, and companies far beyond the Romano family.
The headlines had lasted for months.
Massimo had done what many people considered impossible.
He dismantled the most dangerous parts of the organization he inherited without destroying the people who depended on its legitimate businesses.
Romano Construction won public bids under independent oversight.
Romano Shipping underwent compliance restructuring.
The family's hospitality division expanded legally into three new states.
Dante became head of corporate security.
Caterina started a foundation for families affected by organized crime and corruption.
Adriana became one of its first board members.
And Sophie Miller?
She no longer operated from a rented warehouse.
Miller Floral Events had grown into Miller Creative House, employing thirty-two people and handling floral design, event production, and installations across Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
She had earned every contract.
Massimo made sure of that by staying out of her negotiations.
Mostly.
One time he had attempted to intimidate a hotel manager who paid sixty days late.
Sophie had made him apologize.
The manager paid the next morning.
Massimo claimed the two events were unrelated.
No one believed him.
Sophie and Massimo had been together for ten months.
Not secretly.
Not strategically.
Not because of threats.
They argued about everything.
His security.
Her working hours.
His tendency to solve logistical problems by buying buildings.
Her tendency to enter dangerous situations because "someone had to."
He still hated when she traveled without security.
She still hated when he assigned security without telling her.
They had compromised on a driver for late events.
Isabella considered this proof that true love was possible.
That afternoon, Sophie finished Isabella's birthday sample and turned toward Massimo.
"You really left a meeting?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Dinner."
"That's in four hours."
"I know."
She narrowed her eyes.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
Isabella stood.
"I suddenly remember an appointment."
"You don't have one," Sophie said.
"I do now."
She picked up her handbag and walked toward the door.
Before leaving, she kissed Sophie on the cheek.
Then she whispered, "Wear the blue dress."
Sophie stared after her.
Massimo looked annoyed.
"What blue dress?"
"Don't know."
"She knows something."
"She always knows something."
Four hours later, Sophie discovered the blue dress hanging on her apartment door.
Midnight blue.
Almost exactly the color of the dress she had worn the night she walked into Massimo's bedroom.
A card was attached.
Some mistakes deserve better endings.
— Isabella
Sophie laughed aloud.
She wore it.
Massimo arrived at seven.
He stopped when he saw her.
A year earlier, she had stood dripping water onto his bedroom floor while he pointed a gun at her.
Now he simply stared.
"You look..."
"Careful."
"Beautiful."
"Better."
He took her to the Langford Hotel.
The same hotel where, according to their original fake story, they had supposedly started dating three months before they actually met.
Sophie looked at him as they entered the ballroom.
"You have a strange sense of humor."
"This isn't the joke."
"That sentence concerns me."
The ballroom doors opened.
Sophie stopped.
White roses.
Not hundreds.
Thousands.
Four thousand.
They covered the room in long, low arrangements.
No suspended structures.
No cut wires.
No black cord.
No threatening cards.
Every rose was perfect.
Sophie slowly turned toward Massimo.
"You hired another florist?"
He looked genuinely alarmed.
"Technically, your staff did this."
"Nina."
"Yes."
"Traitor."
"Very expensive traitor."
Music began softly.
Not an orchestra.
A piano.
The room was otherwise empty.
Massimo led her to the center.
Sophie looked around.
"Isabella's party is tomorrow."
"I know."
"So what is this?"
He reached into his jacket.
Sophie stopped breathing.
Massimo Romano, a man who had faced murder accusations, federal investigations, rival families, and armed kidnappers without visibly shaking, looked nervous.
Actually nervous.
He held a small black box.
Sophie stared at it.
"Massimo."
"The first night you entered my bedroom, I thought you were a threat."
"Technically, you were the one with the gun."
"I know."
"You also lied to your family."
"I remember."
"You involved me in a fake relationship."
"Painfully aware."
"You ordered me around."
"I have improved."
"Debatable."
He smiled.
Then the smile faded.
"I spent most of my life believing love made people vulnerable."
Sophie said nothing.
"My father loved his family and stayed silent too long because of it. My mother loved me and hid the truth because of it. My grandmother loved all of us and tried to carry secrets alone because of it."
He looked at her.
"Then you walked through the wrong door."
Her eyes burned.
"And for the first time, love didn't feel like something that made me weaker."
His voice dropped.
"It made me tell the truth."
He opened the box.
Inside was a ring.
Elegant.
Not enormous.
Sophie noticed that immediately.
She had once told him that a ring so large it required its own security detail was not romantic.
He had listened.
"These flowers are not a contract," he said.
"No?"
"No arrangement. No alliance. No three-day agreement."
He lowered himself to one knee.
"Sophie Miller, will you choose me when you are free to say no?"
Tears slipped down her face.
She laughed at the same time.
"That is a very manipulative question."
His expression changed.
"Sophie."
"Yes."
He blinked.
"Yes?"
"Yes."
For once, Massimo Romano had no response.
Sophie smiled.
"You're supposed to put the ring on my hand."
He did.
Then he stood and kissed her.
Applause exploded from the balcony.
Sophie pulled away.
"What?"
The doors above opened.
Isabella appeared first.
Caterina beside her.
Dante.
Adriana.
Nina.
Mia.
Jared.
Even Carlo, thinner and older after everything that had happened, stood near the back.
Sophie looked at Massimo.
"You said the room was empty."
"It was."
"You are terrible at honesty."
"I am improving."
Isabella called down.
"Did she say yes?"
Sophie lifted her hand.
Isabella cheered louder than anyone.
The next morning, at breakfast, Caterina looked at the ring.
"When is the wedding?"
Sophie answered immediately.
"Not for at least a year."
Massimo said, "Six months."
"One year."
"Eight months."
Isabella interrupted.
"Nine."
Sophie pointed at her.
"You're not negotiating my wedding."
"I negotiated nine hundred roses."
"That was different."
Massimo leaned close.
"Nine months?"
Sophie looked at him.
"Ten."
"Done."
Caterina smiled into her coffee.
Adriana shook her head.
Dante muttered something about needing another security budget.
Outside, the Romano estate was quiet.
No black SUVs raced toward danger.
No gunshots echoed through the corridors.
No hidden messages waited beneath tables.
The family was not perfect.
It never would be.
There were consequences still unfolding.
Trials.
Restitution.
Broken relationships that could not be repaired simply because the truth had finally been spoken.
Carlo would live with what he had done.
Caterina would live with what she had hidden.
Massimo would live knowing that changing a legacy did not erase it.
But for the first time in decades, the Romano family was no longer protecting itself with silence.
Sophie finished her coffee and stood.
"I have work."
Massimo looked at her.
"Today?"
"Some people have jobs."
"I have a job."
"You left it early yesterday."
"Important appointment."
"With four thousand roses."
"Exactly."
Isabella waved them away.
"Go. Both of you. You're ruining breakfast."
Massimo followed Sophie into the corridor.
When they reached the staircase, he caught her hand.
She looked back.
"What?"
"Wrong direction."
She frowned.
"My car is downstairs."
He pointed toward the west corridor.
"The bedroom is that way."
Sophie laughed.
"That mistake only works once."
"Shame."
She kissed him anyway.
A year earlier, Sophie Miller had opened the wrong door because a housekeeper deliberately sent her into danger.
She found a man with a gun.
A family built around secrets.
An arranged marriage hiding an infiltration.
A murder buried beneath twelve years of silence.
She had been used as a distraction, marked as a target, nearly crushed beneath a sabotaged floral structure, pulled into an old family war, and watched one of the most feared men in Chicago discover that power without truth was simply another kind of prison.
But she had also found something none of them had planned.
Choice.
Massimo had chosen truth over the name he inherited.
Adriana had chosen freedom over the marriage designed for her.
Caterina had chosen confession over fear.
Isabella had chosen to stop carrying the past alone.
And Sophie had chosen Massimo only after she knew she was completely free to walk away.
That was the difference.
She had not been purchased.
Protected into submission.
Trapped by gratitude.
Or forced into a story someone else wrote for her.
She stayed because she wanted to.
At the front door, Massimo opened it for her.
Cold Chicago air rushed inside.
Sophie stepped out.
Then she turned.
"Massimo?"
"Yes?"
"If you ever point a gun at me again, I'm marrying someone else."
He stared at her.
She smiled.
"Understood?"
His mouth curved.
"Perfectly."
From upstairs, Isabella shouted, "I heard that!"
Sophie laughed.
Massimo took her hand.
And together, they walked toward a future neither family had arranged.
The engagement dinner that followed was smaller than any Romano family gathering in living memory.
No press.
No politicians.
No strategic guests.
Only family and friends who had earned the right to be there.
At the table, Adriana raised a glass.
"To Sophie, who stole the fiancé I never wanted."
Everyone laughed.
Massimo looked offended.
"You could phrase that differently."
"I could," Adriana said. "I won't."
Caterina lifted her glass next.
"To truth, even when it arrives late."
Carlo looked down.
For a moment, the room became quiet.
Then Isabella spoke.
"And to wrong doors."
That broke the tension.
Sophie laughed.
Massimo leaned toward her.
"My family is going to tell that story forever."
"Your grandmother is going to add details every year."
"By our tenth anniversary, you'll have fought twelve armed men before entering my room."
"By our twentieth, I will have saved Chicago."
"You did help."
Sophie looked at him.
He meant it.
Not that she had solved his life.
Not that love had magically repaired a criminal dynasty.
She had simply refused to let him confuse control with protection, fear with loyalty, or inheritance with destiny.
And he had listened.
Later that night, after everyone left, Sophie found Massimo alone on the terrace.
She stood beside him.
"Regrets?"
He looked at her ring.
"One."
Her eyebrows rose.
"I should have asked you to dinner before pretending you'd been my girlfriend for three months."
"That would have been smoother."
"I was under pressure."
"You were half-naked and holding a gun."
"I remember."
"I certainly do."
He laughed softly.
Then his expression grew serious.
"I meant what I said."
"About what?"
"Choosing me."
Sophie looked out over the dark lawn.
"I am."
Massimo touched her hand.
"Still?"
She turned toward him.
"Ask me tomorrow."
His face changed.
Sophie smiled.
"And the day after that."
He understood.
Love was not one permanent answer extracted at the right moment.
It was a choice repeated.
Not commanded.
Not arranged.
Repeated.
Massimo kissed her forehead.
"Tomorrow, then."
May you like
"Tomorrow."
The end
