Julian hated violence. He spent his mornings arranging roses, lilies, and orchids in his quiet little flower shop tucked between gray buildings. Life was steady, calm, almost invisible—just the way he wanted it.
Until one night, someone slammed into his shop door just as he was closing. A man, blood on his lip, bruises across his jaw.
"Sorry—" the stranger rasped, gripping the frame to keep himself standing. "Do you—do you sell bandages with your flowers?"
Julian froze. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, and very out of place among pastel bouquets. His knuckles were split, raw. A fighter.
Julian should have turned him away. Instead, he unlocked the door.
"Come in."
The man's name was Rafe, and he fought underground matches to pay off debts that weren't even his. He smelled of iron and smoke, but when Julian dabbed antiseptic on his wounds, he didn't flinch—he only watched Julian's careful hands with a quiet intensity.
"This shop is too soft for someone like me," Rafe said, sitting among buckets of peonies.
"Maybe," Julian replied. "But you're here anyway."
Night after night, Rafe returned—sometimes with new bruises, sometimes just to sit in the back and listen to the hum of the cooler. And slowly, the florist realized that a man built for violence could find peace among flowers… and maybe, in him.
But the underground world wasn't going to let Rafe walk away. And Julian, who had never raised his voice in his life, would soon have to decide just how far he would go to keep the fighter who had stumbled into his quiet world.