Roses and Ruines

Emilia had always painted to escape. Her tiny art studio at the back of her family's crumbling bookstore was her sanctuary-a world of color when everything else was grey. She'd sell a few pieces here and there, nothing major, but enough to buy paints, brushes, and maybe a coffee when the bills weren't drowning her.

Then the bookstore started losing money-fast. Her father's once-booming little shop, nestled in an old street corner of Florence, had become a relic in the age of online everything. Debts piled like bricks on Emilia's shoulders until breathing became a luxury.

And then came the offer.

Luca Moretti. The name sent chills down spines. The son of a notorious mafia boss turned kingpin himself after his father mysteriously vanished. Cold, calculating, and rich beyond imagination. He walked into her bookstore like he owned it-which, as it turned out, he nearly did.

Emilia's father had borrowed money. A lot of it.

The terms were simple. Marry him, and the debt would vanish. Her family would be safe. No strings-except the obvious ones wrapped tightly around her life.

She refused at first. She wanted to paint, not play house with a criminal. But then she came home to find her little sister crying over a stack of unpaid medical bills. Her mother silent, defeated.

So Emilia picked up her wedding dress instead of her paintbrush.

The mansion was beautiful, cold as its owner. Luca wasn't cruel-just unreadable. They were strangers sharing vows. But in quiet moments, she'd catch glimpses: a half-finished sculpture in his private garden, jazz records stacked in his study. A man built from shadows, yes, but with flashes of forgotten light.

She stopped painting. Couldn't even look at her brushes.

Until the day he brought her roses.

"Your studio's still yours," he said. "I never wanted to take your life. I just wanted you close."

It wasn't love-not yet. But it wasn't the prison she'd imagined either. Slowly, carefully, Emilia began to paint again. Roses at first. Then ruins. Then rebirth.

Because even in a world of crime, loss, and forced choices-beauty could still bloom.