The Pink Flowers Found in My Room Made the Mafia Boss Furious, but Then I Saw Something Strange on His Face

That night Roman Costa caught me in the kitchen. I was holding a bottle of water, pressed against the wall, and saw such anger in his eyes, as if I had brought not flowers but a murder weapon.

Silence stood in the house. Only the ember on his cigarette shone, a small orange point that looked like a living eye in the darkness. I was clutching the glass bottle so tightly that my fingers hurt.

“Who gave them to you?” Roman asked.

His voice was low, but in that house even a low voice meant an order.

“What, sir?”

He turned his head slightly toward the sink. There, in a cheap cloudy vase, stood pink carnations. Their petals looked almost gray in the darkness.

“The flowers, Sedi. Who gave them to you?”

I had worked in the Costas’ house for three years, and Roman had never once addressed me by name. For us servants, he had only three words: “you,” “now,” and “go.” At the sound of my name, cold ran down my neck.

“Toby gave them to me. The bread-delivery boy. It was nothing, I swear. He just… just gave them to me.”

Roman put his glass on the table. A piece of ice struck the crystal and sounded like a shot in that enormous kitchen.

“Toby? The boy with the little scar on his cheek?”

“Yes.”

“And you took them.”

It was not a question but an accusation.

I remembered that afternoon. Toby, who had come with a basket of bread, stood by the back door, his ears red, and held out a small bouquet wrapped in newspaper.

“These are for you,” he said. “Don’t… don’t throw them away, okay?”

“Why would I throw them away?”

“In this house, everything that resembles happiness does not live long.”

Then he ran away before I could even say thank you.

I put the flowers in a glass of water and returned to work. Whenever I passed the sink, the carnations’ bitter, pepper-like scent reached me. For a few seconds I forgot that I lived among concrete walls, where a camera watched every step.

Now Roman looked at them as if someone had brought a bomb into the room instead of me.

“I didn’t ask for them,” I said quickly. “I didn’t encourage anything. If you want, I’ll throw them away now.”

Roman came toward me. The smell of rain and the bitterness of expensive perfume came from his jacket. I pressed my back against the refrigerator’s cold door.

“Why didn’t you throw them away?”

“Because they were beautiful.”

For a moment we were both silent.

Something froze on his face.

Roman Costa was, to everyone, the heir of a bloody empire. To me, he was the man whose locked office drawers I never even approached. There were three rules in the house: do not look into his eyes, do not ask about the brown stains on his shirts, and do not touch the locked door.

I knew every rule.

But that night Roman reached toward the vase. His fingers closed around the glass neck, and just then I heard heavy footsteps from the corridor. Someone was coming quickly. Roman turned his head toward the door, and I saw his jaw tighten.

The door was knocked on three times from outside.

Roman put the vase on the table and said quietly to me:

“If you tell anyone that you took these flowers, they will kill you first and then him…”

The door handle moved…

The door handle moved, but Roman acted before me. In one second he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the half-open pantry door. His fingers held me painfully tightly.

“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered.

“I haven’t done anything.”

“I know. That is why you are still breathing.”

There was a small window in the door. Through it I saw Niko, Roman’s right hand, enter the kitchen. Water dripped onto the floor from his wet jacket.

“Boss, Toby’s van tried to leave the city,” Niko said. “The security boys found the car, but he himself disappeared.”

Roman did not look toward me.

“Where is his phone?”

“In the car. Broken.”

“And what else?”

Niko put something on the table. It was a black, scratched phone. My stomach contracted.

Roman seemed to feel it.

“Sedi is not here,” he told Niko.

The air in the pantry grew heavy. His body stood in front of me and completely covered the door. For the first time I thought that perhaps his fear was not for me, but because of me.

“Toby gave her the flowers,” Niko continued. “He may have passed something on.”

“Maybe,” Roman said.

“Shall we search the rooms?”

Roman’s face changed.

“No one will touch her room.”

Niko looked at him in surprise.

“Boss…”

“That is an order.”

My breath caught. For three years no one had cared about my room, my clothes, or my existence. Now Roman spoke as if I had hidden something precious there.

When Niko left, Roman closed the door. He immediately released my hands, but the marks of his fingers remained on my wrist.

“Let me out.”

“Not yet.”

“You yourself said I had done nothing.”

“You did nothing. But someone tried to use you.”

“Who?”

Roman looked at the vase.

“We have to find that out.”

It was three in the morning when he deceptively turned off all the cameras. He spread a white cloth on the kitchen table, took out the carnations, and examined the stems one by one. I sat opposite him, my hands in my lap, trying not to let him notice how my fingers trembled.

“Did you really receive these flowers from Toby for the first time?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Had he often spoken to you before?”

“Sometimes, when leaving the bread. Only a few words.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Only that he is nineteen and his mother is ill.”

Roman raised his head.

“Who told you that?”

“He did.”

His gaze moved strangely across my face.

“Do you listen to everyone who enters this house?”

“No. Only those who speak to me normally.”

For the first time I saw his hand tense. He picked up one carnation and ran a finger along its stem. Then he noticed a small cut in the flower’s green base.

“Was this here before?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

He took the kitchen scissors. He carefully cut the base. Inside appeared a thin copper sheet, engraved with three digits: 3103.

The room spun before my eyes.

Roman closed the sheet in his hand.

“Do you know this code?”

“No.”

This time there was not fear in my voice, but truth.

Niko knocked again. Roman opened the door, and Niko immediately silently handed him a small envelope.

“They found this under the seat of Toby’s car,” Niko said. “Your name is written on it, boss.”

Roman looked at the envelope, then at me.

“Sedi, now you must decide whether you stand beside me or with the person who entered this house using your name.”

The corner of the envelope was already open, but Roman’s hand still rested on it. He slowly raised his fingernail and prepared to open the edge of the paper…

Roman opened the envelope and took out a small memory card. Niko locked the door. I sat at the table as if my body no longer belonged to me.

“Where did you find this?” Roman asked Niko.

“In Toby’s van. It was attached under the driver’s seat with a magnet.”

Roman held the card between his fingers.

“And the code?”

“3103. It is not your birth date. It is the date of your father’s death.”

Silence exploded in the room.

Roman’s father had been killed three years earlier. That same week I had started working in the Costas’ house. Everyone thought Roman had found and punished the killers. But no one in that house mentioned that night, as if words too could summon blood.

Roman inserted the card into the computer. First a black bar appeared on the screen, then a voice sounded.

“If you are listening to this, Roman, it is already too late.”

It was not Toby’s voice. A more elderly, tired man was speaking.

Roman recognized it immediately.

“My father.”

I looked at his face. For the first time I saw all his strength fall from his shoulders.

In the recording, Viktor Costa said that his brother Marco had been stealing money for years, supplying information to the police, and finally arranging Viktor’s murder himself. But the worst came next.

“Tell Roman that on the night of the murder Marco hid the weapon in his room. If I die, he will blame Roman for my death. He will convince everyone that Roman was his father’s enemy.”

Niko lost color.

“Impossible.”

The recording continued.

“Marco knows that my financial records are kept in the room of the woman who will be employed three years from now. Her name is Sedi. She will never know that this burden was entrusted to her. When the time comes, the flowers will be the sign. Pink carnations. And the code is 3103.”

The recording stopped.

I stood up from the chair.

“My room?”

Roman turned toward me.

“Your father knew my name?”

“He knew that your family needed help. Your brother needed an operation. You received a job here on the same day they secretly began protecting you.”

“Protection?”

My voice broke.

“For three years I thought no one noticed me.”

“And for three years I checked who came near you.”

“You were angry about the flowers.”

Roman lowered his eyes.

“Not because I wanted to be jealous. Because the pink carnations were your father’s last message. I thought Marco had found them and deliberately placed them in your hands.”

Niko looked at the card again.

“If the financial records are in Sedi’s room, Marco is already looking for them.”

At that moment the phone rang. Roman answered.

He listened for several seconds. His face slowly darkened.

“Repeat that.”

A frightened woman’s voice came from the other side. Roman put the phone down.

“Your brother, Eli, has been taken from the clinic.”

The floor disappeared beneath my feet.

Roman took his jacket and ordered Niko:

“Prepare the car.”

Then he looked toward me.

“You will stay here.”

“No.”

“Sedi…”

“I was alone in this house for three years. Now I will not leave my brother alone.”

Roman stopped. For the first time his face no longer showed the boss’s cold mask. There was fear there.

The phone rang again. This time an unknown number appeared on the screen. Roman answered and heard only one sentence:

“If you want to see the boy, come to the old station warehouse and bring that girl with you…”

The line went dead.