Chapter 1: Petals and Shadows Sofia Bellani arranges roses in the quiet morning light of her Naples flower shop. She's twenty-six and alone. Her mother died four years ago, leaving her the shop and a lifetime of flower knowledge. Her father died when she was ten, killed in what police called a robbery. Now it's just Sofia and the flowers. She keeps her father's broken pocket watch in a drawer. The hands stopped at 11:43. She doesn't know if that's when he died. She never asked. Her shop, Fiori di Clara, is small but hers. Cream walls. Wooden shelves. Old vases her mother collected. It smells like roses and earth and memory. Her best friend Mia stops by with coffee, trying again to set her up on a date. Sofia refuses. She's built walls around her heart. High ones. The world took her parents. She won't give it the chance to take anything else. "You can't spend your whole life alone in a flower shop," Mia says. "Why not?" Sofia replies. She waters the plants. Trims the stems. Talks to the flowers like her mother taught her. Each one has a meaning. Roses for love. Lilies for peace. Forget-me-nots for memory. The day passes quietly. A few customers. An old man buying roses for his wife. A teenager looking for something cheap and pretty. Sofia helps them with a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. As the sun sets, she locks up the shop. The street is empty. Most of the stores are dark. She starts walking home. Just two blocks. Close enough that she's never worried. She doesn't notice the black car parked across the street. Doesn't see the man in the back seat, watching her through tinted windows. Doesn't know that tomorrow, a stranger will walk into her shop and change everything. But tonight, Sofia walks home thinking only of her small apartment and the quiet evening ahead. Thinking she's safe. Thinking her life will stay exactly as it is. Small. Predictable. Protected. She doesn't know yet that safety is just an illusion. That tomorrow, everything will begin to fall apart. And that falling apart might be the only way to finally start living.