All Chapters of BLOOD AND PETALS: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

99 Chapters

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AdrianThe woman’s name was Isabela Cruz.Daughter of a man who’d ordered more deaths than Adrian cared to count. He was the one who brought him into the business and he tought he already escaped the damn bastard.She sat across from him now, legs crossed, smile sharp enough to cut skin.“You looked tense on the news,” she said lightly. “Was I not convincing enough? Be glad father did't plan to kill you”Adrian didn’t smile. “You are getting too bold Isabella. Your father knows I can;t be killed easily”She laughed. “Of course you can't but People like to see powerful men helpless.”He leaned forward. “You said you had information.”Isabela lifted her phone and slid it across the table.On the screenA grainy photo.Elena. Standing at her flower stall.Mateo beside her.Adrian’s chest went cold.“Touch them,” he said quietly, “and there won’t be enough of you left to bury.”Isabela tilted her head. “Threats are cute. But my father already knows where she lives.”Adrian’s hand clenched

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Helen woke up to Evan’s phone ringing.Not the polite ring.The someone-made-a-fatal-mistake ring.Evan didn’t move at first. His arm was draped loosely over her waist, his breathing slow, steady. Helen lay still too, staring at the ceiling, counting heartbeats.The phone rang again.And again.She sighed. “If that’s my father, tell him I’m dead.”Evan’s lips curved slightly. He reached for the phone without letting go of her. “If it’s your father,” he said calmly, “he’s about to become very poor.”He answered.“Yes.”Pause.Helen watched Evan’s expression change not anger. Something colder. Focused. Like a man adjusting the scope before pulling the trigger.“No,” Evan said. “You misunderstand. You don’t have leverage.”Another pause.Helen sat up slightly. “Who is it?”Evan covered the receiver with one finger. “Lucas.”Helen groaned and flopped back onto the pillow. “Of course it is.”Evan uncovered the phone. “You’re calling at an inconvenient time.”Lucas’s voice came sharp throug

REAL CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ElenaThe TV was on by accident.Elena hadn’t meant to watch the news. Mateo had the remote, flipping channels, humming to himself. She was trimming roses, thorns biting into her fingers, when the anchor’s voice sharpened.“…confirmed reports indicate that businessman and known power figure Adrian volkov is expecting a child with Isabela Cruz, daughter of—”Elena’s scissors slipped.Clattered to the floor.Mateo looked up. “Mamá?”The screen changed to photos.Adrian.Isabela.Coming out of a restaurant.Her hand on his arm.Another clip Isabela holding a folder, tearful, surrounded by reporters.“I wouldn’t lie about something like this,” Isabela said softly into microphones. “I love him. I’m carrying his child. I beg you all not to ask a lot of questions my man won't be comfortable"Then came the proof.Medical reports. Dates. A doctor’s statement.The room tilted.Elena’s knees hit the chair behind her.“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”Mateo climbed down and ran to her. “Mamá,

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The bell above the shop door chimed.Elena didn’t look up.“Five minutes,” she said automatically. “I’m closing.”No answer.She frowned and lifted her head.The man standing just inside the door wasn’t holding flowers.He was holding a gun.Her breath froze halfway in.“I don’t have money in the register,” she said quickly, hands already lifting. “You can take whatever you want—”“Relax,” he interrupted, voice bored. “This isn’t a robbery.”That was when fear really hit.The kind that crawled under your skin instead of screaming.“What do you want?” she asked.The man smiled like he admired her courage. “You ask too many questions.”Her phone buzzed on the counter.A text preview flashed.UNKNOWN NUMBER: Don’t move.Her heart slammed.“Please,” she said, voice cracking now. “I have a child.”The man tilted his head. “So I heared”The gun lifted.Everything slowed.Elena thought of Mateo’s laugh.Of dirt under her nails from the shop garden.Of Adrian’s face the last time they screame

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Alec stood frozen in front of the emergency ward as Elena was being rushed inside, he was confused and scared at the same time. What could have happened, Elena wasn't a troublesome person to begin with, or perharps it has something to do with Mateo's father.Speaking of Mateo, he is at the shop with Rosa. The boy baby doesn't have to witness how his mother was brutally shot and running out of life.Alec dailed a number on his phone"Ma I'm bring over someone and i want you to take very goodcare of her for me---No ma it is'nt my girlfriend I'll brief you later"With that he put his phone back into his pocket.Elena has to leave columbia this very instant before they find her again and kill her completely. With that he went to the doctor incharge to make some arrangement and made a dead certificate.He doesn't know if elena will forgive him for this but he just had to. He was coming out of the doctor's office when someone grabbed his shirt."Where is she, where is Elena answer me damn i

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The car crossed the border just before sunrise.Elena felt it before she saw it the change in the road, the way the air thinned, the way her chest burned when she tried to breathe too deeply. Her side was wrapped tight, pain dull but constant, like a warning she couldn’t ignore.She was alive.Barely.Alec’s mother sat in the passenger seat, silent, hands folded in her lap. She hadn’t asked Elena’s name. Hadn’t asked what happened. She had only said one thing when Alec brought her into the house hours earlier, unconscious and bleeding.“Put her in the spare room. Lock the doors.”Now the woman finally spoke. “When we stop, you don’t get out. I will come to you.”Elena nodded weakly.Mateo slept against her chest, his small fingers tangled in her shirt like he was afraid she might vanish if he let go. Every rise and fall of his breathing felt like proof that the choice Alec made—the lie, the death certificate, the disappearance had been necessary.I’m sorry, she thought, not knowing wh

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Alec stayed longer than he planned.That was his first mistake.The house was quiet, tucked between hills and trees that felt too calm for someone who had just escaped death. Elena sat by the window, Mateo asleep on her lap, watching dust float through sunlight like nothing terrible had ever happened.“You should leave,” she said without looking at him.“I will,” Alec replied. “Soon.”“You always say that.”He exhaled. “Because every time I look at you, I remember the hospital. The blood. The sound you made when they wheeled you past me.”Elena’s fingers tightened around Mateo’s shirt. “And yet you still lied. You killed me on paper.”“I saved you,” Alec corrected gently. “There’s a difference.”She finally turned to face him. Her face was paler now, thinner, but still unmistakably Elena. The scar near her ribs would fade with time, but the fear in her eyes wouldn’t not anytime soon.“Adrian believes I’m dead,” she said. “Does he cry?”Alec hesitated.That pause told her everything.“

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Adrian never visited the grave after the funeralThere was no need.Graves were for people you wanted to remember gently. Elena did not belong to that kind of memory. She lived in sharper places now between his ribs, behind his eyes, in the silence that followed every decision.He believed she was dead.Completely.That was the problem.The city had moved on quickly. A woman shot in a small flower shop was not headline news for long, especially when no suspect was caught and no motive officially named.Adrian made sure of that.The investigation was buried under paperwork, sealed with money and quiet threats. The shooter disappeared. The witnesses forgot details. The cameras malfunctioned.Elena stayed dead.Exactly where she was supposed to be.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________Isabela stood in front of the mirror as Adrian adjusted his cufflinks.“You don’t have to do this,” she said softly, watching his refl

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Elena rebuilt herself quietly.Not the dramatic kind of rebuilding people liked to talk about the kind with speeches and tears and big moments. Hers was smaller. Sharper. Done in pieces.She woke up every day before sunrise.She jogged when the streets were still half-asleep, Mateo strapped safely into a stroller at first, then later running beside her with short, determined legs. She learned the rhythm of the neighborhood, the places where people didn’t ask questions, the vendors who cared more about payment than stories.She changed her hair.Not for beauty. For anonymity.She learned which markets paid in cash, which suppliers didn’t keep records, which smiles were harmless and which were not. She reopened a flower shop under a different name, smaller than the one she lost, but warmer.Luna Verde.No last names. No history.Just flowers and silence.People came because her arrangements were different. Softer. Honest. Like someone who understood loss without advertising it.“She has

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Adrian didn’t lose control all at once.It came in pieces.A delayed shipment.A missed meeting.A trusted man not answering his phone.Little things until they weren’t.“You’re bleeding territory,” Luca said quietly, sliding a tablet across the desk.Adrian didn’t touch it. “Show me where.”Luca hesitated. That alone was answer enough.“Your western routes,” Luca said. “Three warehouses. They switched allegiance overnight.”Adrian finally looked down.The names burned.Men he had bled with.Men who had sworn loyalty with their hands on his shoulders.All gone.He exhaled slowly. “Isabela’s father?”“Yes.”Of course.Vicente Calderón cruz didn’t forgive.He consumed.“He is trying to trap me making sure I don't leave his daughter,” Adrian muttered.Luca’s voice was low. “You married his daughter. He assumed that meant submission.”Adrian’s mouth curved into something cold. “It means proximity.”Isabela knew the moment something shifted.She felt it when Adrian Became even more cold to

1 2 3 4 5 6

...

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP