“Will You Come Home with Us” The Mafia Boss’s Twins Asked the Rejected Florist to Come Home, but One Council Meeting Proved Who His Family Had Already Chosen

The leather seat of the black SUV was warm, quiet, and smelled of polished cedar and cold rain.

Olivia sat between the twins. Emma had tucked her face into Olivia’s wool coat sleeve, her tiny hands still clinging to Olivia’s cold fingers. Ella sat on the left, staring out the tinted window with an expression so intensely reserved it broke Olivia’s heart.

In the front passenger seat, Gabriel Duca remained completely silent.

His dark overcoat was unbuttoned just enough to reveal the crisp charcoal suit underneath. He didn't look back at them, but his eyes were constantly moving in the side mirror, scanning the trailing convoy of black sedans following them through the snowy streets of Manhattan.

"Mr. Duca," Olivia began, her voice hoarse from hours standing in the winter air. "You don't have to do this. I can take a cab back to my apartment. Your daughters were sweet, but I'm just..."

"You are cold," Gabriel said. His voice was a low, resonant rumble that seemed to settle in the floorboards of the vehicle. "And my daughters do not take hands easily, Miss Brooks."

"You know my name?"

Gabriel glanced at her in the rearview mirror. His steel-gray eyes met hers for a brief, electric second. "I know everything that happens in the squares I permit vendors to operate in. I know who broke your cart's wheel three weeks ago. I know your former husband's name, and I know how much money he owes to men who report to my capos."

Olivia’s breath hitched. "I don't have anything to do with my ex-husband anymore."

"I know," Gabriel said softly. "Otherwise, you would not be sitting in this car."

The SUV turned off the main highway, winding up a private, snow-covered road flanked by towering hemlock trees. The city skyline dissolved into dark forest, until a pair of massive iron gates appeared in the glare of the headlights. The gates bore the crest of a silver falcon holding a broken blade—the seal of the Duca family.

The guards at the gate bowed as the convoy passed through.

The Duca estate loomed out of the snowstorm like a dark stone fortress. High archways, amber light spilling from floor-to-ceiling windows, and quiet guards standing at every corner. It was a place designed to withstand a siege, yet inside, as the double mahogany front doors opened, the heat washed over them like a physical embrace.

An elderly housekeeper in a dark gray dress stepped into the grand foyer.

"Welcome home, Boss," she said gently, before her eyes landed on Olivia and the torn sleeve of her navy coat. She didn't look surprised. In Gabriel's world, no one questioned the boss's actions. "I have prepared the east wing guest suite, as requested over the radio."

"Thank you, Maria," Gabriel said. He turned to the girls. "Emma, Ella. Go with Maria. Get changed for dinner."

"Is Olivia staying?" Emma asked, her small voice echoing off the high marble ceiling.