A Loan Shark Obession

Chapter One

Nikolai

The car didn’t fit.

Not on this street. Not between the faded storefronts, crooked signs, and pavement patched so many times it looked like old scars trying to heal. My black sedan sat there like a threat, too polished, too expensive, too deliberate.

Like a blade placed gently on a kitchen table.

Neither did I.

The moment I stepped out, the street changed.

Conversation thinned. A man standing outside the bakery paused mid-cigarette, smoke curling forgotten between his fingers. Two women carrying shopping bags lowered their voices. Even the old woman watering the plants outside the pharmacy stopped and stared for a second too long.

People noticed presence.

Mine was difficult to ignore.

I adjusted my cufflinks, charcoal suit sitting perfectly against my body, dark tie straight, shoes polished enough to reflect the broken pavement beneath me.

Tailored. Controlled. Untouchable.

Eyes followed me.

They always did.

I moved toward the restaurant without hurry. I never hurried. Time bent for men like me, not the other way around.

Before I reached the door, it opened.

The owner stood there already waiting, sweat collecting along his thinning hairline, smile stretched too wide to be real.

“Mr. Roman,” he said quickly. “Welcome. Please, come inside…”

I didn’t answer. Because my attention had already moved past him.

Past the restaurant.

Across the street.

Glass walls caught the late afternoon sun, reflecting clouds and movement and pieces of the world passing by. Behind them was color. Buckets overflowing with peonies, roses, lilies. Green vines climbing along a freshly painted frame. Lavender tied with ribbon. White orchids resting like expensive secrets.

The shop looked alive.

Like spring had chosen that one small corner of the city and decided to stay there.

Ivory Bloom Flowers.

And in the middle of it…Her.

She stood on a small ladder, painting the inside trim of the window frame. Blonde hair fell halfway down her back, pinned carelessly at the nape of her neck with a single clip that was already losing the fight against loose strands.

The sunlight caught the pale gold and turned it almost white.

She wore high-waisted jeans, a faded T-shirt, and an apron tied loosely around her waist. There was paint on her wrist. Dirt on one knee.

She was smiling.

Not the smile people wear for customers. Not the polite kind.

A real one.

Soft. Private. Unaware.

Music played from somewhere inside the shop, low enough that I couldn’t hear the words, only the rhythm. She moved slightly with it, brush in hand, swaying just enough to follow the song.

People watched me and I watched her.

The restaurant owner cleared his throat beside me.

“We can discuss the payment plan..”

“I don’t discuss debts,” I said.

Quietly.

I didn’t need volume. My voice had never needed help.

He flinched anyway.

Still, I didn’t look at him.

Across the street, she climbed down from the ladder and crouched near a row of tulips, adjusting them one by one with slow, careful hands. She straightened a stem. Turned a vase slightly. Tucked a fallen petal back into place like even the smallest broken thing deserved tenderness.

That caught my attention more than it should have.

She treated flowers like they mattered. Like they could feel it.

She still hadn’t looked up.

Hadn’t noticed me.

Hadn’t felt the weight of my gaze.

She was the only person on that street not paying attention to me.

Something unfamiliar settled in my chest.

Stillness.

Interest.

Danger.

“Mr. Roman?” the owner tried again, voice thinner now.

I turned to him then.

My right eye always made people think they had a chance. Brown. Calm. Human.

The left one corrected that mistake.

Cold blue. Sharp enough to peel lies from bone.

“You’ve been underpaying for three months,” I said. “Your debt is due tomorrow. In full.”

His face lost what little color it had left.

“Tomorrow is impossible.”

I studied him. People always said impossible when they meant inconvenient.

“You want to know when it started?” I asked.

He blinked. “What?”

“The ruin,” I said. “When it begins.”

His throat moved.

I stepped closer.

“You only recognize it when there’s nothing left to save.”

Silence.

Heavy. Useful.

I let it sit there between us before stepping past him and back onto the street.

I should have returned to the car.

Instead, I stopped at the curb.

Across from me, the blonde florist had picked up a watering can and was tending to a row of white roses by the window. Slow. Precise. Like she had nowhere else to be and no reason to rush.

She hummed softly to herself. Completely unaware.

A breeze pushed the shop door open and the scent reached me.

Fresh flowers.

Clean. Bright. Alive.

It didn’t belong anywhere near me.

Maybe that was why I stayed. I watched her longer than I should have. Long enough to memorize.

The tilt of her head.

The cadence of her steps.

The way she smiled at a flower like it had smiled first.

I didn’t know her name yet but I would. I always did.

Because Nikolai Roman never forgot a debt.

And something inside me had just taken one.

Chapter Two

Katerina

Paint on your hands meant progress.

I rubbed my fingers together, watching pale flakes of dried ivory paint fall to the pavement like soft dust, and smiled to myself.

Better.

Definitely better.

I stepped back from the storefront and tilted my head, studying the glass façade like it might argue with me if I stared long enough. Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, catching the water inside the flower buckets and scattering reflections across the walls. The whole shop seemed to glow.

Alive.

That was the word.

Ivory Bloom Flowers had always been beautiful.

But lately, before I took over, it had felt… tired. Like it was breathing because it had to, not because it wanted to. My parents had kept it alive for decades with stubbornness, love, and backs that ached every winter morning at the flower market.

They gave everything to this place. And eventually, everything asks for something bac