The cigar smoke curled like ghosts in the amber glow of Silas Dorne's office. A jazz record played on vinyl, the kind his father used to put on when silence became too loud to bear. But even Miles Davis couldn't drown out the static whisper crawling behind his ear.
Mateo was dead.
Silas sat behind his mahogany desk, polished to a shine no one appreciated but him. A tumbler of whiskey sat untouched by his elbow. The ice had melted, just like Mateo's warm, smartass smirk had drained from his face when they zipped the body bag shut.
The office door creaked open, and André stepped in. "No movement from the girl's shop," he said. "She's been quiet. Working. Smiling for customers."
Silas tilted his head. "Is that so?"
"She didn't attend Mateo's funeral."
"Of course she didn't."
André said nothing. He knew better.
Silas leaned back in his chair. The leather groaned beneath him, a tired sigh. His eyes flicked toward the record player, but he didn't move to change the song. Let it loop. Let the trumpet wail like a man confessing sins too old to name.
"She told him she'd make him regret it," he murmured.
André blinked. "Sir?"
"At the gala. Mateo said she cornered him at the back of the bar. Said something poetic. What was it again?" Silas's lips twitched into a mock smile. "'I remember what the world forgets.'" He chuckled, dry and sharp. "Doesn't that just sound like her?"
André shifted uncomfortably. "With respect… she's just a florist."
"No one's just anything, André." Silas swirled the melted whiskey, letting the ice clink like brittle bones. "We built this empire by knowing better than that. Mateo should've known better too."
André stood silent. The unspoken lingered: Mateo had been impulsive, hot-headed, careless with words and women. He'd probably tried to corner the wrong girl—again. But this time, she hadn't run.
She'd smiled.
Silas closed his eyes. He could still see her walking past him at the gala, elegant in a midnight blue dress with a slit that could kill a man, a single white lily tucked behind her ear. Not a flicker of fear in her eyes. Just that cool, disarming calm he never trusted in people who weren't killers.
"I don't believe in coincidences," Silas said softly. "You know that, don't you?"
"I do."
"So when a girl whispers a threat in Mateo's ear, and he turns up dead two days later…"
"…you want her watched?"
Silas exhaled long through his nose. "I want her unsettled. Not dead. Not yet."
He stood, walked to the floor-length window behind his desk. The city blinked beneath him, full of neon lies and rotting truths. He tapped the glass with his finger.
"Shake her. Make her bleed panic. If she's guilty, she'll show her hand."
André nodded once. "I'll send the twins."
Silas turned, arching a brow. "No guns. No blood. This isn't a war. Not yet. Just a message."
"And if she is what you think she is?"
Silas poured himself a fresh drink. This time, he took a sip.
"Then the petals will fall."
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Across town, the girl in question was arranging orchids with gloved hands and humming something soft beneath her breath. Her knife glinted in the late afternoon sun, quick and precise as she trimmed the stems. The bell above the door jingled as a customer walked in, and her smile bloomed like nothing in the world had ever broken her.
But Silas Dorne had seen that smile before.
He'd seen it right before a man disappeared.
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Back at his office, the record reached its end with a soft pop.
Silas sat again, this time with a notepad in hand. The names he wrote weren't of enemies, but of friends. Associates. The kind of men who made things happen. Quiet things. Bloody things.
He paused when he reached Mateo's name.
Crossed it out.
Then flipped the page and began anew.
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Later that Night
The warehouse on 14th smelled like oil and old concrete. Two men leaned against the hood of an unmarked van, smoking. Both wore matching leather jackets and blank expressions—Silas's "twins," though they shared no blood. Just the same taste for destruction.
"She's alone at the shop till eight," one said.
"Lives alone too. No security. She's either stupid, or she thinks she's untouchable."
"Same difference."
They laughed.
Inside the van was a crowbar, gloves, a bottle of bleach, and a photograph of Esme Levine.
It wasn't grainy or distant like most surveillance shots. It was clear. Detailed. She was laughing in it—holding a bouquet of snapdragons, her head tilted back, throat exposed.
She looked too soft to be a threat.
Which made her dangerous.
"Should we rough her up?"
The taller one lit another cigarette. "Nah. Boss said break the house, not the girl."
The other grinned. "We'll make her think we could've."
They didn't know she'd spent years sleeping with a blade under her pillow.
Didn't know the garden gloves hid scars on her fingers from venom and rage.
Didn't know that the scream they wanted to hear was one she'd already buried under roses.
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Back at the Dorne Penthouse
Silas stood on the balcony, drink in hand, staring down at the lights of the city. The wind lifted the sheer curtain behind him, cool against the sweat at the nape of his neck.
He couldn't stop thinking about the necklace she wore at the gala.
Thin. Silver. Barely noticeable.
But there'd been a pendant.
A pressed flower encased in glass.
He hadn't recognized it.
That disturbed him more than he wanted to admit.
He'd grown up around every kind of flower. His mother had been a botanist before marrying into blood money. He knew poison by name, petal, and scent.
But that flower…?
It was new.
Or extinct.
Or hidden.
Silas Dorne didn't like unknowns.
He stepped inside, pulled out a slim black phone, and dialed a number he hadn't used in years.
It rang twice.
"Dr. Halberd," a woman answered.
"It's Dorne," he said. "I need a botanical analysis."
"I thought you didn't deal in flowers anymore."
"I don't. But someone else does. And I want to know what kind."
The silence on the other end was heavy, then: "Send me what you have."
He hung up and walked to his desk.
The photo of Esme was still open on his tablet. He zoomed in slowly, pinched the image to crop just around her neck.
The flower glistened beneath the glass. Delicate. Incomplete. But it was something.
He saved it.
Named the file:
"Unknown – Levine Pendant"
Then sat back and whispered to the empty room:
"Let's see what you're hiding, little gardener."
——————————————————
In the van, the men laughed as they pulled up outside Esme's house, getting ready to trash the place.
They had every intention of destroying anything that looked like it had even the slightest bit of value.