Chapter 1

I am just a simple florist making an honest living. Yet, somehow, the city's untouchable elites keep suffering horrific, freak accidents right after someone buys my flowers. The police know I'm involved, but they can't prove a thing. After all, how much damage can a few blooming petals really do?

——

"When the head was found, the eyes were pinned wide open, eyeballs practically bulging out of their sockets."

Detective Silas slammed a stack of high-res, bloody crime scene photos onto the wooden counter, the stiff edges knocking over a vial of nutrient solution I’d just mixed.

I didn't even glance at them. Instead, I picked up a pristine white handkerchief and took my time wiping the spill from the wood.

Then, I looked up and offered him a polite, perfectly harmless smile.

"Detective Silas, if you're here to buy flowers, I highly recommend this freshly bloomed peace lily."

"But if you're here to show off modern photographic art, you've got the wrong address."

"My greenhouse only has room for plants."

"Cut the crap, Isolde."

Silas planted both hands firmly on the counter, leaning his massive frame forward in a pathetic attempt to cast a shadow over me.

His bloodshot eyes locked dead onto mine.

"Cassius is dead."

"The untouchable golden boy of the Sterling family died last night in his hillside mansion—a place with security tight enough to rival a bank vault."

I raised an eyebrow and set down my pruning shears, the metal clinking sharply against the table.

"Oh?"

"What a tragic piece of news."

"How did he die?"

"Stuffed into an industrial-grade trash compactor."

Silas's jaw ticked, a barely suppressed shudder betraying his voice.

"The killer didn't even grant him a quick death. They turned it on the slowest possible setting."

"The ME said his bones were crushed inch by inch. His organs were quite literally squeezed out of his throat."

"He went through at least two hours of absolute, excruciating agony before he died. Like... like he was just a bag of garbage being disposed of."

I lowered my gaze, admiring my perfectly manicured, clean fingernails.

What a shame I didn’t get to see it with my own eyes.

But thankfully, it wasn't too late.

Just three months ago, this same Cassius was drag racing in the middle of the night and hit the deaf-mute granddaughter of Finnick, an old street sweeper from the slums. The impact threw her a good forty feet.

The girl hadn’t died on impact. Yet, instead of calling 911, Cassius and his buddies got out of their cars and started a betting pool on how far the bloody, broken girl could crawl.

But the Sterling family was practically royalty here.

Greased by money and power, street cameras mysteriously malfunctioned and the footage went missing. The sports car that took the girl’s life quietly turned into a pile of scrapped metal on the outskirts of town.

In the end, blaming "mechanical failure," Cassius was handed down a pathetic three months of community service.

An invisible, omnipotent hand played the old sweeper like a pawn.

The law had become wastepaper; justice, a sick joke.

"So?"

I looked back up, my eyes clear and perfectly innocent.

"What does any of this have to do with me?"

"Finnick was here in your greenhouse yesterday afternoon."

Silas took a deliberate step closer, his tone aggressive and probing.

"The old man could barely afford to eat after his granddaughter's death. Why would he suddenly show up at the most expensive floral boutique downtown?"

"And the very night after he leaves, Cassius faces this kind of brutal, calculated vengeance."

"What exactly did you say to him, Isolde?"

"What did I say?"

I couldn't help but chuckle, as if he'd just told me the most absurd joke in the world.

Turning around, I carefully lifted a potted plant with striking, dark-red leaves from a glass display cabinet behind me.

"Mr. Finnick is a highly respectable gentleman."

"He told me it looked too barren beside his granddaughter’s headstone. He wanted to buy a plant that could still bloom, even in the darkest, dampest corners."

"So, I sold him a pot of red spider lilies—at cost."

I gently slid the potted plant across the counter toward Silas.

"Detective... tell me, is selling flowers to a grieving, desperate old man considered a crime in this city now?"

Silas was at a loss for words.

He glared at me, desperate to find even a single crack in my composure.

But I knew he was destined to be disappointed.

"You'd better pray you really had nothing to do with this, Isolde."

Silas pushed himself off the counter and snatched up his photos, his voice thick with a final warning.

"Cassius’s father, Archibald, has completely lost it. He's not just breathing down the precinct's neck; he's mobilized the mob."

"If you get dragged into this, not a soul will be able to save you."

"I appreciate the warning."

I smiled politely, signaling the end of our conversation.

"Take care, Detective."

"May the law protect you all."