CHAPTER THIRTY #2
Like her, the business was clean. According to the report, the shop had been around for decades, long before Blossom Brooks was born. I’d assumed she’d named the shop after herself. But she’d been named after the shop. That made me smile for some reason.
Turning the page, I reached a section labeled:
UNVERIFIED INFORMATION
Tony had typed a short note at the top of the page.
I did some legwork and asked around among people who’d grown up in the neighborhood where Blossom was raised. They wouldn’t talk to me directly, so I paid someone from the area to go in and talk to them in my place.
Here is the information I learned about the shop from them. I couldn't verify the following. It’s only word of mouth. This is what longtime residents remembered about the shop. Do with this info what you want.
I relaxed against the couch and kept reading. Years ago, Blossoms and Vines had been much more than a floral shop. During the civil rights movement, the shop had reportedly served as a safe haven for Black Americans who'd lost their homes or needed somewhere to hide.
Blossom's grandparents had quietly opened their doors to people who had nowhere else to go. In return, the community protected the shop. Blossom came from a legacy of people who stood up for what they believed in and risked their lives to help others.
According to Tony's notes, the business hadn't always been a flower shop. Originally, they'd sold fresh fruit and vegetables to the surrounding neighborhood. Over the years, the business evolved into the floral shop it was today.
Now it had multiple locations in multiple states. I scrolled to the next page. One paragraph immediately caught my attention. Several longtime residents remembered something else about the shop. Years ago, Blossoms and Vines had a reputation for collecting information.
My gaze narrowed, but I kept reading.
Back when Blossom's grandmother had run the business, local women and housewives allegedly paid for information and hired the staff at the shop to investigate their husbands’ affairs or suspicious behaviors.
When women were going through divorces, they hired the shop to help prove their husbands were cheating on them. The shop was even rumored to gather info for local organizations.
The staff would even travel to gather intel if the price was right. The people Tony’s contact talked to hadn’t known what exactly the staff had investigated for those organizations. But they knew the shop had grown and thrived after they’d started gathering intel for them.
Those people also hadn’t known when or if the shop ever stopped providing info for a price. Upon reading that, I lowered my phone to the center table and sat there, staring at it as my mind tried to process what I’d just learned.
Blossoms and Vines had once provided intel to local organizations and had even traveled to gather it if the price was right.
"So..." I muttered, staring toward the tulips sitting on the table, a sinking feeling settling in my stomach. “Blossoms and Vines used to be an intel hub.”
To most people, that would sound like a harmless piece of information. To me, it sounded suspicious as hell. I’d hired Tony to see if Blossom and Juliet were the same person. I’d just wanted proof that she was a hacker.
However, the information was doing more than pointing to her being my hacker. It was giving her a motive for hacking me. I closed my eyes, not wanting to think what I was thinking.
But... fuck!
How could I not think it when the possibility was staring me in the fucking face? What if it were true? What if... what if...
“Fuck,” I yelled, anger filling me.
I took a deep breath and told myself this had to be another coincidence. She couldn’t be... this couldn’t mean she was...
I shoved the thought aside again. My Blossom, my Juliet, she wasn’t someone who could hurt anyone. Especially not for money, for a profit. But even as I thought that, my rational brain traveled down another path.
Why would a florist at a shop built around gathering local information suddenly become interested in me? Why would she suddenly start hacking me? Why would she start flirting with me, searching my devices for information?
The more I thought about it, the more one detail refused to leave me alone. The timing. The hacking had started right after Marcel's kidnapping. Had she hacked me to see if I was on to them, to see if I knew she and her team were responsible for my cousin’s kidnapping?
I sat there for several long minutes, my mind refusing to move past that one detail. The timing was too suspicious to ignore. Until now, I'd told myself that Juliet had targeted me because she'd stumbled across me somehow.
Maybe she'd been curious about me. Or maybe she knew of my reputation as a hacker and wanted to test her skills against me. Against my better judgment, I’d convinced myself that her reasons hadn’t been nefarious.
But what if they had been? What if she’d been playing me for a fool this entire time? What if her shop, her team, were the ones responsible for the condition my cousin was in? I closed my eyes as pain unlike anything I’d ever felt before lanced through my chest.
That couldn’t be the case. I prayed to God that wasn’t the case. My Blossom, my Juliet, she couldn’t be the one who’d provided intel to Ettori Zucco. It couldn’t be her. Please, Lord, don’t let it be her.
My heart was racing now. I felt like I was about to hyperventilate. I took a few deep breaths, feeling like I was about to pass the fuck out. I had to know the truth. I had to know if there was a connection to Blossom’s shop and Ettori Zucco.
I needed to know right fucking now! I snatched my phone off the couch and called Tony. Fuck messaging him. He answered almost immediately.
"Rome."
"I need you to dig deeper into Blossoms and Vines," I growled into the phone.
There was a brief pause.
"Okay. Tell me what I’m looking for."
"I specifically want to know whether Blossoms and Vines has any financial connection to Italy. Have they received any funds from Italian banks or corporations? I’ll double your fee if you work overtime to get me this information as soon as possible."
"Okay. I'll start digging into that right now."
"Call me as soon as you know something."
"I will."
Ending the call, I lowered my phone into my lap before leaning my head back against the couch. My gaze drifted toward the ceiling as I tried to make sense of everything I'd learned today.
The woman I loved could not be behind the intel leak on my cousin. She couldn't be. I refused to believe it. But if she was, what the hell was I supposed to do? I lowered my gaze to the flowers on my center table.
Tulips.
Flowers that symbolized love.
Whoever was behind the intel leak would have to pay for what they’d done. Marcel deserved justice. And I’d made him a promise. I intended to keep that promise... no matter what.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
Out of all the women in the world, had I foolishly fallen for the very threat I intended to kill? And if she was that threat, would I be able to do what needed to be done to avenge Marcel? Did I even deserve to be his big cousin if I didn’t?
Closing my eyes, I shut out the sight of those damn tulips and let the tears fall.