Chapter Thirteen
The van was still smoking when Diane reached it.
She'd heard the explosion from her flower corner—a deep, percussive boom that rattled the garage windows and sent brothers running for weapons.
By the time she made it to the compound's perimeter road, the vehicle she'd driven for six years was nothing but a blackened skeleton of twisted metal and melted rubber.
Everything. Gone.
The cooler in the back that kept her arrangements fresh during deliveries. The buckets she'd organized just right. The ribbon spools and the foam blocks and the scissors she kept in the console because you never knew when you'd need to trim a stem.
All of it reduced to slag.
Burial found her standing at the edge of the wreckage, her hands curled into fists at her sides. He didn't touch her—just stood close, his presence a solid wall between her and whatever might come next.
"Blowtorch," he said quietly. "Professional work. Someone who knows how to make metal burn."
"Brossett."
"Yeah."
Diane's jaw tightened. Landry Brossett. Raymond's personal enforcer. The one who handled grudges with blowtorches and took his time making sure people understood exactly why they were suffering.
He'd found her van.
"There's more." Burial's voice was careful. "On the gate."
She followed him, her boots crunching on gravel still warm from the fire. The compound gates stood open, brothers gathered around something mounted to the iron bars.
A funeral wreath.
White lilies. Black ribbon. A small card tucked into the arrangement, the handwriting neat and precise.
Deepest sympathies.
Diane's stomach turned.
"He's using flowers," she said. "He's using my trade as his signature."
"It's a message." Burial's jaw was tight. "To you specifically. Raymond wants you to know this is personal now."
"Because I threw a vase at his collector?"
"Because you didn't break." His eyes met hers. "You were supposed to fold. Sign the lease transfer, disappear, let Raymond take what he wanted. Instead, you called me. Called the club. Fought back."
"So he sent his torture specialist."
"He sent his torture specialist."
Diane looked at the wreath—the lilies she might have arranged herself, the ribbon she might have tied. Someone had built this with care. Someone had taken time to make it beautiful, then mounted it on the gates of a motorcycle compound as a threat.
The anger that moved through her was cold. Practical. Already calculating.
"The van was my delivery system," she said. "Without it, I can't reach my clients. Can't make deliveries. Can't keep the business alive."
"We'll get you another van."
"That's not the point." She turned to face him fully. "He's not just attacking me. He's attacking what I do. What I am. He's using flowers as his calling card because he knows it'll hurt worse than just burning my van."
Burial's expression darkened.
"This is what Brossett does," he said. "Personal enforcement. He doesn't just destroy—he makes it mean something. Makes you understand that he knows exactly where to hurt you."
"Then we need to understand him the same way."
The second attack came that night.
A Destroyer-protected business in Greenville—a tire shop on the south side that had been paying protection for three years—went up in flames just after midnight. By the time the fire trucks arrived, there was nothing left but ashes and another funeral wreath mounted to the chain-link fence.
With condolences.
Diane heard about it from Crossroad, who delivered the news with the flat voice of a man who'd seen too much violence to be surprised by more. She sat in her flower corner, surrounded by the arrangements she'd been building, and felt the compound shift into war footing around her.
Brothers checking weapons. Bikes being fueled. The low murmur of men preparing for violence.
Burial found her at the workbench, her hands busy with stems she barely saw.
"He's establishing a pattern," she said before he could speak. "The van, the tire shop. Both at night. Both with the wreaths."
"We know."
"What you don't know is where he's staging from." She set down her scissors. "Brossett has to be working out of somewhere. A base. Somewhere he can store the blowtorch equipment, build the wreaths, plan his attacks."
Burial's eyes sharpened. "You have an idea."
"I have delivery routes." Diane pulled out the map of Greenville's south side she'd been annotating for days.
"Every funeral home, church, hospital, and florist in the area.
Every alley that connects to every back door.
Every building that's been abandoned long enough for someone to set up shop without being noticed. "
She spread the map on the workbench, pointing.
"The tire shop is here. My shop—where the van was parked when they first threatened me—is here.
The compound is here." Her finger traced lines between the points.
"If Brossett is working at night and hitting targets across this range, he needs somewhere central.
Somewhere with alley access for quick escapes.
Somewhere nobody would question a man coming and going after dark. "
"The abandoned buildings?"
"Too obvious. The brothers have already checked them." She shook her head. "Brossett is smart. He's not hiding in an empty warehouse—he's hiding somewhere people expect to see activity. Somewhere a van parked at midnight wouldn't raise eyebrows."
Burial studied the map, his gravedigger's eyes reading the terrain the way he read soil.
"What kind of places see traffic at midnight?"
"Hospitals. Funeral homes. Late-night restaurants." Diane's finger stopped on a point near the center of the map. "And florists who do delivery prep for early-morning funerals."
"There's another florist?"
"There was." She tapped the point. "Mrs. Wilton's shop. Closed six months ago when she retired. The building's been empty ever since, but nobody's bought it because the landlord wants too much."
"An empty florist shop."
"With a back room built for arrangement prep. Walk-in cooler. Loading dock for the van. And alley access to three different streets." Diane's jaw tightened. "It's exactly where I'd stage from if I wanted to hit multiple targets across the south side."
Burial was quiet for a moment.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure it fits the pattern." She met his eyes. "I'm sure that a man who uses flowers as his signature would appreciate the irony of working out of a dead florist's shop. And I'm sure that someone who knows Greenville's delivery routes as well as I do would pick that location."
"You think he's been watching you."
"I think he's been studying me." The words tasted bitter. "Learning how I work, what I care about, where I'm vulnerable. The wreaths aren't random—they're personal. He's using my trade against me because he knows it'll hurt more than just burning things."
Burial's hands curled into fists.
"He's not going to get the chance to hurt you again."
"I know." Diane reached for his hand, uncurling his fingers one by one. "But I'm not hiding while you hunt him. If we're right about the staging location, I'm coming with you."
"Diane—"
"No." Her voice was steel. "He made this personal. He burned my van. He mounted flowers on your gates like a threat. He's using everything I am against me, and I'm not going to sit in a corner building arrangements while someone else ends it."
"It's dangerous."
"Everything about this has been dangerous." She held his gaze. "But you promised I'd be standing next to you. Did you mean it?"
The conflict played across his face—the gravedigger who wanted to protect her fighting with the man who'd seen her throw a vase and kill without flinching.
"I meant it," he said finally.
"Then let me help you map the approach." She turned back to the map, her finger tracing the alley network around Mrs. Wilton's old shop. "I know these streets. I know which back doors are always unlocked, which alleys have blind spots, where a man who works at night would feel safe."
Burial moved to stand beside her, his shoulder brushing hers.
"Show me."
She showed him.
The alleys that connected to Mrs. Wilton's loading dock. The back entrance to the building next door, which had been left unlocked for deliveries since before Diane started her business. The fire escape on the adjacent apartment building that gave sight lines to the whole block.
She showed him everything she knew about Greenville's south side—every delivery route, every shortcut, every shadow where a man who worked at night would stage.
And when they were done, when the map was covered in her annotations and his questions, Burial looked at her with something like wonder.
"You know this territory better than any of us."
"I've been delivering flowers here for five years." She folded the map carefully. "Every funeral, every wedding, every hospital room. I've driven these streets more times than I can count."
"And now you're going to use that knowledge to hunt the man who's been hunting you."
"Now I'm going to use it to end this." She met his eyes. "Together."
Burial nodded slowly.
"We move tomorrow night," he said. "I'll brief the brothers. Cottonmouth will want to know what we've found."
"And Brossett?"
"Brossett picked the wrong trade to use as his signature." Burial's voice went cold. "A florist who knows every alley in Greenville just drew us a map straight to his door."
Diane looked at the wreath still mounted to the compound gates. The lilies were starting to wilt, the ribbon fading in the Delta sun.
Deepest sympathies.
Tomorrow night, she'd be sending condolences of her own.
Because a florist who delivers to every funeral home, church, and hospital in the area knows which alleys connect, which back doors are unlocked, and where a man who works at night would stage.