Page 97 of Double Standards

“I didn’t send you anything,” he repeats, this time clipped, razor-sharp. The voice he uses for enemies, not for me. “Where are you?”

“My office.” I’m whispering now. It’s too quiet in here. The hum of the building, the distant traffic outside—somehow it all feels too far away to help.

“Are they marked?”

I force myself to look. Reallylook. There’s no florist’s label, but there’s a card. No name. Just the words, “Watch your back.”

There’s silence on the other end. Then a low hiss of breath, barely contained fury. Or fear.

I bite down on my lip, racking my brain over who could’ve sent these. “You think it’s Cooper?”

“I don’t know,” he huffs, the sound so raw it makes something in me twist. I wish I hadn’t called. I wish I’d just pretended. Pretended I could believe in pretty gestures and normal relationships.

“Toss them,” he demands.

“But—”

“Cassie!”

“Okay,” I murmur. My hands tremble as I set the phone down on the desk and stare at the flowers.

Then I scoop up the vase and dump the whole thing into the trash bin under my desk. Glass clinks dully against the sides. Water splashes over my shoes. Petals stick to my palm like bruises.

Suddenly, the air in the room feels colder. The window rattles faintly behind me, a draft I swear wasn’t there before.

“It’s done,” I tell Axel.

“Good girl. Let me know if anything else happens.”

I don’t argue. I don’t question what he’ll do next. I just let the line go dead while my thoughts run wild. I sit down, fingers numb as I open the McKenzie file again. The words swim infront of me: contracts, statements, legal jargon. But I don’t see them.

I see flowers. I see the white petals. I see the lilies, so pure, hiding something rotten in their stems.

And just like that, the weekend feels a lifetime ago—like the warmth Axel left in my skin has been scrubbed off, replaced with something sharp and hollow.

I tell myself it’s fine. I’m fine. But the flowers say otherwise.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The blacked-out SUV hums beneath us, engine low and steady like a predator crouched in the dark. We’re parked two blocks from the warehouse, just far enough to watch without being seen, close enough to strike. The night air clings to the windows, thick with summer heat and the stink of garbage and gutter oil.

Max is up front behind the wheel, eyes scanning the street, silent as ever. Trigger’s riding shotgun, flicking a toothpick between his teeth like it’s a job he gets paid for. His boots are up on the dash, sunglasses pushed up in his hair even though the sun’s long gone.

Me? I’m in the back seat, elbows on knees, spine coiled tight because I can’t stop thinking about those fucking flowers.

“She didn’t keep them?” Trigger asks, voice casual, but there’s something sharper underneath. He glances over his shoulder at me.

“No,” I say. “Tossed them in the trash like I told her to.”

Max doesn’t speak. Just cuts his eyes to the rearview mirror. He doesn’t say much unless it matters.

Trigger shifts, toothpick dancing. “You think it’s Cooper?”

“Could be. Could be someone else.” I drum my fingers onmy knee, the tap-tap-tap a slow bleed of tension. “But it wasn’t me, and that’s the part that matters.”

“That’s romantic as shit,” Trigger mutters, all dry drawl. “Guy doesn’t send flowers, must be love.”

I shoot him a look, slow and sharp. He meets it head-on, grinning like a bastard. Poking the bear is his favorite sport. One day it’s gonna get him bitten.