Chapter 3
1116 Words
That afternoon, I dragged my small suitcase into the towering property management building behind Old Street.
The agent was already waiting in the glass lobby. He glanced at my suitcase but didn't ask questions. He just swiped his card and led me into the executive elevator.
"The head of the investment group behind Old Street happens to be here for an inspection today." The agent pressed the button for the top floor. "We need the property owner's signature to terminate the lease. We'll go straight to the executive conference room."
The elevator stopped at the top floor.
The agent's phone rang. He glanced at the screen, made an apologetic gesture, and pointed toward the double wooden door at the end of the hall — slightly ajar. "Go ahead, it's the open door. I'll be right there after I take this call."
I nodded and walked down the hall alone, pulling my suitcase behind me.
The carpet in the executive wing was thick. The wheels of my suitcase made no sound.
When I got close to the conference room, I stopped.
On the sofa in the lounge area to my right sat an opened oversized custom gift box. It was too large to fit through a regular doorway, and the cleaning crew had apparently been dismantling it.
The black velvet base lay open, surrounded by a mess of silver-gray wrapping paper.
I recognized the folds in that paper. I'd cut them out last night under the cold fluorescent light of the basement, creasing them by hand.
My gaze dropped. On the edge of the carpet lay a small card.
I walked over, bent down, and picked it up. The front had the logo of the No. 14 flower shop. I flipped it over. On the upper right corner was a small leaf drawn in green marker — I'd doodled it to cover a water stain I'd accidentally splashed while wrapping.
This order of 999 white roses — I'd worked through the night, my hands punctured in seven or eight places by thorns. The buyer was anonymous, with instructions to deliver it to the property management building first thing this morning.
I stood there, holding the card.
"The flowers are beautiful." A woman's voice drifted through the gap in the conference room door, laced with lazy amusement. "Thanks for the engagement gift, Liam."
My hand froze mid-air.
"I'm glad you like them." Liam's voice followed, stripped of the morning's irritation, dripping with the easy arrogance of someone who'd never known real hardship. "Only that shop in all of Harbor City could pull together that quantity in one night."
"The flowers are nice enough." The woman — Vivian — paused. Her heels clicked against the wooden floor. "But when are you going to have them clear out that Old Street down there? The Ashford Group's commercial development has been held up for six months because of your little 'life experience' project."
The click of a lighter. The smell of smoke.
"What's the rush?" Liam exhaled. "Six months ago, those idiots from the property management team went too heavy-handed trying to evict the tenants. They trashed the flower shop and killed the woman's cat."
"So?"
"The owner was holding the dead cat in the rain, sobbing like she was going to pass out." Liam chuckled. "If I'd forced the demolition back then, she would've moved. Then how would I keep playing my 'poor broke boyfriend' routine — the one where she sells everything she owns to take care of me?"
"You're insane." Vivian laughed too. "Burning millions in maintenance fees just to watch a flower girl devote her whole life to you?"
"Think of it as paying for a performance. It's entertaining, isn't it?"
I stood in the hallway outside.
The AC blew cold air across my arms, raising goosebumps.
Six months ago, on a rainy night, a group of masked people had stormed my flower shop and trashed it, forcing me to leave. My orange cat of ten years had been crushed by a falling metal shelf. Internal bleeding.
I'd carried my dying cat through two blocks in the rain, looking for a vet. In the end, she died in my arms. All her warmth drained away. My companion of ten years turned cold and stiff.
Late that night, Liam had shown up at the clinic, soaking wet. Red-eyed, he'd held me. Sat with me on the curb the whole night. Sworn he'd make it big one day, find out who did it, protect me forever.
I'd believed him. I'd used my mother's wedding fund to pay off his second debt. Told him it was okay, the cat was just an accident. We could start over.
Everything would be fine.
Those masked men were contractors the Ashford family had hired.
That gut-wrenching loss I'd grieved was just a plot point he'd manufactured to make his game more interesting.
The agent hung up at the other end of the hall and started walking toward me.
I didn't wait for him. I grabbed my suitcase, turned, and stepped into the elevator going down.
I rode all the way to the first floor, walked out of the building, and went straight back to the No. 14 flower shop on Old Street.
Liam's stage. His set.
I pushed open the door and pulled a heavy fire axe out of the storage room. We'd bought it together when we first renovated the shop and put up shelves.
I walked to the front, raised the axe, and swung it into the giant display window.
CRASH—
The sound of shattering glass cut through the afternoon. Then I went after the custom climate-controlled flower cabinet, the expensive ceramic vases. Both hands on the axe, I smashed every expensive fixture in the shop to pieces. Finally, I walked behind the workbench and swung the axe into the main water valve.
A high-pressure jet of water erupted, quickly flooding the expensive hardwood flooring Liam had specially installed. Roses and lilies lay in tatters in the rising water.
Ten minutes later, the agent arrived at the shop entrance, panting. When he saw the wreckage, the broken glass, and the water still gushing from the pipe, he collapsed onto the floor.
I handed him the signed lease copy, along with the order card with the little leaf.
"Give these to Mr. Ashford upstairs." I grabbed my suitcase, looking at the spreading water. My voice was so steady it surprised even me. "Tell him I trashed the shop. He can keep the deposit for the glass."
With that, I walked out and headed for the taxi stand at the corner without looking back.
I couldn't spend another second in this place.
- Writer
