Kneel For Me

Flowers

The flowers arrived at eight fifty-one Monday morning.

Two dozen white roses. Elegant. Expensive. A small card tucked between the stems.

Miss Vale — it was a pleasure. — D.H.

The receptionist set them on my desk with a wary look, as if she knew she was delivering a grenade.

I read the card once, slid it face-down into my drawer, and forced myself back to the Alderton files.

At nine oh three, Lucian arrived.

He passed my desk without a word. Then stopped. Two steps past. A pause so brief it might have been imaginary.

His office door clicked shut.

By ten, the silence behind the frosted glass felt different — heavier, deliberate. The difference between a man who doesn’t notice and a man who has decided not to.

At ten forty-seven, the internal line rang.

“Alderton supplementary clause. Ten minutes.”

“It’s already in the system under—”

“Ten minutes.”

I found it in four. Knocked. “Come.”

He took the document without looking up. I turned to leave.

“Close the door.”

I did. Faced him.

Lucian looked at me directly, eyes dark and unblinking. “Dominic Hale.”

“He sent flowers. I didn’t invite it.”

“I know.” His voice was calm. Too calm. “What did the card say?”

“That it was a pleasure to meet me.”

Silence stretched, thick and dangerous.

“Dominic Hale collects pretty things that belong to other people,” Lucian said quietly. “He thinks acquisition is a game.”

“I’m not a thing,” I replied, chin up.

Something flickered in his eyes — quick, sharp. “No. You’re not.”

The air in the room felt thinner.

“What do you want me to do with the flowers?” I asked.

He held my gaze a beat longer. “Whatever you like. They’re yours.”

At lunch I moved the roses to the far windowsill — visible from the corridor, but not from his door. A tiny act of defiance.

At two fifteen, Lucian crossed the floor to speak to an analyst. His gaze flicked automatically to the windowsill, then to me.

Our eyes met.

He said nothing. Just turned and walked back into his office.

At four, the internal line rang again.

“Clear Friday evening.”

“For what?”

“A function. Details later.” A short pause. “Wear the black dress.”

The line went dead.

I sat frozen, phone still in my hand.

The black dress. Already. Again.

Keep it, he’d said Friday night.

I was starting to understand what “keep it” really meant in Lucian Voss’s world.

Not a gift.

Not even a reward.

It was a claim.

I looked at the white roses catching the afternoon light — Dominic Hale’s opening move, easy and practiced.

Behind the frosted glass, forty-three floors above London, the man who never said “mine” out loud didn’t need to.

He said it with every rule, every silence, every order.

And I had the cold, terrifying certainty that he was only getting started.