Just a vase of flowers sitting innocently in the middle of my mat.
“What the…” I trailed off.
Surely Beck didn’t have enough time to order me flowers, and it was totally not his style anyway. Not to mention he was currently stalking along the hall, knocking on the doors of our friends, and checking in the stairwell and cleaning closets.
Leaving him to … whatever that was, I turned my attention to the flowers. Four blood red roses, two pure white ones, and a black rose dead center. A splash of red lower down caught my eyes, and as I leaned closer to peer through the glass vase, a gasp left my lips. The roses were covered in thorns, and each of the thorns was dripping red.
It spilled into the water, one droplet at a time, before sinking to the bottom, which I only just noticed was completely red. What the actual fuck? Was that blood? Or maybe paint?
Please let it be paint.
“Don’t touch them,” Dylan said as he rushed along the hall, wearing nothing but a pair of soft sleep pants. His body was ripped as fuck, just like Beck’s, and I felt marginally safer knowing these badasses were here to protect me from whatever fuckhead decided to leave me morbid roses.
It was probably Catherine, trying to freak me the fuck out.
And if that was the case, it was working.
9
By the time the guys returned, I’d managed to brew an entire pot of coffee, drink that pot, and then get a second one on for all of them.
I was a jittery, hyped-up mess.
“Did you find anything?” I said, jerking to my feet when they all filed in. Dylan held the flowers in his hands. Evan had been waiting outside the door while they searched, and I smiled gratefully at him, because he’d been the only reassurance I had that Dylan, Beck, and Jasper weren’t being murdered in the street.
“Nothing,” Dylan growled, his eyes locked on the roses. “Whoever left these knew what they were doing. Front security didn’t see a thing.”
“Is it blood?” I had to ask, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
Dylan gave a single nod.Holy fucking shit.
Jasper whipped out his phone then hit two numbers and then a second later: “We need to add some security to our building.” There was a short pause. “Only those vetted through the network.” The other person must have said something, and Jasper’s face darkened. “Yes. That’s what I fucking said. I want it done today.”
He hung up the phone then, and I shook my head at their demanding nature. Beck’s gaze was on me, like he knew exactly what I was thinking. Especially how it related to this morning in the shower—the control he sought. But I was determined not to give any of them an inch. I couldn’t.
“Coffee is over there,” I said, waving to where I had all their cups lined up. I’d already added sugar to those that took it and milk to Evan’s—he was the only one who didn’t drink it black.
Dylan dropped the flowers on my coffee table, kissed my cheek as he passed, and the rest followed suit to get their morning shot of energy.
“Can we assume these flowers are some sort of scare tactic from either Catherine or Graeme?” I asked, following them into my small kitchen. “And can we also assume the blood is from an animal or something?”Please.I wasn’t sure if animal or people blood was worse, actually. I liked most animals, humans on the other hand…
I hovered just outside, because the kitchen wasn’t really big enough for the four of them to fit comfortably, but they made it work, moving around each other with the ease of people who had spent a lot of time together.
“We can assume nothing,” Dylan said, taking a long sip of his coffee. “We have multiple enemies, and with the vote drawing closer, a lot of those assholes will crawl out of their gutters to try and take us down.”
“But what is the point?” I asked. “I mean, the flowers aren’t taking anyone down, right?”
All of our eyes shot to the vase on the table.
“Maybe we should leave them outside,” Evan suggested, and I wondered if they were also imagining some sort of toxic gas secretly emitting from them.
“I’ll call the captain and get him to test them to see if there is anything to worry about,” Dylan said, moving to make the call.
It wasn’t like them to involve the police, but in this situation, we could let someone else do the grunt work.
Once the flowers were outside for the police to collect, we finished our coffee and had some toast and cereal to keep us going, and then we got back to the research. Two hours passed in silence, and I tried my best to focus on the spreadsheets and not Beck, because I was really hating this tension between us.
“I don’t know if we have enough here,” Jasper said, stretching his back. “There’s a lot of circumstantial stuff. Lots of incriminating numbers, but nothing to specifically tie Delta or Huntley to any of it. Dante could testify, but it’s going to be his word against Catherine’s unless we can make some of this evidence link them as well.”
