Chapter 6 - The Flowers Isabella Used as a Map
The white rose was not random.
Amelia knew that immediately.
Brooks and Bloom used six wholesalers.
The rose inside Isabella’s car came from a shipment delivered that morning.
Amelia recognized the variety.
White O’Hara.
Cream-colored center.
Heavy fragrance.
She had sold twelve stems.
Four went into a funeral arrangement.
Six went into Dominic’s ridiculous house order.
Two remained in the cooler.
“Could someone buy one?” Detective Kim asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Amelia checked the register.
No single white rose sale.
Then she remembered.
Isabella had visited that afternoon before Amelia’s attack.
She had taken one.
“Did she pay?” Tessa asked.
“No.”
“Crime family.”
Amelia ignored her.
“Why take a rose?”
Dominic looked toward Amelia.
“You tell me.”
Isabella knew they were investigating.
She knew someone might be watching.
She also knew flowers were Amelia’s language.
“What else was in the car?” Amelia asked.
Rafael listed items.
Handbag.
Phone.
Scarf.
One glove.
A grocery receipt.
“Which hand’s glove?”
“Left.”
Amelia thought.
Isabella wore gloves as a pair.
If one was missing, maybe accident.
Maybe clue.
“What color?”
“Blue.”
Amelia stopped.
Earlier that week, Isabella had joked with her about old Victorian flower meanings.
They spent twenty minutes matching flowers to messages.
White rose.
Silence.
Secrecy.
Blue delphinium.
Dignity.
Rosemary.
Remembrance.
Amelia looked at Dominic.
“Did your mother ever use codes?”
He stared.
“Constantly when I was young.”
“What kind?”
“Household things. Recipes. Books. She did not want children understanding adult conversations.”
“Flowers?”
His expression changed.
“My father sent her flowers when phones were watched.”
Amelia’s heart started racing.
“White rose could mean silence.”
Dominic understood.
“What would blue mean?”
“Delphinium maybe. But a glove isn’t a flower.”
“Color may be enough.”
The grocery receipt listed three items.
Bread.
Rosemary.
Bottled water.
Rosemary.
Remember.
White.
Blue.
Remember.
Amelia ran to the shop computer.
Isabella had placed an order two days earlier.
Not picked up.
A small arrangement she called “something cheerful.”
White roses.
Blue delphinium.
Rosemary.
Delivery address blank.
Amelia had assumed Isabella would decide later.
“What did she say when she ordered?” Kim asked.
Amelia closed her eyes.
“She said, ‘Sometimes an arrangement needs to tell you where it belongs.’”
Dominic moved closer.
“Where would those flowers belong to her?”
Amelia looked at the three plants.
White.
Blue.
Rosemary.
Then remembered a photograph inside the Moretti Foundation office.
Isabella and her late husband standing in front of a greenhouse.
Blue-painted doors.
White rose beds.
Rows of rosemary along the path.
“Did your family own a greenhouse?”
Dominic went still.
“My father did.”
“Where?”
“Near Lake Forest.”
“Still yours?”
“No. Sold fifteen years ago.”
“To who?”
Rafael was already searching.
The greenhouse property belonged to North Meridian Group.
Lorenzo.
Police moved immediately.
Dominic wanted to go.
Kim refused.
He argued.
She threatened to have him detained from interfering.
Amelia watched something extraordinary happen.
Dominic Moretti sat down.
Furious.
But he sat.
“I hate your friends,” he told Amelia.
“She is not my friend.”
Kim looked over.
“I could be.”
Amelia smiled.
The police search took forty-two minutes.
Dominic experienced each one separately.
He paced.
Sat.
Stood.
Called no one.
Issued no private orders.
Amelia remained beside him.
Finally Kim’s radio sounded.
Isabella had been found.
Alive.
Inside a caretaker cottage near the abandoned greenhouse.
Hands restrained.
Frightened.
No major physical injury.
Dominic closed his eyes.
Amelia gripped the counter.
Police arrested two men on the property.
Lorenzo was not there.
Isabella arrived at the hospital after midnight.
Dominic entered only when she asked.
Amelia waited outside until Isabella insisted she come too.
The older woman looked exhausted.
“You figured out the flowers.”
“You made it very dramatic.”
“I was working with limited supplies.”
Dominic stared at his mother.
“You knew they might take you.”
“No.”
“Then why leave clues?”
“Because I realized I was being followed.”
“Why didn’t you call security?”
“I tried. My phone stopped working.”
Dominic looked toward Rafael.
Rafael nodded.
A signal jammer had been used near the car.
Isabella had taken the rose from her bag.
Removed one glove.
Left the grocery receipt visible.
She hoped Dominic or Amelia would connect the symbols to the old greenhouse.
“How did you know they were taking you there?” Amelia asked.
“One man said greenhouse.”
“That helps.”
Isabella smiled weakly.
Dominic was less amused.
“Who?”
“I didn’t recognize them.”
Police did.
One worked for a private recovery company contracted by North Meridian.
The other was a former employee of Gabriel Rizzo.
The same compromised security network.
Their phones contained instructions to hold Isabella for twenty-four hours.
Not kill her.
Use her.
For what?
The answer arrived at 2:13 a.m.
Dominic received a message.
WITHDRAW THE POLICE COOPERATION. END THE AUDIT. SUPPORT LORENZO AT THE BOARD VOTE. YOUR MOTHER RETURNS.
The message had been scheduled before Isabella was rescued.
Lorenzo had intended to exchange his aunt for control.
Dominic showed it to police.
No reply.
The next morning, warrants expanded.
North Meridian offices were searched.
Vanessa Clark was found in a company-owned apartment downtown.
Alive.
Not kidnapped.
Hiding.
Her lawyer called before police transported her.
She wanted a deal.
Vanessa admitted Lorenzo paid her to manage off-book jewelry consignments.
Gabriel supplied schedules.
Larkspur received foundation contracts.
Bellamy & Hart resold donated pieces.
Vanessa’s role at the boutique gave the operation a respectable surface.
Why accuse Isabella?
Because the moment Isabella identified the emerald bracelet, Vanessa called Lorenzo.
He told her:
“Get her out before she photographs anything.”
Then the unrelated diamond bracelet fell into the shopper’s bag.
Vanessa used the accident.
The slap?
Her own decision.
She looked ashamed when describing it.
“I thought Amelia was nobody.”
Detective Kim stared.
“That is your explanation?”
“No.”
Vanessa lowered her head.
“That is the ugliest truth.”
She believed Isabella poor.
Amelia irrelevant.
She treated both as people without consequences.
The entire conspiracy carried the same disease.
Power determining value.
Dominic heard the statement later.
He became very quiet.
Amelia noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
He looked at her.
“I have treated people differently because I thought they had less power.”
“That surprises you?”
“No.”
“What does?”
“How similar it sounds when she says it.”
That was not an easy realization.
Amelia did not comfort him out of it.
“Then remember it.”
“I will.”
Vanessa provided another revelation.
Lorenzo’s plan was not only theft.
He wanted Dominic removed permanently from control of Moretti Holdings.
For two years, Lorenzo had collected records of Dominic’s historical underworld connections.
Threatening calls.
Old debt-enforcement arrangements.
Payments to questionable intermediaries.
Some real.
Some exaggerated.
At the board meeting, Lorenzo intended to present himself as the clean alternative.
While he had been stealing from charity.
“Why?” Amelia asked.
Dominic understood.
“Because he expected me to fight him using the old methods.”
Threats.
Fear.
Violence.
If Dominic did, Lorenzo’s evidence became stronger.
If Dominic cooperated with police, he risked exposing his own history.
Either way, Lorenzo believed he won.
“What do you do?” Amelia asked.
Dominic looked toward Isabella sleeping in the hospital bed.
Then toward Amelia.
“I tell the truth first.”
He contacted federal investigators.
Not because they had yet charged him.
Because some of the historical operations crossed state lines.
His lawyers objected.
Dominic insisted.
Full internal disclosure.
Everything he knew about old Moretti entities.
Every questionable enforcement practice still alive.
Every business he had inherited and failed to shut quickly enough.
Amelia listened.
“What could happen?”
“Fines. Civil cases. Criminal exposure depending on what they find.”
“You could lose the company.”
“Yes.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
“Freedom?”
“Possibly.”
That answer frightened her.
“You’re still doing it?”
Dominic looked at her.
“You said watch what I do when kindness costs something.”
“This is bigger than kindness.”
“No.”
His eyes moved toward his mother.
“It is accountability.”
The board meeting was three days away.
Lorenzo remained missing.
Dominic had just handed investigators information capable of damaging his own empire.
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And somewhere in Chicago, his cousin still possessed enough evidence to destroy the public version of Dominic Moretti.
The difference was that Dominic had decided to destroy that version himself first.
