But everyone had two sides. And I knew another version of her. A more devious side, a naughtier side. I knew Juliet With Curves. The woman who’d hacked my devices without ever apologizing for it.
The woman who'd pleasured herself while I’d watched, moaning my name as she came on her fingers. The woman who’d talked dirty to me, making me cum from her words alone.
The woman who'd stolen my heart right out of my chest, one message at a time. This report made her seem like a respectable member of society. And she was... on the surface. But she was also devious in the most delightful way.
She was clever and witty. She was also smart as hell, which the report did show. But what it didn’t show was that she could lie through her pretty little teeth without batting an eye. The thought of herimaginaryboyfriend had my anger rising again.
I forced myself to keep reading instead of dwelling on that. Somewhere in this report, there had to be something useful. I turned the page and found more info. Since Tony hadn't found anything suspicious on Blossom herself, he'd expanded the investigation.
The next section covered the charities she supported. Every single one of them was legitimate. I wasn't surprised. After everything I'd learned about her, I couldn't picture her stealing from charities or using them to hide money.
There were no shell organizations. No suspicious transfers. Nothing out of the ordinary. So, she wasn’t being blackmailed for money. That wasn’t the fear keeping her from telling me who she was.
Since Tony hadn’t found anything while investigating Blossom, he’d decided to investigate Blossoms and Vines. And again, nothing in the report indicated that she was my naughty little hacker.
Like her, the business was clean. According to the report, the shop had been around for decades, long before Blossom Brooks was born. I’d assumed she’d named the shop after herself. Butshe’d been named after the shop. That made me smile for some reason.
Turning the page, I reached a section labeled:
UNVERIFIED INFORMATION
Tony had typed a short note at the top of the page.
I did some legwork and asked around among people who’d grown up in the neighborhood where Blossom was raised. They wouldn’t talk to me directly, so I paid someone from the area to go in and talk to them in my place.
Here is the information I learned about the shop from them. I couldn't verify the following. It’s only word of mouth. This is what longtime residents remembered about the shop. Do with this info what you want.
I relaxed against the couch and kept reading. Years ago, Blossoms and Vines had been much more than a floral shop. During the civil rights movement, the shop had reportedly served as a safe haven for Black Americans who'd lost their homes or needed somewhere to hide.
Blossom's grandparents had quietly opened their doors to people who had nowhere else to go. In return, the community protected the shop. Blossom came from a legacy of people who stood up for what they believed in and risked their lives to help others.
According to Tony's notes, the business hadn't always been a flower shop. Originally, they'd sold fresh fruit and vegetables to the surrounding neighborhood. Over the years, the business evolved into the floral shop it was today.
Now it had multiple locations in multiple states. I scrolled to the next page. One paragraph immediately caught my attention. Several longtime residents remembered something else about the shop. Years ago, Blossoms and Vines had a reputation for collecting information.
My gaze narrowed, but I kept reading.
Back when Blossom's grandmother had run the business, local women and housewives allegedly paid for information and hired the staff at the shop to investigate their husbands’ affairs or suspicious behaviors.
When women were going through divorces, they hired the shop to help prove their husbands were cheating on them. The shop was even rumored to gather info for local organizations.
The staff would even travel to gather intel if the price was right. The people Tony’s contact talked to hadn’t known what exactly the staff had investigated for those organizations. But they knew the shop had grown and thrived after they’d started gathering intel for them.
Those people also hadn’t known when orifthe shop ever stopped providing info for a price. Upon reading that, I lowered my phone to the center table and sat there, staring at it as my mind tried to process what I’d just learned.
Blossoms and Vines had once provided intel to local organizations and had even traveled to gather it if the price was right.
"So..." I muttered, staring toward the tulips sitting on the table, a sinking feeling settling in my stomach. “Blossoms and Vines used to be an intel hub.”
To most people, that would sound like a harmless piece of information. To me, it sounded suspicious as hell. I’d hired Tony to see if Blossom and Juliet were the same person. I’d just wanted proof that she was a hacker.
However, the information was doing more than pointing to her being my hacker. It was giving her a motive for hacking me. I closed my eyes, not wanting to think what I was thinking.
But...fuck!
How could I not think it when the possibility was staring me in the fucking face? What if it were true? What if... what if...
“Fuck,” I yelled, anger filling me.