Chapter 5 - The Man With the Flowers
Dante did not run toward the man.
Later, he would remember that as the moment he finally understood the difference between acting quickly and acting usefully.
He caught Ruiz’s eye.
Then he nodded toward June’s room.
The detective turned.
The man with the flowers saw her and stepped back.
“Sir,” Ruiz said. “Stay where you are.”
He dropped the bouquet.
A small object clattered beneath it.
Then he ran.
Ruiz shouted for hospital security while Dante moved to June’s doorway.
He did not chase.
He did not reach for a weapon he no longer carried.
He closed the door and pressed the call button.
Wren stood so quickly her chair struck the wall.
“What happened?”
“Stay away from the door.”
June’s eyes widened.
Dante forced his voice to remain calm.
“Security is handling someone in the hall.”
Wren moved beside the bed.
Outside came pounding feet, a sharp command, then silence.
June stared at Dante.
“He found me.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Don’t do that.”
He stopped.
She gripped the blanket.
“Don’t soften things because you think I’ll break.”
Dante swallowed.
“You’re right. A man approached your room. Ruiz recognized a possible threat. They’re stopping him.”
June breathed carefully.
“Thank you.”
The hospital moved her to another secured room after staff coordinated with police. Her care continued without interruption, though everything around it felt suddenly less stable.
An administrator apologized.
Wren listened with her arms crossed.
Dante asked what June wanted.
“Sleep,” she said. “And someone who doesn’t leave me alone because they think the hallway is safe.”
“I can stay.”
She looked at him.
“So can Wren,” he added.
For the first time that evening, her shoulders loosened.
Ruiz returned after midnight.
The man had been detained.
He was not carrying a gun, but investigators had recovered false credentials and items requiring further examination.
“He says he was paid to deliver flowers and confirm your room number,” she told June. “We’re checking everything.”
“By Roland?” June asked.
“He hasn’t identified who paid him.”
Dante looked toward the floor.
Ruiz noticed.
“Do you know something?”
“I know Roland doesn’t usually handle people directly if he can pay someone else to do it.”
“We’ll follow the evidence.”
After she left, June asked Dante to take a walk with her.
A nurse approved a short trip down the corridor with assistance.
They moved slowly.
June held the rail with one hand.
Dante stayed beside her without touching until she asked for his arm.
At the window overlooking the ambulance entrance, she stopped.
“I can’t keep living inside your emergencies.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I’m still learning how much I didn’t.”
She watched the city below.
“I used to picture a little apartment near a park. A job where people went home at five. Wren visiting on Sundays and complaining about the coffee.”
Dante looked at her reflection.
“You can still have that.”
“Without hiding?”
He did not answer immediately.
“I don’t know what it takes yet,” he said. “But I’m going to stop being the reason you can’t.”
June closed her eyes.
“You can’t buy your way out of what you’ve built.”
“No.”
“And if you choose to leave it, it has to be because it’s wrong. Not because I’m pregnant.”
The words stayed with him.
Back in the room, Wren had fallen asleep in a chair.
June settled into bed.
Dante sat near the window and called his attorney.
“I want a meeting tomorrow. Criminal counsel. Independent financial counsel. Anyone I need to tell the whole truth without turning it into another negotiation.”
His attorney was quiet.
“Dante, that decision has consequences.”
“So did every other decision. Other people were just carrying them.”
June opened her eyes.
He had not realized she was listening.
The next morning, his chief financial officer, Marcus Bell, called seventeen times.
On the eighteenth, Dante answered.
“You’re destroying confidence,” Marcus said.
“Whose?”
“The board’s. Our lenders’. Everyone’s.”
“Then they should read the records.”
“You need to think about the company.”
Dante looked through the glass at June, who was trying to eat toast while Wren made faces at the hospital eggs.
“For the first time,” he said, “I am.”
He ended the call.
A moment later, Ruiz sent a message.
May you like
They had located the account used to pay the man with the flowers.
Its authorized signatory was Marcus Bell.
