Chapter 3 - A Language Without Sound
The safehouse had too many clocks.
Wren noticed them because she could see every second hand move and hear none of them.
One hung over the kitchen door. Another sat beside the fireplace. Luca wore a watch that probably cost more than her flower cooler. Marco checked his every few minutes as if time itself might betray them.
By sunrise, Wren wanted to leave.
Luca refused.
“You don’t get to decide where I live,” she mouthed.
He stood at the kitchen island wearing a fresh black shirt, one hand braced against his injured side.
“No. I get to tell you ten armed men photographed you before they attacked my route.”
“That photograph could have been taken by anyone.”
“Exactly.”
He slid a tablet toward her.
Marco had gathered street-camera images from the area around Ashford Flowers. Three days before the attack, a dark sedan had parked across the street for nearly two hours. A man in the passenger seat photographed the storefront.
The day before, the same car returned.
Wren felt anger rise beneath her fear.
“My shop was being watched.”
“Yes.”
“Because of you?”
“We don’t know.”
She looked up sharply.
Luca tapped the screen.
A second photograph showed the sedan outside the building six weeks earlier.
Long before Luca bled through her door.
Wren stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“No,” Luca said. “It’s worse than impossible.”
Marco entered carrying coffee and a folder.
Inside were copies of property records. Ashford Flowers had been purchased by Wren’s grandfather, Samuel Ashford, in 1978. Before that, the building had belonged to a holding company connected to a shipping firm called Fenwick Transit.
Luca recognized the name.
“So do I,” Marco said.
Wren looked between them.
“Explain.”
Luca took a slow breath.
“Fenwick was used decades ago by my family and two others to move money through the harbor. My father claimed every connection had been severed before I took control.”
“Your father owned my building?”
“Not directly.”
“Convenient answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
Wren opened the old city plans she had brought from the shop. Her grandfather had marked several structural changes over the years, including the Prohibition chamber under the potting table.
Marco leaned closer.
“There are symbols here.”
Wren had seen them many times: tiny black triangles beside ventilation shafts and old pipe routes. Her grandfather told her they were survey marks.
Luca did not look convinced.
“May I?”
Wren slid the page over.
He pointed to three triangles forming a pattern.
“I’ve seen this before.”
“Where?”
“My father’s private ledgers.”
The room seemed to narrow around her.
Wren sat down.
“My grandfather sold flowers.”
“Maybe he did more than that.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly, and Wren knew it.
Her grandfather had been protective of the basement. Certain cabinets stayed locked. He had told her never to sell the building, even during the year cancer treatments nearly emptied their savings.
She had assumed sentiment.
Now she remembered men in dark coats visiting after closing when she was a child.
She remembered her grandfather making her go upstairs.
Luca watched recognition move across her face.
“What do you remember?”
“Not enough.”
Wren hated how helpless the words felt.
Marco suggested returning to the shop once the police activity settled. Luca rejected the idea immediately.
“We send a team.”
Wren shook her head.
“If there’s something hidden there, they won’t know what matters.”
“I’m not taking you back to a location the attackers are watching.”
“You don’t take me anywhere.”
Marco suddenly became very interested in his coffee.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
Wren crossed her arms.
Neither moved.
Finally Luca said, “You are the most unreasonable civilian I have ever met.”
“Maybe you only know obedient criminals.”
Marco coughed into his cup.
Luca looked at him.
Marco found the ceiling fascinating.
The argument ended in compromise. Wren would return after dark with Luca, Marco, and two vetted security officers. No one else would be told.
That created the next problem.
Wren needed to know how to communicate quickly in danger.
She could read lips well when she had a clear view. She could use her phone. She used American Sign Language fluently, but Luca knew none.
So during the long afternoon, she taught him.
Stop.
Danger.
Behind.
Left.
Right.
Run.
Trust me.
Luca learned surprisingly fast.
His fingers were large and stiff, and his first attempt at “behind” looked like something obscene.
Wren laughed.
He stared.
“What?”
“You did it wrong.”
“I followed exactly.”
“No.”
She demonstrated again.
He copied her.
Better.
A strange ease entered the room.
For twenty minutes, he was not a wounded mafia boss and she was not a targeted florist. They were simply two adults at a kitchen table, arguing over hand shapes.
Then Luca asked how to sign her name.
Wren showed him the fingerspelled letters.
W-R-E-N.
He repeated them carefully.
Something about the concentration on his face made her look away.
At nine that night, they returned to Ashford Flowers through the bakery passage.
The shop looked worse than Wren remembered.
Someone had been inside after she left.
Drawers stood open. The register had been emptied, though there was little cash. Her grandfather’s old desk had been pulled from the wall.
“They searched,” Marco mouthed.
“For what?”
Nobody answered.
Wren moved through the destruction slowly.
She touched broken vases. Crushed stems. The dent where a bullet had struck the metal refrigerator.
Then she saw the orchid cabinet.
One drawer remained closed.
Not locked.
Closed.
Everything else around it had been disturbed.
Wren knelt.
Inside were old funeral order books her grandfather had kept for decades.
She opened the oldest.
Names.
Dates.
Flower types.
Addresses.
Nothing remarkable.
Luca leaned over her shoulder.
His finger stopped on one line.
MORETTI, ANGELO — 24 WHITE ROSES — NORTH PIER — 11:40 PM.
His father.
The order was dated eighteen years earlier.
Beneath it, written in Samuel Ashford’s handwriting, was the same three-triangle symbol from the building plans.
Wren turned the page.
More names.
Judges. Dock owners. A city councilman who later went to prison.
Each linked to unusual after-hours deliveries.
“This isn’t a flower book,” Luca said.
Wren felt sick.
“It’s a route ledger.”
A crash vibrated through the building.
Everyone froze.
Marco signed the word Wren had taught them only hours earlier.
Behind.
May you like
The rear hallway door moved.
Someone was inside the building with them.
