Moon_knight12

She solves murders.
She used to commit them.

Detective Aesira walks the rain-slicked streets of Old Town with a mind like a scalpel and secrets buried in shadows. Known for cracking the most confounding cases, she’s cold, brilliant—and haunted. Years ago, she silenced the killer within herself. Or so she thought.

When a series of murders begin to mimic her long-forgotten crimes—complete with chilling floral arrangements at every scene—Aesira is forced to confront a terrifying truth: someone knows who she used to be. Someone is recreating her work. And they want her attention.

As she chases a phantom through the twisted alleys of her past, Aesira meets Lucian, a man who sees through her mask and into her darkest desires. He knows everything. He may even love her. But his obsession could destroy them both.

Flowers of Death is a slow-burning psychological thriller where beauty and brutality entwine. With each case, the line between justice and madness blurs—until Aesira must choose who she really is: the hunter, the artist… or the killer.

Flower Of Death

This is where love shows its teeth."

I always thought betrayal would come with a bang—a gunshot, a scream, a bloody blade in the dark.

But the worst betrayals are quiet.

Like petals falling from a dying flower.

The evidence was right in front of me.

A USB left at the latest crime scene. Tucked beneath the fingernail of a dead surgeon.

I waited until I was alone to plug it in.

Lucian, sitting in the villa's greenhouse, camera in his lap, wine in his hand.

And me—me—in the background.

Unaware that he was filming me from the shadows.

"This is Aesira Vale. My muse. My monster. My mirror."

Of him following me into crime scenes before I'd even arrived.

Footage of me crying in my car one night, gripping the wheel until my knuckles turned white—after a case that hit too close.

He'd been there. Always there.

There were recordings of our conversations in the villa. Edited. Twisted. My words spliced to sound like I was complicit. Like I had helped.

"Together," my voice said from the screen.

He wasn't building a world with me.

I stormed into the villa with a gun that time.

He was in the dining room, setting flowers on a long table, as if preparing for some final supper.

He didn't even flinch. Just looked up and said, "Because you were never going to come back on your own."

I raised the gun. "You lied to me."

"No. I gave you something true. That's more than anyone else ever has."

"You're trying to ruin me."

"No, Aesira. I'm trying to unmask you. Let the world see what I've always seen."

"They'll come for you soon. You know that, right? Once the pieces fall into place. Once they find the footage, the photos. The bodies. You can't run forever."

It was love. Or something so sickly similar I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

Back to the precinct. Back to my apartment. Back to every memory I'd buried and every version of myself I'd tried to kill.

Lucian hadn't just broken my trust.

He'd made me question who I really was.

Chapter 14: Betrayal