Page 146 of Lady and the Hitman
She reached across the table and laid a hand over mine. I swallowed, hard.
We sat like that for a while, the silence stretching long between us, until I caught a glimpse of something out the window.
Something that made my blood run cold.
I stood.
Walked to the back door.
Pushed it open.
The nursery stretched out behind the house, just like always—rows of potted trees, hanging baskets, widegravel aisles under a canopy of shade cloth. But the closer I looked, the more I saw.
Weeds.
Dead patches of grass.
Cracked irrigation lines.
The trees were overgrown. Some of them sagged in their pots, roots breaking through the plastic.
I hadn’t been out back the last time I was here. Mom had ushered me to the porch where her friends waited, all smiles and small talk. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time—just figured she was being hospitable. But now, standing at the edge of the deck, I realized it had been intentional. Strategic. Mom hadn’t wanted me to see this.
My feet carried me down the steps before I could stop them. I walked past the old Adirondack chairs, past the hydrangea beds, down the center aisle of the nursery I’d grown up in.
What I saw made my chest cave in.
Whole sections were abandoned. Empty pots stacked like tombstones. The soil dry and pale.
This wasn’t neglect.
It was something worse.
It was surrender.
“Mom?” I called, turning back toward the house. My voice came out sharper than I meant.
She met me halfway. “Zara?—”
“What’s going on?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it again.
“Tell me the truth,” I said. “Don’t lie to me. Not about this.”
Her shoulders dropped.
Her face crumpled—not all at once, but in slow,shattering pieces. Like she’d been holding herself together, and now it was all unraveling. Her mouth opened, but her voice caught in her throat, and she looked away like she couldn’t bear to see my reaction. I watched her swallow hard, her jaw working to hold something in—pride, shame, maybe both. When she finally spoke, the words came out so quietly, so broken, I almost didn’t catch them.
“We’re losing it,” she said softly. “The nursery. The house. Everything.”
It hit me like a gut punch.
“How?”
“It started during the pandemic. Fewer contracts. Less traffic. We thought we could recover, but the loans—” She shook her head. “They just kept stacking up. And now? It’s too late.”
My vision blurred. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
