Oleander
Wild Flowers Book 2
Both things can be true: the mission saved lives, and it was always going to destroy them. Knowing when to stop is the bravest thing they ever did.
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She was trained to kill.
Now she has to teach someone else to live with it.
Nine months in, Maya Chen is Nightshade full-time — and Victoria has just handed her a student. Sage is a prison survivor who killed her abuser with her bare hands and has nothing left to lose. Training her is the easy part. Teaching her how to still be a person at the end of the night is the part Maya isn't sure she can do.
She'd better learn fast.
A grieving Russian analyst named Alexei Volkov has landed in Seattle, quietly connecting a chain of luxury-event deaths back to a woman who killed his brother at a charity gala. Victoria's old MI6 life has come knocking in the form of a commander with blackmail in one hand and a leash in the other. And somewhere inside the sisterhood Maya would bleed for, a mole is feeding intelligence to an international consortium called the Board.
When Victoria flies to Prague to handle it alone, the price comes back heavier than anyone was ready to pay — and the letter she leaves behind rewrites everything Maya thought she knew about the women she calls sisters.
Book 2 of the Wild Flowers series — a dark thriller about mentorship, betrayal, and learning that the family you chose was standing on lies.
This is for you if…
- You read to find out what happens next and don't forgive a book that wastes your time.
- Tight third-person POV keeps you close to the people who matter — and far from the ones who don't.
- You're looking for a world to live in, not a single weekend read. Wild Flowers runs deep.
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Eighteen kills, and her hands still trembled.
Nightshade stared at her fingers wrapped around the nightshade petals—purple-black, waxy smooth against her callused skin. The tremor was subtle. No one would notice unless they knew where to look. But she knew. She always knew.
"You're terrified." Iris set coffee on the greenhouse workbench, ceramic clicking against aged wood.
Not a question. An observation. The kind Wild Flowers operatives learned to make—reading fear like others read facial expressions.
"What gave it away?"
"You've been stroking that same petal for ten minutes." Iris's voice carried the practiced calm of someone who'd delivered death across three continents. "That's not gardening. That's anxiety with props."
Nine months since her first kill. Eighteen eliminations. The toxic blooms had thrived under her care—something darkly appropriate about that. Death nurturing death.
The greenhouse was quiet at this hour—too early for most operatives, too late for the night shift. Just the hum of grow lights and the soft drip of irrigation systems, the peace of living things doing what living things did. Through the rain-streaked glass, the distant silhouette of Mount Rainier caught the first pale light—a reminder that they were in Seattle, where grey skies and perpetual drizzle provided perfect cover for women who needed to disappear. The smell of earth and chlorophyll mixed with something bitter underneath—the poison plants had their own scent. Sweet and deadly. Like everything here.
"What if I break her?" The ceramic warmed her palm as she lifted it. Steam curled upward, carrying the bitter-dark scent of over-extracted beans. The compound always brewed it too strong. "Teach her wrong?"
"You won't." Iris leaned against the bench, morning light slicing through the greenhouse glass to catch the network of scars on her forearms. Old burns. Old battles. A damage that never fully faded. "That's exactly why The Gardener chose you. You remember what it's like to be broken."
Nightshade's throat tightened. She remembered too well. The three years of protecting a man who'd abandoned her. Prison. Living in her car with seventy-three dollars that tasted like failure every time she counted it. The desperate hunger that made Victoria's offer feel like salvation instead of the trap it probably was.
"Maya Chen killed eighteen people."
"Maya Chen saved forty-three lives." Iris's voice was steady, practiced. They'd all learned to say it that way—rehearsed justifications that almost felt true. "Both things are true."
Both things. The mantra that made killers sleep at night. Nightshade took a long sip of coffee, letting the bitter heat scald her tongue. Sometimes she needed the small pain to ground herself.
The greenhouse door opened. Victoria entered in tactical gear, the familiar scent of gunpowder and leather preceding her. Fresh from a mission—Munich, three days, details classified. Blood spatter on her boots she hadn't noticed yet. Dark droplets against the black leather, visible only when the light caught them right.
"First mentee." Victoria poured coffee, steam curling between them like a barrier. Her hands were steady. Always steady. "Teaching others to kill is harder than killing. You'll question everything."
"Then why me?"
Victoria's jaw worked. A tell Nightshade had learned to read—the way her mentor processed difficult truths before speaking them. "Because you'll question it. Some mentors just teach mechanics. Grip. Stance. Poison ratios. You'll teach her to stay human."
Human. The word sat heavy in Nightshade's chest. Some mornings she woke and couldn't remember what human felt like. Other mornings, the weight of eighteen faces pressed down until she couldn't breathe.
The greenhouse fell silent except for the soft hum of grow lights and the distant chirp of morning birds. Peaceful sounds that belonged to a different life. A life where Maya Chen was an art consultant. A life before the gallery. Before Damian Volkov. Before the first kill changed everything.
Lily appeared in the doorway. Dr. Lily Morgenstern—botanist, poisoner, conscience of the compound. Her silver-streaked hair was loose today, and she carried her tablet like a shield.
"The Gardener. Ten minutes."
Read in orderWild Flowers · 5 of 5 available
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A broken woman is recruited into a secret sisterhood of vigilante assassins — but the deeper she rises, the more she discovers that the organization itself is built on corruption, manipulation, and lies. Across five books, she transforms it, legitimizes it, and ultimately destroys it: because the bravest thing a weapon can do is choose to stop killing.