My wife sent me flowers at work on Valentine’s Day — but when my coworker, a former medical student, noticed something strange in the bouquet, what she told me made my entire world collapse in seconds.

It started out as one of those days where everything feels a bit cinematic — the air smelled of coffee and cheap perfume, desks were covered in red ribbons, and half the office was pretending to be productive while the other half was waiting for flowers to arrive.

Valentine’s Day at the firm was always ridiculous. A delivery guy in a red hoodie came in every twenty minutes with a new bouquet, and people would squeal or roll their eyes depending on who got them. I wasn’t expecting anything. My wife, Clara, wasn’t the overly sentimental type — she believed in “practical love,” as she called it. So when my name was called out by reception, I was honestly surprised.

The bouquet was beautiful. Roses, lilies, and a few flowers I didn’t recognize — pale blue petals, delicate and strange. The note said:

“To my favorite distraction. Always yours. — C.”

Everyone clapped and teased me, saying things like, “Aww, she still loves you!” and “Man, that’s wife goals right there.” I laughed it off and placed the bouquet on my desk.

That’s when Erin walked in.

Erin was my coworker — quiet, sharp, and kind of intimidating. Before working here, she had been in medical school for three years before switching careers. No one ever really knew why.

She stopped by my desk to ask for a report and glanced at the flowers. Her expression changed subtly — something flickered behind her eyes.

“Those are… interesting,” she said.

I smiled. “Yeah, my wife surprised me.”

She leaned closer. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

Before I could answer, she carefully picked up one of the blue flowers. “These are called Delphinium azureum,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Pretty rare to see them in a bouquet.”

“I guess my wife has good taste,” I joked.

Erin didn’t laugh. She was still staring at the flower, her brow furrowed.

“Did she get these from a local florist?”

“I’m not sure. Why?”

She hesitated, then said quietly, “Because these flowers are highly toxic if ingested. Even touching them too long can cause mild numbness.”

I blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Don’t worry,” she said quickly, “it’s not dangerous to just have them on your desk. But… it’s odd. They’re not something florists usually include.”

Her tone was calm, but there was a strange tension in her voice — the kind that makes your stomach twist without knowing why.

I brushed it off, laughed again, and thanked her for the warning. But throughout the day, I couldn’t stop glancing at the flowers.

The blue petals seemed almost too bright — too alive.

That evening, when I got home, Clara was already cooking dinner. She smiled when she saw me holding the bouquet.

“You got them!” she said.

“I did. They’re beautiful.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “I wanted to do something different this year. You’ve been working so hard lately.”

I placed the bouquet on the kitchen counter. “Where did you get them?”

Her hand froze on the spoon. “Just… a florist I found online.”

I nodded, though something about the way she avoided my eyes felt off.

After dinner, she went to take a shower, and I sat there staring at the flowers again. On impulse, I pulled out the card.

The handwriting — it wasn’t Clara’s.

Her writing was always neat, looping, with tiny hearts above every “i.” This was jagged, quick, almost rushed.

My first thought was ridiculous: maybe the florist wrote it for her. But the pit in my stomach grew heavier.

I took a picture and texted Erin:

“Hey, random question. Do florists ever write notes for customers?”

She replied almost instantly:

“Sometimes. Why?”

“The note doesn’t look like my wife’s handwriting.”

“Can you send me a photo?”

I hesitated, then sent it. A minute later, she responded:

“This is weird, but… the handwriting looks male. You can tell by the angular pressure and spacing. Whoever wrote this was in a hurry.”

“So maybe the florist’s assistant or something?”

“Maybe. But you might want to ask your wife directly.”

When Clara came out of the shower, I asked casually, “Hey, did you write the note that came with the flowers, or the shop did?”

She dried her hair and gave me a puzzled look. “I wrote it, of course. Why?”

I shrugged. “Just curious. The handwriting looked… different.”

She froze for a second — just one — then laughed it off. “You’re imagining things. Maybe it got smudged.”

But that night, as I was brushing my teeth, I saw her phone light up on the nightstand. A notification.
Unknown number: “He got them?”

My chest went cold.

The next morning, I couldn’t concentrate at work. Erin noticed immediately.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Not really,” I admitted. “There’s something weird about those flowers.”

I told her about the text. She frowned.

“Do you still have the wrapping paper?”

I nodded. She followed me to my car, where I’d left the discarded wrapping in the back seat. She put on a pair of gloves from her desk drawer (why did she even have those?) and examined it.

Then she pointed to a tiny embossed logo on the corner. “That’s not a florist’s mark. That’s a pharmaceutical supplier’s logo.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Yeah. This isn’t from a flower shop. This paper is used to wrap sterile products — usually for shipment.”

My mouth went dry. “So where did the flowers actually come from?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. But if I were you, I’d be very careful.”

That evening, I confronted Clara.

She was in the living room, scrolling through her phone.

“Who texted you last night?” I asked.

Her head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

“Your phone buzzed. From an unknown number. It said, ‘He got them?’.”

Her face drained of color. “You looked at my phone?”

“I saw the screen. That’s it. Clara, what’s going on?”

She stood up, pacing. “It’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

After a long silence, she whispered, “I didn’t send those flowers.”

The air left my lungs. “What do you mean you didn’t send them?”

“I got an email from a florist saying the order was confirmed, but I never placed one. I thought maybe you were trying to surprise me.”

We stared at each other — both of us realizing the same thing at once.

Someone had sent them pretending to be her.

But who?

Over the next few days, weird things started happening.

On my lunch break, I’d catch a glimpse of a blue car parked across the street — always in a different spot, but always there.

Erin said it could be coincidence, but the look in her eyes told me she didn’t believe it either.

One morning, she walked in holding a sealed envelope. “This was left at reception for you.”

It had my name on it. No return address.

Inside: a single blue petal. And a note.

“You shouldn’t have asked her about the flowers.”

I stared at it for what felt like forever.

Erin called security, but the cameras didn’t show who dropped it off. Just a blurry figure in a hoodie.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Clara was restless, too. At around 2 a.m., I heard a sound outside — a soft thunk near the window.

When I looked, there was another bouquet on the porch. The same flowers. No note.

I didn’t bring them inside.

The next morning, I called the police. They took the flowers for testing, but nothing came of it.

Erin eventually found out something else.

The blue flowers — Delphinium azureum — were part of a discontinued pharmaceutical study about nerve agents. The chemical properties were modified to trigger temporary paralysis in lab mice. The company went bankrupt years ago.

“Whoever sent them,” she said quietly, “either worked there or got access to their old stock.”

But that was impossible.

Until I remembered something.

Clara’s ex-boyfriend, Leo, had been part of that same research program.

I never told Clara what Erin found. I didn’t want to scare her. But a week later, we got a call from the police.

A man had been arrested trying to enter our building after hours. They found blue flower petals in his jacket pocket.

It was Leo.

When they questioned him, he said something that still makes my skin crawl.

“She was supposed to see them first. She was supposed to know what it meant.”

Apparently, the flowers weren’t meant for me — they were meant as a warning for Clara.

Years ago, she had anonymously reported his lab for unethical experiments, which led to its shutdown. He wanted her to remember.

He’d hacked into her email, placed the flower order, and sent it to me, thinking it would scare her into silence.

It almost worked.

After that, Clara and I took some time off work. Erin testified as a witness and later told me she was planning to go back to medical school. She said the case reminded her why she wanted to help people in the first place.

As for the flowers — I haven’t looked at a bouquet the same way since.

Now, every Valentine’s Day, when the delivery guy walks in, my stomach still tightens.

Because beauty can hide the most terrifying intentions — and sometimes, love really is a dangerous thing.