Page 10 of A Witchy Spell Ride (31 Days of Trick or Treat, Bikers and Mobsters #15)

Selene

The shop was locked.

I was sure of it.

Doors bolted. Windows sealed. Alarm set. Even the little charm Briar made last year a spell bottle stuffed with poppy seed, thistle, and a whisper of protection hung from the inside doorknob like always.

I’d just come back from the storeroom, arms full of dried sage bundles I was restocking. It hadn’t taken more than ten minutes.

But when I stepped back into the front of the shop, the air was different. Not cold. Not loud. Just wrong. And sitting on the counter, where I definitely hadn’t left anything, was a single rose. Deep red. long stem. Fresh.

Right next to it: a folded piece of cream paper. No envelope. No wax seal. Just a neat little square with my name scrawled across the front in looping black ink.

Selene.

My throat dried out instantly. I didn’t touch it at first. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. I scanned the shop, every corner, every shadow, every camera feed on my phone.

Nothing triggered, no signs of a break-in. No shattered glass. Just the note and the rose left for me. I reached out slowly, picking up the paper and unfolding it.

The handwriting was careful. Like someone who took their time. Letters curved like poetry, but too clean, almost clinical.

You were made to be adored.

Watched.

Worshipped.

Soon, you’ll see.

I’m not the danger.

I’m the answer.

There was no signature. No smudges. No scent. No initials. Just that. I read it again. And again. Each time, it sat heavier in my gut. Like lead. Like fear finally given a voice.

I dropped it back on the counter and stepped away, heart thudding in my chest like it wanted out.

This wasn’t a prank. Wasn’t a fucking joke. Someone had gotten inside. While I was there. Ten feet away. Not hours before. Not overnight. Minutes. That was the part that turned my blood cold.

It wasn’t just the note. It was the fact that they wanted me to find it. To know they were close. To make it intimate.

My fingers shook as I grabbed my burner and texted Briar.

Come to the shop. Now. Don’t tell Reaper.

I didn’t wait for a reply. I walked to the door, flipped the sign to Closed, and locked it again.

Twice.

Then I sat behind the counter, rose still untouched, note still open — like maybe if I stared long enough, it would explain itself. It didn’t. But what did it do? It makes everything I thought I understood about this little game unravel at the edges. Because this?

This wasn’t just a stalker anymore. This was someone who thought they knew me. Someone who thought they were meant for me. And that was worse. Way worse. Because love or what people like this think is love doesn’t play fair.

It plays for keeps.

Briar arrived in seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds. I know because I counted every one of them with the same intensity you count breaths when you’re trying not to scream.

She didn’t bother to knock. She knew my tells sign flipped, blinds tilted, the tiny charm dangling from the top lock turned ninety degrees instead of straight. She slipped in, shut the door, threw the deadbolts, and came to a dead stop when she saw the counter.

Her eyes went straight to the note. Then the rose. Then me.

“What the hell,” she breathed, voice too soft to be Briar. “When?”

“Ten minutes,” I said. “Maybe less.”

“You were—”

“In the back.”

She swore quietly, a rarity for her, then pulled a pair of black nitrile gloves from her pocket like a magician producing a dove. “Rule one of crime club,” she muttered, snapping them on. “We don’t smudge the creepy.”

“You carry gloves around?”

“Do you not?” She arched a brow. “Have we met?”

Despite everything, my mouth twitched. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re in danger.” She moved in careful steps, like she was approaching a wild animal. “Okay. Don’t touch anything else. Walk me through exactly what you did after you came out from the storeroom.”

“I came out with the sage bundles. Put them on the middle table. Went to grab twine from the drawer. Turned back, saw… that.” I gestured at the counter with two fingers and every muscle in my arm shaking.

Briar circled the rose. “No water. No vase. Thorns trimmed. Long stem cut at an angle.” She crouched, peered at the base. “Clean cut. Florist’s knife, not kitchen scissors.”

“The florist from uptown,” I said before I could stop myself. The one who’d sent the lilies and the bottle tied with red thread. The memory skittered through me like a roach.

Briar’s gaze flicked to mine. “You think?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll add it to the list.” She lifted the note by two corners and read it, her mouth flattening. “Well, that’s a cocktail of delusion.” She set it back exactly where it had been. “Check the cameras?”

“My phone feeds say all clear,” I said, swallowing. “But the motion notices—”

“Let me guess. Nothing in the last fifteen minutes.”

“Nothing.”

“Which means he knew where they are.” She turned slowly, scanning. “Or he jammed them. But this isn’t Mission Impossible; it’s the Quarter. More likely he’s been here before and clocked the angles. Or…” She trailed off, eyes narrowing at the ceiling.

“Or what?”

“Or he was already inside.”

I felt my stomach pitch. “Don’t.”

She pointed at the dark corner above the incense shelf. “If he slipped in while you were restocking and tucked into that blind spot, all he had to do was wait. Two minutes. You step into the back. He leaves his little love letter. Slips out with the bell muffled.”

“How would he muffle the bell?” I asked automatically, grateful for a problem to solve instead of a feeling to drown in.

Briar walked to the door, reached up, and slid a finger under the bell. A small triangle of felt clung to the clapper. She peeled it off and held it between two gloved fingertips. “Like that.”

A shiver traced my spine. “I didn’t put that there.”

“Of course you didn’t.” She lifted her chin toward the counter. “Bag the note and the felt. We’ll see if Cross can talk one of his ‘I don’t do this anymore’ guys into a favor.”

“He’ll tell Reaper.”

“Not if I ask the right way.” She glanced at me. “I can be very persuasive.”

“I know.” My voice sounded small. “Briar—”

“I’m not telling him,” She said, reading me too easily. “Not yet. But we’re not playing dumb, either.”

She moved like a storm through the shop, fast, focused, a little destructive.

She checked the back door. The hair I lay across it a few days ago when I was on a cleaning bender was gone, but that didn’t mean anything; I was prone to sweeping up anything that offended my sense of order.

She checked the windows, the latch on the bathroom window I never used, the narrow grate in the alley that wouldn’t fit a cat.

She pressed her ear to the wall, because why not.

“Sometimes you just have to listen to a building,” she said, eyes closed. “They tell you who’s been touching them.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m correct.” She opened her eyes. “You need to pack a bag.”

“I’m not leaving my shop.”

“You are if I have to drug you and carry you out.”

I stared at her. “You’re five foot two.”

“And motivated.” She smiled without humor. “Selene, I’m not trying to fight you. But whoever this is, they know your routines. They know where your cameras don’t see. They know how to get in and out fast enough to avoid motion alerts. That’s not random.”

“I know.”

“So, you move. You change the routine. You stay noisy.”

Noisy. The opposite of what I wanted. I wanted to shrink to a dot and wait for it all to pass. I wanted to believe this was a mistake and my life would rewind to a week ago when the worst thing on my mind was whether the lavender shipment would arrive on time.

“Tonight,” Briar said softly, like she was coaxing a feral cat.

“Come back to mine. We can booby-trap the place. Bells, flour, hair across the door, a glass on the doorknob that will fall and shatter if it turns. Old-school. We’ll sleep in shifts.

You can do your witch things. I’ll do my gremlin things. ”

“What if he’s watching?” I asked. “What if he sees me leave and waits?”

“Then Ghost will make him regret his birth.” The name slipped out of her like it didn’t weigh anything. It weighed everything.

I looked away. “We’re not calling Ghost.”

She didn’t argue. Not out loud. But her eyes said she’d already decided she would if she had to.

“Help me,” I said, voice scraping. “Help me make it safe enough to lock up.”

Briar nodded. She pulled evidence bags from her tote, yes, evidence bags and slid the note inside, then the felt.

She studied the rose for a long beat, then used scissors to take a clean half-inch off the stem and placed that snippet into another bag.

“Cut angle, residue, potential trace,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

“He handled it. He’s not wearing a hazmat suit in the Quarter at noon.

We might get a partial print off the thorn base if we’re lucky. ”

I stared at the ridiculous little pile of plastic packets like they might transform into safety if I wished hard enough. “We’re ridiculous.”

“That’s step one of survival.” She tucked the bags into her tote. “Ridiculous and paranoid beats romantic and dead.”

We set to work. I cleared the front display and pretended it was stock rotation while Briar walked the perimeter with a roll of fishing line and a handful of tiny bells she stole from the craft drawer.

She strung them low, ankle height, in places you wouldn’t notice until they chimed.

I salted thresholds and whispered my mother’s charm under my breath, the vowels old and steady, the consonants clipping fear into pieces small enough to swallow.

When we finished, the shop looked the same. Felt different. Maybe that was enough.

“Upstairs,” Briar said, jerking her chin at the stairwell. “Grab what you need.”

I hesitated. “Just… give me five?”

She studied me, then nodded. “Five. I’ll be here. If you’re not back down in five, I’m coming up with a scream and a frying pan.”

“Very on-brand.”