Page 14 of A Witchy Spell Ride (31 Days of Trick or Treat, Bikers and Mobsters #15)

Chapter Eleven

Selene

The moment the words left my mouth, the silence turned sharp.

“I’m being stalked.”

No one moved.

No one breathed.

Even the air felt heavier, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.

Ghost didn’t blink. Reaper went completely still. Cross tilted his head like he was running math in his skull. And Bones, hand still resting on the crowbar he brought for God-knows-what, muttered something under his breath that sounded like fuck me sideways.

But the worst reaction?

Was my brother’s.

Not loud.

Not yet.

Just… cold.

Controlled.

His voice dropped an octave. “Since when?”

I didn’t answer right away.

Briar stood beside me, shoulder to shoulder, like she could hold the world back if I needed her to.

“When?” Reaper snapped again.

I looked up and met his eyes. “A few weeks.”

His nostrils flared.

Ghost shifted his weight just slightly between us. Subtle. Protective. As if he already knew where this was headed.

“What the fuck do you mean, a few weeks?” Reaper’s voice was rising now. “You didn’t think to tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to go off like this,” I said, sharper than I meant to.

“Like what?” he growled. “Like a brother who finds out his sister’s being watched like prey in her own fucking shop?”

“It wasn’t like that at first.”

Briar touched my arm. I nodded and began laying it all out.

All of it.

Piece by piece.

“The first thing was a charm. Left on my windowsill. Looked handmade, but… not mine. Then a photo. One from the clubhouse. Everyone scratched out except me and Ghost.”

His name in my mouth felt strange.

Ghost didn’t react. Didn’t move.

Just kept his eyes on me. Steady. Unshaken.

“There were notes. A few. Nothing threatening at first. Just… weird. One of them said I was ‘meant to be adored.’ Said I’d see soon.”

Cross muttered something and pulled out a small notepad from his pocket, already scribbling.

“Then the vase moved,” I went on. “The front door lock was left unlatched. And the charm the psychic gave me, the one wrapped in red thread, it was moved too. Like someone had been in the apartment.”

Reaper’s jaw clenched so tight I swore I heard it crack.

“I haven’t seen anyone,” I finished quietly. “But I’ve felt it. Every day. I know someone’s watching. Getting closer. And today…” I gestured toward the rose and note on the counter. “Today they got inside.”

The silence that followed was worse than shouting.

Reaper ran both hands through his hair and turned away for a beat, pacing hard, boots heavy against the wooden floor.

Bones picked up the note carefully and read it.

His brow furrowed. “This is an obsession.”

“No,” Briar corrected, eyes like knives. “This is a delusion.”

Cross looked at me. “You sure you never saw who left anything?”

“Not once.”

Ghost finally spoke, voice low. “The sedan.”

Reaper snapped his attention toward him. “What sedan?”

“Silver. Tinted. Passed the shop a few times last week. Again yesterday. Same car. Selene came back from a walk; it drove past minutes later. Too clean. Plates are dummy tags.”

Reaper was already reaching for his phone.

“No,” I said, stepping forward.

He froze. “What do you mean, no?”

“I don’t want the whole damn club rolling up and burning the Quarter down.”

“That’s exactly what needs to happen!”

“I want to know who it is, Reap. I want the truth, not just blood.”

He stared at me like he didn’t recognize me.

Like the sister he thought he knew had been replaced with someone reckless and quiet.

But it wasn’t recklessness.

It was survival.

I didn’t want to be protected in a cage.

I wanted answers.

And I wanted them now.

“I’m not saying don’t help me,” I said, softer. “I’m saying… don’t take this out of my hands.”

Ghost stepped forward, closer to my side.

“She’s right,” he said. “We need to know who. And why. If we jump too soon, we lose that.”

Reaper looked between us, eyes narrowing. “You already knew.”

Ghost held his stare. “I had suspicions.”

“And you didn’t fucking tell me either.”

That landed like a hammer.

But Ghost didn’t flinch.

And neither did I.

Because I was done pretending.

Done hiding.

Done being scared in silence.

Reaper swore under his breath and stalked toward the front of the shop, phone already at his ear, barking low orders into the line.

Cross moved closer, notebook tucked under his arm. “I’ll pull the street cam feeds. See if I can track the sedan’s plates over time.”

Bones nodded. “Want me on watch outside?”

Ghost shook his head. “Not yet. Not until we know more. Keep this tight.”

I took a breath.

Briar slipped her hand into mine.

I wasn’t alone anymore.

But I was still in it.

And something told me the worst was yet to come.

The shop felt like a church after a confession, quiet, exposed, sacred in a way that made my skin crawl. Reaper finished his call and came back to the counter, eyes colder, voice level.

“Here’s what’s happening,” he said. “Cross pulls feeds. Bones checks exits and sits the alley, zero noise. I’ll put a watcher two blocks out, no kuttes, no tails that stick out. You” his gaze pinned me, “do not leave this shop without Briar or Ghost.”

“I’m not a—”

“Prisoner,” he cut in. “I know. You’re not. But you are a target.”

Briar squeezed my fingers once, a pressure that said argue later, move now. Ghost’s presence at my shoulder felt like a wall I hadn’t asked for and couldn’t quite hate.

Cross cleared his throat. “Timeline?” he asked me, pen ready. “Start with the charm.”

I recited it all, this time like a ledger: dates, times, locations, the exact phrasing of each note. When I stumbled, Ghost supplied details he shouldn’t have known unless he’d been nearby. He had been. It didn’t scare me. That was the scariest part.

Cross’s pen moved fast. “So, the first anomaly was three weeks ago,” he said, tapping the page. “Windowsill charm. Then the scratched photo. Then incremental escalations, moved objects, unlocked latch, red-thread bottle, the lilies, and now the rose + note in-shop during business hours.”

“Pattern,” Ghost said. “He’s closing distance and upping intimacy.”

Bones thunked the crowbar’s end on the floor, impatience twitching through him. “Say when and I’ll take his kneecaps.”

“Later,” Reaper said, not looking at him. He was watching me again. “You had dreams?”

Heat climbed my neck. “Sometimes.”

“Men in them?”

“That’s not—”

“Relevant,” Ghost said, calm. “If he’s watching her, he could be timing deliveries and appearances to her sleep cycle. Dreams can make the waking feel… pliable. Easier to push.”

Reaper’s jaw clicked. “You saying there’s magic in this?”

“Men don’t need magic to be monsters,” Briar said dryly. “But if he thinks there is, he’ll act like there is. That’s enough.”

Reaper scrubbed a hand over his mouth, thinking. “We change your routine,” he said to me. “Today.”

“Already started,” Briar said. “She’s coming to mine again. We’ve got trip lines, bells, hair on the hinges, flour at the threshold, the whole gremlin toolkit.”

“Cameras?” Cross asked.

“Upstairs, yes,” I said. “Downstairs, front and back. He avoided the fields or jammed them. Either way, I’m adding two more interior cams today.”

“Good,” Cross said. “And I want your last two weeks of phone logs and texts.”

“My what?”

“Not content. Just metadata. Time stamps. Unknown numbers. Patterns help.”

I frowned. “You’re turning me into a spreadsheet.”

“Spreadsheets save lives,” Briar chirped. Then, more serious: “He’s counting on you feeling alone. We’re going to make you feel annoyed instead.”

Against my will, I smiled. It didn’t last.

Ghost moved a fraction closer, enough that his shoulder brushed mine when he turned. “Decoy walk tonight,” he said. “Same jacket, hair up, hood. Briar runs point as a false Selene. We cover from three angles, catch the follower if he bites.”

“I run point?” Briar echoed.

Reaper glared. “No.”

“Yes,” Ghost and Briar said together, like they’d rehearsed it.

“She’s the only one he’ll accept as your shadow without blinking,” Ghost said. “A club girl in your clothes reads wrong. Briar reads right.”

Reaper and Briar locked eyes. Her chin tilted; his jaw did that tick that means he’s two seconds from swearing. He looked at me. “You sign off on this?”

I hated that I had to. I hated that I didn’t want to be left behind either. “I sign off,” I said. “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“I’m in the car. Close.” The words surprised me as I said them, but they felt true. “I won’t sit in a basement while everyone else plays chess with my life.”

Reaper’s mouth flattened. Ghost’s gaze flicked to me, unreadable. Cross’s pen paused over paper. Briar grinned like she’d been waiting for me to say it.

Reaper exhaled. “You don’t step out.”

“Unless I decide to,” I said before I could stop myself.

His eyes went glacial. “Try me.”

I shut my mouth. I wasn’t stupid.

Bones clapped his hands once. “Okay then. Boss lady in the car, fake boss lady on the sidewalk, shadows in the shadows. What could go wrong.”

“Plenty,” Ghost said, not smiling. “Which is why we control the field. We choose streets with long sightlines. No Mardi Gras crowds. We stay away from glass reflections that give away positions.”

Cross nodded, already sketching a tiny map in the margin of his notes. “Take Governor Nicholls to the river. Circle back on Chartres. Blind corners minimal. Good lamplight. Two exits at every block.”

Reaper looked like he wanted to veto the whole plan on principle. Instead, he said, “You get one mistake. Make it small.”

Briar saluted him with two fingers and then promptly stole his pen to draw a tiny bat in the corner of Cross’s map. “For luck,” she said. Cross didn’t look up, but his mouth twitched.

I felt the shop change as the plan settled. Fear stopped being a fog and became a vector, arrows on a page. It didn’t make me less scared. It made the fear useful.

“Go upstairs,” Reaper told me. “Pack for two nights.”

I bristled. “I have a bag ready.”

He stared. “Of course you do.”

Briar leaned in as I passed. “Good girl.”