Page 27 of A Witchy Spell Ride (31 Days of Trick or Treat, Bikers and Mobsters #15)

Chapter Twenty

Selene

I didn’t wake up scared.

Not this time.

I woke up warm. Held. Centered. Ghost’s arm was draped over my waist, his breath soft against my shoulder, his body wrapped around mine like armor. The sheets smelled like sex and leather and cinnamon bourbon, and I didn’t want to leave them.

But I did.

Because I wasn’t hiding anymore.

I slid out from under his arm with the kind of care you use when you want to keep something, tugged on one of Ghost’s shirts because of course he slept shirtless and had zero interest in pajamas, and padded barefoot to the door.

It was early. Pale light slipped through the blinds; the clubhouse had that half-awake hush. Somewhere in the kitchen, a fridge hummed, and a spoon clinked against a mug. Farther off, the garage thumped faintly with Bones’s playlist, classic rock that sounded like an oil stain.

I pulled the door open.

And froze.

Not because I was scared.

Because I saw it.

Lying in the middle of the hallway floor. A single red rose petal.

No note.

No blood.

Just one perfect petal.

A warning.

A reminder.

He was still watching.

Still close.

I knelt slowly. Lifted the petal between my fingers and turned it in the light.

Delicate.

Soft.

Intentional.

This wasn’t a threat.

This was a game.

He thought I’d run. Thought I’d curl up again. Thought I’d hide behind my brother and my biker and wait for someone else to fix it.

But that version of me? She died the moment I looked in that mirror and saw who I really was.

I stood. Looked straight at the nearest security camera tucked into the hallway corner — the one Cross had wired straight to the war room feed.

And I spoke to it. To him.

“Get ready,” I said, voice low. “Because I’m not scared anymore.”

Then I crushed the petal in my palm and walked away.

The kitchen smelled like coffee and danger. Vex was at the counter in a T-shirt that said SORRY FOR WHAT I SAID WHEN I WAS PARKING, pouring jet fuel into a chipped mug. He clocked me in Ghost’s shirt, eyebrows lifting, then decided to live and poured me a second cup without commentary.

“You look like trouble,” he said mildly, sliding the mug over.

“I am,” I said, blowing on the surface. “Where’s Cross?”

“War room. Arguing with a church about camera placement like it’s a hostage negotiation.”

“Perfect.” I set the crushed petal on a napkin next to my mug. Vex’s gaze pinned it, jaw flexing once.

“Where.”

“Outside Ghost’s door.” I held his stare. “I’m fine.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t,” he said. His voice was soft steel. “You want me to carry that napkin to Cross or you doing the honors?”

“I’ll take it. I want to watch his face.”

Vex’s mouth twitched. “Mean.”

“Honest.” I took a careful sip. “Tell Bones his playlist is scaring the coffeepot.”

Vex snorted. “Bones doesn’t scare in the morning. He lumbers.” He leaned on the counter, eyes flicking to the hallway like he could drag trouble back by the collar. “You need an escort to the war room?”

“I’ll walk myself.” I set the mug down. “But if anyone breathes wrong, you can come haunt them.”

“I’m everyone’s favorite ghost,” he deadpanned, then sobered when I didn’t smile. “We got you, kid.”

“I know,” I said. The thing was, I did.

I carried the napkin down the hall like evidence and knocked twice on the war room door before pushing in.

Cross was at the table with three screens up, posture perfect, tie already straight at an hour when the rest of us were still negotiating with gravity. He glanced up, took in the shirt, the bare feet, the napkin. His eyes cooled.

“Tell me that’s lipstick,” he said.

“It’s a petal.”

“Of course it is.” He flicked his fingers, a gimme gesture. I passed it over. He lifted the napkin like it might bite and set it on a sheet of acetate. “Where?”

“Outside Ghost’s door.”

“Time?”

“Now.” I pointed toward the feed screen. “You should have it.”

He spun his keyboard, fingers flying. The hallway camera popped to full frame. He rewound twenty minutes. Thirty. An hour. The corridor showed men on patrol, Briar ghosting by with a bowl of something that looked like cereal and glitter, Ash yawning and scratching his jaw like a cartoon bear.

Then, at 5:11, a shadow cut across the floor without a body attached, a dark sliver at ankle height and the petal appeared as if from nowhere. No hand. No sleeve. Just a fall.

“Vent,” Cross said. He rewound and slowed the tape until each frame wavered. In the top corner of the hallway, the smallest shift: a louver twitch, the slightest exhale of dust. “He fed it through the vent.”

My stomach turned. “Which means?”

Cross’s mouth went flat. “Either the ductwork is accessible from the crawl space, or some absolute genius got himself past a locked grate.” He looked up at me, expression calm and murdery. “I’m a genius. So is he. The difference is I’m on your payroll.”

“Run the hall headcount from two to five,” I said, the coffee burning kindly in my throat. “Who was where.”

He already had it. Colored dots on a timeline, names attached.

Bones outside. Vex in. Bray and Thorne rotating.

Briar everywhere. Banks in the garage on sweeping duty at 4:50, then unaccounted for between 5:02 and 5:14 when he claimed he was in the bathroom no one had a camera on because it was a bathroom and even, we had lines.

I stared at the gap. “Banks.”

Cross shrugged a shoulder, neutral but not blind. “He’s the softest data point. Which makes him likely or convenient, depending on your appetite.”

My appetite was knives. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Not alone,” Cross said, which would have been insult if it weren’t just smart.

“I’ll take Bones.”

“You’ll take Ghost,” he corrected smoothly.

“He’s—” Sleeping, I almost said, and then remembered the man I was talking about. “Fine. I’ll take Ghost.”

Cross’s gaze slid to the door. “He’ll be here in three, two—”

The door opened on Ghost; awake like he hadn’t been asleep at all. He clocked me first, then the screen, then the napkin. He took a breath that was more plan than oxygen.

“What am I killing,” he said.

“Vent drop,” Cross said, swiveling the monitor. “Petal from the duct. Banks’s alibi is the bathroom.”

Ghost studied the frames with a stillness I’d started to recognize as a kind of rage he used like a scalpel. “We check the grate,” he said. “We check the crawl.” His eyes cut to me. “You, okay?”

“Yes.” I lifted my chin. “I want to talk to him.”

“Banks?” he asked, and his tone said why.

“Because if it’s him, I’ll see it,” I said. “If it’s not, I’ll still see something.”

He held my gaze. Decided. “I’m with you.”

“Of course you are,” I said, and I didn’t mean to let the warmth in my chest show, but it never asked permission anyway.

We found Banks in the garage pretending to inventory lug nuts. Bones leaned on a worktable nearby with his crowbar like a conversation piece. The air tasted like rubber and old adrenaline.

“Prospect,” Ghost said.

Banks straightened, the kind of quick that tries to look casual and lands on guilty. “Yeah?”

I stepped forward, letting Ghost be the wall at my back. “Do you remember what I told you the first time you stared too long at the shop door?” I asked.

Banks blinked. “I—”

“I told you not to insult me,” I said pleasantly. “You’re about to try.”

His mouth worked. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You were in the bathroom,” Ghost said.

Banks seized the alibi like a rope. “Yeah. Yeah. Stomach.”

“Convenient,” Bones murmured, picking dirt from under a nail with the tip of his crowbar like a sermon.

I tilted my head. “Did you notice anything weird with the vents this morning? Any sounds? Drafts? Loose screws?”

He shook his head too fast. “No.”

“Scratch your forearm.”

“What?” He frowned, confused.

“Scratch your forearm,” I repeated, lazy. “Top right. The itch you can’t place.”

He rubbed automatically and flinched. I smiled without heat. “Thanks.”

Ghost’s brow lifted, a silent question. I answered without looking at him. “I wrote a sigil to make liars itch,” I said. “Cross asked what it does.”

Bones barked a delighted laugh. “Gremlin witch.”

Banks flushed. “You can’t— I didn’t—”

“No,” I said softly. “You didn’t. Because if you had, this conversation would be happening in a different room.”

Relief flashed across his face so bright and so foolish my palm itched on instinct. He wasn’t our guy. He was something else, a problem for another day. He still looked too long at things that didn’t belong to him, but his fear wasn’t sharp enough to be the kind I needed to hunt.

“Get back to your sweep,” Ghost said, and Banks went without a backward glance, which told me he’d learned at least one thing today.

Bones rocked on his heels. “So, vent.”

“So, vent,” Ghost echoed. He looked at me. “You good to watch Cross work or you want to go back to bed?”

I let my eyes slide slow down his body and back up, just to see his mouth want to smile and fail. “Tempting,” I said. “Work now. Bed later.”

“Copy that,” he said, voice a shade lower.

We spent twenty minutes with Cross on a step ladder, muttering happily at screws that didn’t want to be unscrewed.

He slid the grate free with the satisfaction of a man removing a mask.

Inside: dust, an old bottle cap, the stub of a cigarette from an era before Reaper instituted the smoke outside or die rule.

And on the inner lip, a faint, fresh smear.

Cross swabbed it, face grave with glee. “Skin oil. Maybe trace floral. If he handled the petal too long.”

“Can you pull a print?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said, which from Cross meant probably.

We resecured the grate. Cross labeled vials.

Bones promised to go snake through the crawl space once he’d retrieved what he called his worm pants.

Vex popped his head in to report that Daisy wanted to staple bats to the ceiling and asked if that was a fire hazard or a festive hazard. Ghost told him yes.

It should’ve felt like a bad morning. It didn’t.