Page 30 of A Witchy Spell Ride (31 Days of Trick or Treat, Bikers and Mobsters #15)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Selene

I wasn’t supposed to hear them talking.

But the door to the war room was cracked open, just enough and I’d learned long ago that in this club, if someone leaves a door ajar, they either want you to hear… or they’re underestimating how quiet you can be.

Cross’s voice was low but clipped. Focused. “Name’s Adam Lane. Not real, but the face is. Got a partial match tied to a dating app profile she interacted with once. One dinner. No second date.”

I froze.

“Adam Lane.”

Him.

I barely remembered his last name until that moment. He was… normal. Too normal. The kind of man who called you ma’am and asked before leaning in. But there was something behind his eyes. Something I didn’t trust.

He hadn’t touched me.

Hadn’t said anything wrong.

But my gut had screamed no.

So, I ghosted him. Deleted the app. Never looked back.

Until now.

Until Cross’s next words hit like ice water down my spine. “He’s still in the Quarter. Different car. Rented under another fake name. But it’s him.”

A sound rumbled through the room I felt more than heard—Ghost. A growl that lived under words.

“You think it’s him?” he said.

“Enough to get eyes on him.” Cross again, all numbers and knives. “But he’s slick. Real slick.”

I didn’t wait to hear more. Didn’t knock. Didn’t ask permission.

I pushed open the door, hair still wet from the shower, dressed in black jeans and one of Briar’s band tees that said RIDE ME, COWBOY in glitter font.

Cross arched a brow.

Ghost? He looked like he was trying not to tear the room apart.

“You should’ve told me sooner,” I said.

“You were still healing,” Ghost muttered.

“I’m not fragile,” I snapped.

“I know you’re not.” He stood, face like stone. “That’s the problem. You’ll run headfirst into a burning building if someone tells you, you can’t.”

“Then stop telling me I can’t.”

Cross wisely slid his laptop shut and walked out without another word, closing the door with the quiet finality of a priest absolving himself.

Ghost and I stood facing each other across the table like a showdown was coming. Only I wasn’t angry anymore.

I was ready.

“I’m going back to the shop.”

“Selene—”

“No. This ends where it started. He keeps using that place to get into my head. Then let’s see what happens when I turn around and stare him right in the fucking eye.”

Ghost exhaled hard, a sound like a match dragged across rough wood. “I’ll come with you.”

“Of course you will.”

He grabbed his cut. His gun. His fury.

And we left.

The shop was quiet when we got there. It always was in the early afternoon, too early for tourists, too late for coffee-chasers. The kind of quiet that made you hear the tiny sounds of a building breathing: wood settling, pipes tapping, the low hum of the back fridge.

Ghost checked the locks while I reset the warding charms, relit the candles, swept the back room even though we both knew Cross had cleared it twice already.

Still, something felt off.

The air was too still.

Like the silence before a storm.

I stepped behind the counter, pushed the cash drawer closed, and that’s when I saw it.

Another note.

But this time, it wasn’t just words.

It was taped to a tarot card.

The Lovers.

Only it wasn’t one of mine. It was a cheap, knockoff print—the kind you could buy online for five bucks. The card was worn, faded. And someone had drawn a big black X through the man’s face.

Underneath was a single sentence:

He doesn’t know you like I do, He never will.

My fingers trembled. But I didn’t flinch. I turned to Ghost, held it up between two fingers.

“He’s escalating.”

Ghost took the card, stared at it for a long, hard second, then slipped it into his cut. “No,” he said. “He’s spiraling.”

And this time? There was no fear in my voice.

Just fury.

“Cross needs to see it,” he said.

“He will.” I reached under the counter for a little tin and pulled out chalk. Drew a small sigil on the underside of the glass, attention, not alarm. A note to the building: Watch with me.

Ghost leaned across the counter, forearms braced, eyes never leaving the door. “We’ll close early.”

“We’ll stay open,” I countered. “He wants me to hide. I’m done hiding.”

“That’s not the same as bait.”

“It is today.”

His jaw ticked. “Then we do it my way.”

“Which is?”

“You stand where I put you.” A muscle moved in his cheek, not quite a smile. “You glare. Look dangerous. Let me be the ugly part.”

“You’re always the ugly part,” I said sweetly.

That earned me a real smile, quick and wrecking. “Good girl.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

We set the stage.

Candles lit. Music low. Doors unlocked. I straightened shelves I’d straightened three times already, moved a jar two inches to the left because control sometimes looks like arranging rosemary in odd numbers.

The bell over the door chimed twice in the next half hour.

First, a couple hunting for something to make their apartment smell less like beer and heartbreak.

Then Daisy, who came bearing a roll of black fabric and a crisis about bat placement.

Ghost moved through both interactions like a shadow cast by a knife.

Daisy clocked the mood, squeezed my arm, and promised to return with glitter and threats.

“Don’t bring glitter,” Ghost said.

She winked. “He loves it,” she stage-whispered to me, then skipped out as if she hadn’t just baited death in his own house.

We were alone again.

I stood at the counter. Ghost took the corner by the draped bead curtain to the back.

Nothing moved but candle flame. I could feel the city outside: footsteps passing, a laugh, a moped’s whine, the brass ghost of a trumpet somewhere down the block.

The Quarter never goes fully quiet. It only pretends.

“Tell me about the dinner,” Ghost said, voice low enough it didn’t ripple the surface of the air.

“With Adam?” I kept my eyes on the door. “We met at a place on Chartres that thinks Edison bulbs are personality. He was… polite. Listened more than he talked. Asked questions about the shop like he wanted to understand and then asked questions about me like he wanted to own the answers.”

“Did he touch you?”

“Only at the end when he tried to kiss me. I turned my face. He laughed like I’d made a joke and said he liked a challenge.” I swallowed. “It wasn’t violent. It was… sticky.”

Ghost’s jaw worked, slow and dangerous. “Sticky men become violent when sticky doesn’t work.”

“I know.”

The bell chimed.

I didn’t jump. A man walked in with the hesitant shuffle of a tourist who’d gotten lost and decided to let fate pick a souvenir. He looked. He left. The bell chimed again.

“Soon,” Ghost murmured, reading the cadence of the street like only men who’ve hunted in cities learn how.

“Good,” I said.

I gathered a stack of cheap tarot knockoffs from the discount bin and spread them on the counter, flipping them over one by one. Lovers, again. The Star. The Tower. I tapped the Tower with my nail. “Of course,” I muttered. “You would.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” I slid The Star to the top of the pile. “Maybe we get hope.”

The door opened.

This time, the air changed.

You can feel malice. It has a temperature. It walks in a fraction of a beat off from the music the city makes.

He stepped over the threshold like a man entering a chapel, head tilted, shoulders relaxed, a new jacket that still smelled like plastic. Beard trimmed. Cap low. A face so aggressively normal you’d forget it at a crosswalk and then dream of it hurting you.

He didn’t look at me first.

He looked at the mirror behind me, caught my reflection, and smiled to himself like he’d found a private joke. Then his gaze ticked to the bead curtain. To the corners. To the ceiling where the vent sat, newly secured.

“Can I help you?” I asked, voice smooth enough to pour.

His smile widened, pleasant and empty. “Looking for a gift.” His eyes slid back to me. “For someone special.”

Ghost didn’t move. He didn’t have to. His presence bent the air.

“What kind of someone?” I asked.

“The kind who needs reminding,” he said, tapping a finger thoughtfully against a display like he was making a decision about lavender versus sage and not about whether he could get away with murder. “Of what’s good for her.”

“You want rosemary, then,” I said, and placed a bundle on the counter. “For memory. For clarity.”

He took the bundle between his fingers and breathed in. It should’ve been funny, this man inhaling herbs like a witch on a lunch break. It wasn’t. He set it down gently and leaned forward, elbows on the counter like a friend. “You’re Selene.”

“You knew that before you walked in,” I said.

“I did.” His eyes warmed in a way that wasn’t heat. “You didn’t return my message.”

“I don’t return messages from strangers.”

“We’re not strangers.” He smiled again and I watched the smile not touch anything it should. “We had dinner.”

“We had a lesson,” I corrected. “I learned to listen to my gut. You learned that ‘no’ is complete.”

A flicker. There and gone. A seam showing. “No need to be rude.”

“You left a petal outside my door,” I said. “You taped a note to a card and called it romance. And you brought me a man’s face with a black X through it and called it love.” I kept my voice level. “I’m not being rude. I’m being clear.”

It took him a beat to hear that I’d said you.

When he did, something in his posture stiffened like he’d been caught stealing small and wanted to pretend it was charity.

“You’re confused,” he said gently. “He—” Chin jerked toward the bead curtain, toward Ghost’s gravity on the other side of it. “—isn’t good for you.”

“I’m an adult,” I said. “I don’t need good. I need mine.”

He blinked. “I know you better.”

“No,” I said, same tone I’d use with a child reaching for a stove. “You know a version you built in your head. She’ll never exist for you. Let her go.”