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

The bell chimed again. Briar breezed in with Daisy behind her, both of them loud on purpose, Daisy’s glittery tote knocking a windchime into song. Reaper’s shadow cut across the doorway like an eclipse; he didn’t enter, but the threat of him did.

Adam—Elliot—whatever he was calling himself, straightened, calculating. He glanced left, right. He had the look of a man who just realized the room had more people in it than he’d planned for.

Ghost stepped through the beads without a sound and came to stand a breath behind my shoulder. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t need to. His presence was a handprint.

“Problem?” Ghost asked conversationally.

“None,” Adam said, smile back, wrong as a painted-on window. “Just shopping.”

“Great,” Briar chirped, popping a glittered lollipop into her mouth. “Buy three bundles of ‘not today, Satan,’ get a free hex.”

Daisy set a stack of bats on the counter like a trophy. “Do you want yours with eyes or without.”

Adam’s gaze skittered. He touched the rosemary bundle again and his fingers trembled, just slightly, like he’d been holding calm too tight, and it had started to bite back.

“Selene,” he said softly, like we were alone, “you don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not,” I said.

Another seam. He hadn’t prepared for that answer. Hadn’t prepared for the building to love me back, for the way the room had arranged itself, for the way Ghost’s silence could fill a space more completely than a shout.

I let the silence sit. Then I slid his cheap tarot card from beneath the counter—the one with the Lovers and the black X over the man. I laid it gently on the glass between us.

“Return policy’s strict,” I said. “We don’t take back trash.”

For a heartbeat, he showed me him, not the polite veneer, not the man on the app, but the wound wearing a body. His mouth thinned. His eyes went flat. The jacket he’d bought to look like a person didn’t fit anymore.

Then it was gone. The smile came back, painted fresh.

He reached into his pocket, slow, showman slow and pulled out cash. Crisp twenties that smelled like a bank and not like a life. He set them on the counter beside the rosemary and the trash card like we were doing a normal transaction.

“I’ll take the reminder,” he said. “And I’ll see you soon.”

“No,” Ghost said, pleasant. “You won’t.”

Adam’s eyes flicked to Ghost’s. Something like recognition. Not who he was. What he was.

He picked up the rosemary. Left the card. Turned and walked out with a careful gait that said he’d calculated how many steps it took to appear unbothered. The bell chimed once, twice. The door shut. His reflection ghosted across the window and vanished into a tide of bodies.

Briar exhaled a curse. Daisy said, “Ew,” like she’d stepped in something. Reaper’s shadow moved away from the door like fog.

I realized my hands were steady.

Ghost’s weren’t. Not shaking, ready. He slid the Lovers card back into his cut, jaw set like a verdict. “Cross has his walk, his height, his shoulder hitch,” he said. “We’ve got him from three angles. Next time he steps inside.”

“There won’t be a next time,” I said.

He looked at me then, really looked and something eased under his sternum. “No,” he agreed. “There won’t.”

I leaned on the counter and let the adrenaline drain out slowly. The building exhaled. The candles burned steady instead of tall. Briar came around and bumped her hip into mine, casual, grounding.

“You, okay?” she asked.

“I’m furious,” I said truthfully.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s weaponize it.”

Ghost adjusted the warding charm at the door with two careful fingers, like he was resetting a seal. “You did perfect,” he said without looking at me.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“You didn’t run,” he said. “You don’t minimize how hard that is.”

I didn’t have a quip for that. I took a breath and let it be enough.

Outside, the Quarter kept being itself, messy, holy, loud. Inside, the shop held a new shape, carved by a line I’d drawn with my own mouth.

I wasn’t prey.

I wasn’t bait.

I was a woman behind her own counter, in her own house, with her people set like stones around her.

“Keep the card,” I told Ghost.

“I was going to,” he said.

“For evidence?”

“For me,” he answered, then softened it with, “For Cross,” because he knew I’d let him have the truth if he covered it in practicality.

I smiled, small and sharp. “Good.”

We stayed open. We made three sales, and I gave Daisy a discount on bats if she promised not to staple any to my ceiling.

She promised and then did it anyway. Briar balanced the cash drawer with a flourish, then scribbled a sigil on the back of a receipt and told me it’d make the bills harder to steal. It wouldn’t, but the intention would.

As we locked up at dusk, I touched the glass and whispered a thank you to the space that had held me when I was shaking and then when I wasn’t.

Ghost stood at my shoulder, hand hovering at the small of my back like a shadow that knew its job. “Ready?” he asked.

“Now I am,” I said.

He nodded. “Then let’s go tell your brothers what happens next.”

“What does happen next?” Briar asked, popping her lollipop back between her teeth like a question mark.

I looked at the black X over the man on the card peeking from Ghost’s cut and felt the answer settle.

“We finish this,” I said. “On our terms.”

And for the first time since that first note, the future didn’t feel like a door I was being pushed through.

It felt like one I’d chosen to open.