Page 112 of A Witchy Spell Ride

“I knew you were smart. But you never saw me, not until now.”

“That’s not true,” I lied with a sugar-sweet smile.

He turned back to me, eyes wide, shining with delusion. “We can start over. I’ll fix this. I just need time.”

“How long?” I asked softly. “How long have you been watching me?”

He stepped back toward the altar, ran a finger across the blade laid beside my lipstick. “Since the day you brought me that free coffee.”

“What?”

“You were working the counter at the shop. It was raining. I didn’t have cash on me yet—I was waiting for the club to process my hangaround paperwork. You gave me a coffee and said, ‘Don’t worry, the first one’s on the house.’”

I remembered. Barely. A blur of customer faces. Wet streets and exhausted smiles. But he’d held onto it like a vow.

“I knew then,” he whispered, “you were mine.”

No.

I wasn’t.

Not then.

Not now.

Not ever.

But I kept my mouth shut and my face soft. Because if he kept talking, maybe he’d slip. Maybe he’d give me something I could use.

Or maybe… maybe Ghost was already close. And maybe this bastard was about to die screaming.

“Why the roses?” I asked, tilting my head like a girl in a perfume ad. “They bruise too easily.”

He brightened. “Because you’re delicate and strong at once. You know how roses get tougher when you prune them? It’s like that. They’re prettier when they’ve been… guided.”

“Pruned,” I echoed. “Cut back until they fit your garden.”

His smile faltered and then regrouped. “Until they thrive.”

“And the card?” I nodded toThe Lovers—the cheap knockoff with the man X’ed out and another card under it, edges greasy from too much touching. “You always cross out him. Why not her?”

“You never needed erasing,” he said, and there was genuine hurt there, a warped kindness. “You just need reminding.”

I let my gaze slide to his hands. He wore thin latex gloves—the kind you buy one pair at a time at the corner store. They smelled like citrus and garage sink: our degreaser. I pictured him at the clubhouse sink washing away prints, invisible as a shadow in a busy house. Average men make the best ghosts.

“You looped the camera in the west hall,” I said, casual, like I was asking who’d taken the last donut. “Ten seconds.”

His chest puffed. Pride likes being seen. “Cross thinks he’s clever, but he’s predictable. The junction points were old. No one fixed them because no one thinks about the west hall unless you live there.”

“Except me,” I said.

Except Ghost, I didn’t add.

He drifted closer, candlelight cutting hollows into his cheeks. “He changed you.”

“He didn’t,” I said, and kept my voice soft, not sharp. You don’t spook a man like this; you let him step into his own trap. “He just held up a mirror.”

Briggs’s mouth twisted. “Mirrors lie.”