Page 50 of A Witchy Spell Ride

“Put it at the top,” he said.

I did something reckless then. Not in the way Reaper would call reckless. In the way I would. I reached up and put my palm flat against Ghost’s chest. Over his T-shirt. Over the heartbeat that had kept rhythm with mine for two nights now.

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t swallow me whole either. He just covered my hand with his.

“Okay,” I whispered, and I didn’t know if I meant the plan, or the day, or us.

A soft knock at the door broke whatever was about to come next. Briar poked her head in. “Hate to interrupt your sexy OSHA-compliant moment,” she said, “but the gallery across the street sent Cross a still frame of Mr. Romance. We got a face.”

Ghost’s hand squeezed mine once and let go. “Show us.”

Briar waggled her brows at me like later and disappeared. We followed.

Cross had the image on his tablet — a reflection in a window, sharpened and clarified until a jawline and a cap and a beard resolved into a face that wasn’t familiar. That was worse than if it had been.

“Run it?” Reaper asked.

“Already sent to two favors and one friend who owes me a kidney,” Cross said.

“Gross,” Briar said. “But also, hot.”

I stared at the face and felt nothing even as I felt everything: the drawer sliding, the photo burning, the handwriting like a sear. A stranger who had decided I was a story he got to write.

“No,” I murmured, surprising myself again. “I’m the one who writes it.”

Ghost glanced sideways at me, a quick flash of heat and approval.

Reaper laid a hand on my shoulder, heavy, grounding. “Dusk,” he said. “We walk.”

I nodded. Ghost nodded. Briar saluted. Cross rolled his eyes like a prayer.

And for the first time since the envelope, since the drawer, since the gray morning where the sun didn’t bother, I felt something like a future slide into place.

Not because the danger was gone.

Because we were finally moving toward it.

Chapter Fifteen

Ghost

I got her out in under twelve minutes.

No arguments. No delays.

Selene packed a bag in silence, just essentials and handed me the charm Briar had given her like it was something sacred. We didn’t speak much; I didn't need to. Everything had already been said. Someone had been in her apartment. Watching us. Documenting us. Not just her, but me, too. As if I’d stolen something he thought was his.

He hadn’t left fingerprints.

But he’d left intent.

And that was worse.

On the stairs I walked ahead of her, not because I didn’t trust her footing, but because I trusted my back less. I took the corners wide. Listened for the wrong kind of quiet, the vacuum-suck silence a man makes when he holds breath to be smaller than the walls.

Outside, Reaper was waiting at the gate.

He didn’t yell. Didn’t growl. Just looked at Selene like he could see every crack in her armor. He didn’t sayI told you so.He put his hand on her shoulder and tipped his head toward the clubhouse like church. She went in without breaking.