Page 51 of A Witchy Spell Ride

Cross met us by the stairs, phone in hand, already coordinating with Thorne to upgrade the compound’s outer perimeter and run every plate within three blocks of Selene’s shop over the past month.

Ghosts don’t hide from men like Cross.

They get dragged into the light.

Bones pulled up a chair near the entrance, setting up his own kind of welcome mat — a crowbar, two throwing knives, and a fuck-off stare that could break ribs. Vex was behind the bar with a glass he wasn’t drinking, eyes cutting to the door every time it breathed.

Selene didn’t ask questions. Just moved through the clubhouse like someone being carried by instinct. She paused in front of her old room, the one with the scratched-up door and the blackout curtains that once kept hangovers safe and secrets safer.

“I’m not a prisoner,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

“No,” I said. “You’re the queen in a house full of killers.”

She looked at me. And for the first time, I saw fear shift into something else.Power.Fire banked low.

She nodded once and stepped inside. Briar followed close behind, already declaring she’d redecorate in skulls and glitter if Selene let her. Selene rolled her eyes, and the room exhaled for the first time.

I gave them space. Then I turned around and went back to the one place I didn’t want her anymore. Her apartment. Thebuilding was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that screamedcome closer. I didn’t.

I moved slow. Gloves on. Weapon holstered. Every step deliberate like I was walking a pressure plate field again. The corridor smelled like last night’s gumbo and old bleach and something new underneath, faint as a secret.

I swept the apartment inch by inch, bottom up. Cleared the kitchen first, cabinets, fridge top, under the sink. Then the living room, behind the couch, under cushions, beneath the rug where people who watch too much TV hide their sins. I checked the smoke alarm, the vent, the lamp shades, the corners where a camera could sit and pretend to be a screw. Nothing. No signs of forced entry. No new notes. No leftover objects.

But something felt wrong.

There’s a weight a room takes when it’s been looked at in the wrong way. Not touched. Studied.The hairs on my arm lifted like radar. I stood in the hallway and listened, not for sound, but for the gap where sound should be and wasn’t. A drip that should’ve been a drip. The hum of a cheap camera that should’ve whined when light hit plastic.

I opened the hall closet last. The one near the bathroom. And there it was. A single red string. Nailed into the inside of the door. Not tied, Not hung, Nailed.

Deliberate. Violent. A statement.

I didn’t touch it. Didn’t need to. The message was clear. He knew. He knew I’d come back here. Knew I’d check. I knew I’dfind it. This wasn’t just about Selene anymore. This was about me. The intruder wasn’t just watching her. He was watching us.

And this?

This was a challenge. A sick, silent dare.

Step closer. Try and take her. See what happens.

I closed the closet door gently. Then I stepped back. And smiled.

Because the bastard just made the biggest mistake of his life.

He made it personal.

I set the room the way men do when they intend to come back. Hair across the latch. Chalk tick marks on hinges and window frames so light you’d call them dust. A sliver of mirror tucked under the eave to catch a reflection of a face that leaned too close. I slid a thin slice of aluminum foil behind the deadbolt strike if the bolt slid even a whisper while I was gone, I’d know. I left one whisper of aftershave on the bathroom counter that wasn’t mine, a decoy scent in case he was that kind of animal.

On my way out, I took a photo of the nail head and the red string. Sent it to Cross with one line:

Nailed thread. Closet. He knows my cadence.

Cross replied with a dot and then a second later with:

On my way w/ kit. Don’t breathe on it.

I didn’t. I shut the door. Set another hair on the latch. Walked away like I was leaving something I wasn’t done with because I wasn’t.

Back at the clubhouse, Reaper met me in the hall outside Selene’s room. He had that look like he’d swallowed glass and smiled anyway.