Chapter 38 #2
“They’re inseparable,” Nessie said, catching Naomi’s gaze. “Been that way since the day they met. I think Tate was the first kid who could actually keep up with Oliver’s imagination.”
“They’ll be back in ten minutes asking for more samples,” Mariah added with a wry smile. “And then off to the animals again. It’s a cycle.” She sighed. “Getting them to bed tonight is going to be a battle.”
“We can only hope they exhaust themselves with all the running back and forth,” Nessie said and picked up a small plate, filling it with three cookies and a slice of the apple-rose galette. She handed it to Naomi. “Here. You should taste these before the cookie thieves nab them all.”
Naomi accepted the plate, acutely aware of Owen hovering just behind her, his body still on alert even amid the festival’s cheerful chaos. She offered him a cookie, which he declined with a slight shake of his head. Always on duty. Never allowing himself a moment’s softness.
From the other side of the booth, a tall figure in a bright red apron emerged from beneath the archway, a stack of pastry boxes in his arms. Jax, looking impossibly domestic despite the faded prison tattoos visible on his forearms. The apron featured a cartoon cookie with a bite missing and the words “bite me” in glittery black script underneath.
The incongruity of it—this serious, scarred man in such a playful garment—made Naomi blink twice.
“Three dozen maple tarts for the mayor’s wife,” Jax announced, setting the boxes on the counter. He nodded to Naomi and Owen, his gaze lingering briefly on Owen with an unspoken question that only men with shared pasts seemed able to communicate.
“Nice apron,” Owen said, deadpan.
“Blame Oliver,” Jax replied, equally deadpan. “He picked it out. Said it matched my ‘personality.’”
“Kid’s got your number,” a new voice chimed in as River sauntered up to the booth, trailed by his golden retriever, who flopped down in a patch of sunlight with a contented sigh. “The apron’s an improvement, actually. Adds a splash of color to all that brooding.”
Jax glanced skyward, as if seeking divine patience. “Shouldn’t you be fixing something? Breaking something? Anywhere else?”
“And miss you playing Domestic Baker Ken? Not a chance.”
Jax just narrowed his eyes and pointed to the message on his apron in response.
River laughed and snagged a cookie from the display, earning a swat from Nessie. “Besides, I can’t leave yet,” he said around a bite of the cookie and nodded toward X. “I’m waiting for the crash and burn.”
Naomi followed his gaze to where X leaned against the side of the booth, talking with Mariah.
The contrast between them was almost comical—X in his jeans, leather jacket, and the white cowboy hat with the black leather band, exuding charming bad boy energy, and Mariah in her elegant satin blouse and trousers, polite but clearly unmoved by his flirtation.
“He still hasn’t given up?” Jax asked. “How many times has she shot him down?”
“Twenty times. Oh, wait.” River grinned as Mariah turned on her heel and walked away from X. “Better make that twenty-one.”
Naomi had to admit the two would make a striking couple if Mariah ever did give in to his advances. They were both beautiful people. X was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, with his flawless brown skin and megawatt smile. Mariah was classically beautiful, her skin like milk.
“Going down in flames,” River called over to X. He made a whistling sound, then mimed an explosion with his hands. X responded with a gesture that would have scandalized the PTA moms shopping nearby if they’d seen it and stalked away.
River laughed. “It’s like watching a very handsome brick wall try to seduce a glacier. I can’t decide who’s going to wear down first.”
“He needs to give up,” Jax said.
“You didn’t,” Nessie countered.
“But I wasn’t after a relationship,” Jax protested. “I just… couldn’t stay away.”
“I know.” She straightened his ridiculous apron with a fond touch and stood on her toes to kiss him. “And I’m thankful for it.”
Naomi felt a pang, watching them. Not envy exactly, but awareness of something precious.
She glanced at Owen, wondering if he felt it too—this pull toward normalcy, toward the simple joy of belonging.
His expression gave nothing away, but she noticed his posture had softened slightly.
He still scanned the crowd, still positioned himself to protect her, but some of the coiled tension had eased from his shoulders.
The cookie she bit into tasted of butter and maple, so perfectly baked that it melted on her tongue.
Around her, the festival hummed with music and laughter. For a moment, the weight of missing girls and buried secrets lifted. For a moment, she could almost believe she was just a woman enjoying a fall evening, not a target, not a crusader, not a survivor with nightmares.
Owen’s hand brushed the small of her back. “Okay?” he asked quietly.
She nodded, offering him the last bite of her cookie. To her surprise, he accepted, biting it right from her hand. A small victory—Owen Booker, accepting sweetness.
“It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he rumbled, holding her gaze. “It is.”
Over by the petting zoo, Oliver’s laugh rang out. She turned to watch as a baby goat nibbled at his sleeve. Tate stood beside him, his serious face transformed by a rare, full smile.
But then a man near them jerked his hand out of the pen, swearing loudly.
“Fucking rabbit!”
Naomi’s blood ran cold. She knew that voice. The timbre, the cadence, the particular way the consonants clipped against each other—her body recognized it before her mind could place it, muscles locking, breath caught painfully in her lungs.
“You better fucking run, Little Rabbit!”
It was him.
The sounds of the festival receded, replaced by phantom echoes—rough hands dragging her across splintered wood, the dull thud of a fist connecting with her ribs. The stench of hay and blood and fear flooded her nostrils, so vivid she nearly gagged.
“Naomi?” Owen’s voice seemed to come from miles away. His hand closed around her elbow, steadying her as the world tilted sideways. “What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t speak. Her throat had closed, her pulse thundering in her ears as memory superimposed itself over reality.
The barn.
The stall.
The footsteps approaching in the dark, bringing pain and terror.
That voice…
“You’re safe,” Owen murmured, the words meant for her alone. “I’m right here, Fury. Tell me what you need.”
She forced herself to breathe, to push back against the tide of memory threatening to drown her. She turned, scanning the crowd around the petting zoo, seeking the source of that voice.
There. Standing at the edge of the enclosure in a tribal police uniform, crisp and pressed, badge catching the festival lights as he leaned against the fence, watching the children with the animals. Watching Oliver and Tate.
“Naomi,” Owen pressed, his voice tight with concern. He clasped her face in his hands and made her look at him. “Talk to me.”
“It’s him,” she whispered, the words scraping her throat like broken glass. “He was there, in the barn. He was one of them.”
Owen went utterly still beside her, a predator scenting prey. His eyes, when they met hers, had turned to winter steel. “Who?”
She swallowed. She still couldn’t believe it was someone she knew, someone she saw in passing almost every day.
“Mitch DeverauShe’d expected questions, expected Owen to need more, to caution restraint.
She’d forgotten, for a moment, who he really was beneath the quiet control.
Not just Owen, with his gentle hands and rare smiles, but Ghost—the man whose file had pages of redacted violence, whose eyes sometimes went cold with memories of things he’d done in dark places beyond the reach of law.
“Stay here,” he said in a voice she barely recognized.
Before she could respond, he was moving—not running, not drawing attention, but cutting through the crowd with the focused intent of a predator who’d locked onto its prey.
Jax noticed first, his head snapping up as Owen passed the booth, something in his former teammate’s posture triggering an immediate alarm.
“Ghost,” Jax called, already moving to intercept, but he was too late.
Owen reached Mitch Deveraux just as the officer turned away from the petting zoo fence, and his control shattered like glass.
The first punch caught Mitch squarely in the jaw, snapping his head back with such force that his police cap went flying.
He stumbled backward, hand reaching instinctively for his weapon, but Owen was already on him, driving him to the ground with the full force of his body.
They crashed into the fence, sending children screaming and animals bleating in panic.
“What the fuck!” Mitch shouted, but his protest was cut short as Owen’s fist connected again, this time with his nose. Blood sprayed across the dirt.
Naomi stood frozen, watching as the man she loved transformed into something elemental and terrifying.
Owen didn’t fight like a bar brawler or even a trained soldier—he fought like a force of nature, each movement precise and devastatingly effective.
Grab, twist, strike. No wasted motion, no hesitation, no mercy.
“Ghost! Stop!” Boone’s voice cut through the chaos as he and Jax sprinted toward the fight, but Owen was beyond hearing.
He had Mitch pinned now, one knee crushing the officer’s sternum, one hand locked around his throat.
The other drew back for another blow, and Naomi knew with sudden, horrifying clarity that he wouldn’t stop.
That Mitch Deveraux was about to die right here, on the festival grounds, in front of children and families, at the hands of a man the system had trained to kill without hesitation.
“Owen!” she screamed. “Owen, stop!”
His head jerked toward her, eyes wild and unseeing, fist still raised.
For a heartbeat, she thought he hadn’t heard her, that the man she knew was lost in whatever dark place he’d gone to.
Then recognition flickered across his face, followed immediately by something else—not regret, not shame, but fierce protectiveness.
“He was there,” Owen snarled, loud enough for the gathering crowd to hear. “He was in that barn. He helped take her.”
Mitch’s bloody face contorted with panic. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Get this psycho off me!”
People were pulling out phones now, recording the confrontation.
Parents yanked children away from the scene, festival-goers backed up to a safe distance, and someone shouted for the sheriff.
Through the chaos, Naomi locked eyes with Jax, silently pleading.
He nodded once, understanding immediately.
“Ghost,” Jax said, approaching slowly, hands spread wide. “We got this. Look around you.”
Owen’s gaze flicked up, taking in the crowd, the phones, the children watching with wide eyes. His jaw clenched, but his raised fist lowered slightly.
“He doesn’t walk away from this,” Owen said, his voice deadly quiet.
“He won’t,” Jax promised. “But not like this. Not here.”
With visible effort, he uncurled his fingers from Mitch’s throat and rose to his feet in a single fluid movement.
Mitch immediately scrambled backward, hand going to his holster, but X was there suddenly, casually placing a boot on the officer’s wrist. “I wouldn’t,” he advised, his usual charm replaced by something much colder.
“You’re all fucking dead,” Mitch spat through bloody lips. “Assaulting an officer. Resisting arrest.”
“Funny,” Boone said, kneeling beside the fallen man with deceptive gentleness. “I didn’t see any arrest happening. What I saw was a tribal police officer being identified as a kidnapper in the middle of a public festival.”
Naomi pushed through the crowd to reach Owen, who stood unnaturally still, blood dripping from his knuckles, his eyes never leaving Mitch.
“Owen,” she said quietly, placing herself between him and his target. “Look at me.”
Slowly, painfully, his focus shifted to her face. The rage in his eyes didn’t diminish, but it transformed, becoming something controlled rather than consuming. He took a deep breath, then another. When he spoke, his voice was steady again, though threaded with steel.
“He doesn’t touch you again,” he said, the words both promise and threat. “Not ever.”
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Oh, no.
Someone had called Sheriff Goodwin.
This was about to get so much worse.