CHAPTER 15
JONATHAN
The café sat on the edge of the plaza, all chrome fixtures and manicured ivy, with windows that gleamed like ice. The kind of place where meetings were brokered over pour-overs and everyone spoke like they were being recorded.
I held the door for her. She didn’t say thank-you. Didn’t need to.
We stepped inside. The scent of roasted espresso and rosemary butter filled the air.
It was too clean, too polished. There was no grit, no bark, no trace of a soul.
Just soft bland jazz, filtered light, and faint holographic menus hovering between tables, flickering softly as they updated.
A row of potted plants sat nearby, looking artificial and like they cost more than the truck I drove in on.
Blanchette walked ahead of me, posture tight, shoulders squared like she was bracing for impact. I couldn’t tell if it was me she was guarded against or this whole damn city. Maybe both.
We found a table near the window.
“I appreciate you making the time,” I said.
She didn’t meet my eyes. “You said it was about my grandmother.”
“It is,” I replied, folding my hands on the table. “But also about what I said back at the Hollow.”
A beat of silence stretched between us.
Then a server came, young and obligatorily cheerful. Blanche ordered a black coffee. I asked for the same, then changed my mind. “Actually, on second thought…I’ll take whatever your lightest roast is. With cream and sugar.”
“You got it,” the waitress said. Turning to walk away, she pointed out, “Sugar’s on the table.”
Blanche’s brow twitched, like my order surprised her. Maybe it surprised me too.
I let out a quiet chuckle. “Huh. Must’ve picked that up from your grandmother.”
She glanced over, puzzled. “How so?”
“Well…June liked her sugar.”
Blanche blinked. “My grandmother? The one who rarely ever used sugar in her baking, saying the fruit was sweet enough already?”
“Yeah.”
Blanche narrowed her eyes slightly, intrigued. “I rarely saw her eat her own baked goods. She’d give them all to the neighbors before they even cooled.”
“She had a stash of sugar,” I said. “A whole system, really. It started when I used to drive her to the market. On the way back, we’d stop at Goldie’s for crepes. She ordered the same thing every single time—lingonberry with butter and lemon.”
Blanche blinked again, like the image didn’t compute.
“After I’d pay the bill,” I went on, “she’d swipe exactly three sugar packets—one raw, one white, and one of those pink ones she claimed were poison.
She’d use the first two and never touch the pink.
When I asked why she took it if she wasn’t gonna use it, she’d just shrug and say, ’Cause I like the color. ”
“You’re kidding,” Blanche said, incredulous. Just then the waitress returned, depositing our coffee mugs on the table before sliding away.
“Seriously. She kept them in that little tin in her pantry—the one with the horse and carriage on the lid.”
Blanche blinked. “Oh, my gods. My entire childhood, she’d even limit how much jam I could have, even though she baked constantly!”
“You were on the no-sugar list. I was on the crepe-and-contraband express,” I said, pouring in my cream and dumping in the sugar.
That made her momentarily laugh, but it faded quickly. Her expression softened into something wistful.
“I always thought she kept receipts in that tin,” she murmured. “That’s what she told me anyway. It’s boxed up with the rest of her stuff. I never even thought to check.”
I gave a quiet chuckle. “Mystery solved, then.”
Blanche looked down, running her thumb along her mug. “It’s strange to think she had secrets. She always seemed so transparent to me. Like I never had to guess with her.”
She shook her head slowly, then smiled—the first real one since I’d arrived. Some of the tension in her shoulders finally let go.
“I meant what I said about June. She was one of the best people I’ve ever known. Not just kind, but sharp. She saw things in people others missed.”
Blanche looked out the window. “She always tried to see the best in me.”
“She did,” I said quietly. “She talked about you often with pride…and half the time it felt like a pitch. Like she was playing matchmaker. I expected to receive your résumé from her at one point.”
That got her to look up, her cheeks going a little pink. She took a sip from her coffee.
“And I have to admit…I judged you initially,” I said.
“You don’t say,” came her dry tone, making me sigh.
“Not because of who you are, obviously…but because of who I thought you were. I let my own judgment of a stranger, based off pieces of the puzzle, make the picture for me. It got in the way of actually getting to know you first hand.”
She nodded once, slow. “I judged you too. I thought you were just some…mountain recluse with a grudge against the world.”
“You weren’t wrong,” I said with dry half smile.
That earned the smallest exhale from her. Not a laugh, but close enough.
“I didn’t mean to be gone for so long. I just… Work got in the way. I let it. That’s on me and it always will be. I can’t change it, no matter how much I wish I could.”
I waited.
Her fingers tightened around her mug. “I never thought I’d be the kind of person who lost track of time. Or people.”
“You weren’t,” I said. “You just didn’t realize how far gone you were until someone pointed it out. I know the feeling.”
She looked at me again—really looked this time. She appeared uncertain, hesitant, but still asked, “Was that what it was like for you? Leaving Graymore?”
I hadn’t talked about it since I’d left. Not with anyone. Not even May. Especially not May.
I was too ashamed of how I’d ended up back in Juniper Woods.
“When people ask why I left Graymore, I usually give them the surface answer: Burnout. Disillusionment. The grind. It’s not untrue…just incomplete.”
I paused.
“There was this case—the one you talked about. Helix Trust. A racketeering trial. Big, the kind that makes careers. I was the lead defense. Everyone wanted a win. The firm. The press. Even the judge. And I gave it to them.” I glanced out the window, then back at her.
“There was this witness…Caleb Mercer. Junior analyst. Nervous kid, but honest. He brought forward a stack of evidence no one else dared to touch. He was pressured to testify. Promised protection.”
I swallowed before taking a slow sip from my coffee.
“A week after he took the stand, he was dead. It was ruled a suicide, but I knew better. I could smell the lie. Too many things didn’t add up.
The timeline, the crime scene, the condition of his apartment…
the evidence. It was like someone staged a cautionary tale. ”
Blanche took it in quietly, her face pale. “Meg was concerned, so she sent me a few things. Then I did my own research.”
I looked up at her, surprised. “So, you also know that I’m…”
“A Lycan?” she finished softly. “Yes. Sorry. I should have told you I knew. I mean, I had guessed…up at Cryer’s Point.”
Guilt pulled at me. “You’re not the one who should be apologizing. I should’ve told you.”
She shook her head, her eyes steady. “I understand you not wanting to discuss the case, but…you could have told me what you are.”
“I meant to,” I admitted quietly, “but…in my experience, folks don’t really like us. They certainly don’t trust us, especially humans.”
And I wanted you to like me, I couldn’t help but add silently. Until I’d ruined it.
Her brows furrowed. “I would have understood. You know I work with your kind.”
“And how do you feel about them?” I cut in, sharper than intended.
Blanche froze, caught off guard. She didn’t answer.
“Exactly,” I said, leaning back. “My kind have been persecuted for centuries, and no matter who you are or how successful you become, it follows you like a curse. I knew how you felt about your boss. Thought you might feel the same way about me.”
Her expression softened as she reflected. “Well, for what it’s worth…you’re nothing like him.”
I huffed a humorless laugh. “And yet we share the same nature. There’s a reason so many of my kind make it to high places in this world—because ambition becomes our prey and we hunt it down at all costs. I’m not saying that to frighten you, but it’s true.”
Blanche took it all in well, considering the circumstances. “You didn’t know any of this was going on?”
My jaw cracked, and I lowered my voice. “You can’t work in that field and not be aware of corruption.
It’s everywhere. I just didn’t know how deep it ran, how people who I thought I knew, and even trusted to a degree, sold me out.
I was lead council, and I was the one who was most in the dark.
” I exhaled slowly before continuing. “I still see his face sometimes. Not in dreams. Just…places. Street corners. Reflections. That look right before he stepped into the courtroom, like he knew he wouldn’t walk back out the same.
I know I didn’t do anything, but I still feel I’m responsible. Why the fuck is that?”
Blanche’s voice was quiet but steady when it came. “I didn’t know. I’m…sorry.”
I gave a small nod, acknowledging her words. “Then…not even a week later, my father died. Heart failure.”
I stared down at the table for a moment, stirring my spoon in my mug, watching the swirl of cream.
“We weren’t close toward the end. Hadn’t talked in years.
He did express at one point that he wanted me back to help with the land.
To take up the family mantle. I called it a fantasy, told him I had bigger things to do.
But when I got the call…something cracked.
Suddenly the city felt like a coffin. My suits didn’t fit right. The skyline made me nauseous.”
“And so you left,” she finished quietly.
I nodded. “I returned to Juniper Woods telling myself it was to pick up the pieces after he died, but what it really was… It was a clean slate.”
I looked directly into her eyes now.
She tilted her head slightly, the edge of her lip catching on a half smile. “And have you found that? Your clean slate?”