Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The Problem With Silent Partners
Gideon
“So what properties will you be looking at today?” I asked Declan over breakfast the next morning.
“I don’t know for sure. She said she had a few she could show me.”
He didn’t sound excited about his plans, and that worried me. I loved that doing that meant he was committing to stay here with me, but not if he didn’t really want to do it.
“You know, if you aren’t sure you want a bakery, you could run a ghost kitchen out of the pub.”
He pushed up his glasses and looked at me with wrinkled brows. “Do you not think I should do it?”
“Declan, I think you make the best baked goods in all of Ravenstone, and if you want to open a bakery, it’ll be a huge success. I just don’t want you to feel pressured to take that step until you’re ready.”
“What makes you think I’m not ready?”
“It’s not that I think you aren’t ready. You just don’t seem like you’re overly enthusiastic about going to look at properties with Janis.”
He let out a sigh. “You’re going to think I’m being silly.”
I reached over and took his hand. “Baby, I promise you, if something’s bothering you, I won’t think it’s silly.”
“Elwood said it would be amazing if I rented the building next to his and turned it into my bakery. He sounded really excited about the idea that I would be right next door.”
“Okay, that would be a good location, so I can see why he might think that.”
“Gideon,” he said, like I was missing the point. “There were two dead bodies in that building. And two is two too many. I can’t possibly put my bakery there, but I don’t want to disappoint Elwood.”
“Elwood is thrilled that you’re here in Ravenstone, and all he wants is for you to be happy. But here’s the thing I want you to remember. This is your bakery. You said it’s what you’ve always dreamed of, so what matters is that you’re happy with its location. Not me, not Elwood, not Janis, you.”
“I think Elwood had rather I wait and focus on my magic.”
“Probably so. Because magic is his life, just like baking is yours, and he knows that. Speaking of Elwood, I need to get going. I’m supposed to meet him next door to go out to the Black Feather Brewery.”
I stood up and gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll see you later.”
Elwood was ready and waiting on me beside his microbus.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yep, let’s go.”
I climbed into the passenger’s seat and buckled my seatbelt, then I checked it just to be safe. Then I grabbed the handle above the door—purely precautionary, of course, but I’d ridden with Elwood before.
A few minutes later, Elwood said, “So Declan’s decided to open a bakery.”
The last thing I wanted to do was have a heart-to-heart about me and Declan while I was holding onto the safety handle for dear life, but at least it would be a distraction from how close he was cutting some of the curves.
“Yeah, he has.”
“So when are you two going to make this thing between you official?”
“Elwood, you know I can’t mark him.”
The old man chuckled. “You know, there are other ways of making a relationship official, wolf.”
“Like?”
“Like, rings, ceremonies, and the like. Not everyone bites their mate, you know.”
“I don’t want to rush him. It’s different for my kind. When we know, we know, but for humans or witches, it takes longer.”
“True, but you do know?”
“Yeah, Elwood. I know.”
We made the fifteen-minute drive to the brewery in ten minutes.
He came to a screeching halt in front of the building, and I let out a breath I swear I’d been holding for the last few miles.
Elwood and I weren’t here about Roy’s death.
The murder was for Grady to figure out, no matter what Eugene thought, but the hexes were another story.
Witches had their own hierarchy and rules, and in this area, Elwood was the elder.
He was very bothered by the idea that he might have a rogue witch in his territory.
However, it looked like someone had beaten us out here. The police tape had been cut, and it hung loose on the ground.
“Should we call Grady?” Elwood asked.
“Let’s check it out first. We can call him after.”
I tried the door, and it was unlocked. He followed me inside.
The brewhouse was quiet. Too quiet. No hum of machinery, no clatter of bottles, no low murmur of a tour group.
Just the faint drip of something somewhere deeper in the building and the lingering weight of what had happened. My wolf didn’t like it.
“Do you want to start up there, and I’ll check the office?”
I looked up to where he pointed, my eyes immediately drawn to the vat Roy had been pulled from.
“We should stick together since we don’t know if anyone is still here,” I said.
Elwood paused near a rack of barrels, eyes half-lidded, as if he was listening to something no one else could hear. I stopped and listened.
The side doors were closed, but my shifter hearing was able to pick up on what was happening inside. Papers shuffling fast, frantic. A drawer slamming.
I turned toward the office at the same time Elwood did, and we reached the doorway together. I opened the door and Nadia stood behind the desk, surrounded by chaos.
Drawers hung open. Papers were spread across every available surface, some stacked, most not. A file lay overturned on the floor, its contents spilling out like something gutted.
She froze when she saw us, and for a second, no one said anything. Then she straightened, one hand bracing against the desk, the other instinctively dropping to the curve of her stomach.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, but there wasn’t any real bite behind it. Just exhaustion.
“Neither should you,” I said.
Elwood’s eyes flicked over the mess, and I knew he was searching for anything related to the hexes. “Looking for something specific?”
Nadia’s gaze snapped to him, then away just as fast. “I thought this place was going to be mine. That I could find someone to handle the brewing and fulfill the Kettlebrook contract.”
I glanced at Elwood. His expression was calm, but his eyes were watchful.
“What do you mean?” I asked. We’d all assumed the same. “Is that not what happened?”
Nadia swallowed hard and grabbed a stack of papers off the desk, shoving them toward me with a shaking hand.
“Read it,” she said. “Go on.”
I took them. It was a stack of legal documents. A partnership agreement with percentages and clauses. And one name that shouldn’t have surprised me—but did.
Fletcher Lewis.
“Fletcher is a co-owner of the brewery?” I asked.
“Silent partner,” Nadia snapped. “Funny how silent he managed to be about it, huh?”
Elwood leaned in slightly, reading over my shoulder. “The percentage is significant.”
“Yeah.” Nadia’s laugh cracked this time. “Yeah, it is, and what’s worse, there’s a clause in there that says if one of them dies, the surviving partner gets the whole thing. Me and the baby… we get nothing.”
“What did Roy plan to do with the money from Kettlebrook?” I asked.
Nadia let out a breath that sounded like it hurt.
“Like he said on the panel Monday night. He was going to expand,” she said. “Upgrade the equipment. Increase production. Hire more staff. He said this was our chance to really make something of the place.”
“All of it?” Elwood asked.
“All of it.” She gestured helplessly at the papers. “He already signed a contract and everything. He said once it was done, we’d never have to worry again,” Nadia whispered. “That everything would be taken care of.”
Her fingers curled tighter against her stomach.
“I’ll have this baby any day now,” she went on, voice trembling. “And his father didn’t provide for him. Not really. Not in a way that matters.”
Silence pressed in around us, and I watched her carefully. Her distress was real. My wolf didn’t scent guilt on her. No fear of being caught. Just… fear. Fear of what came next.
“Did you know about Fletcher?” Elwood asked gently.
“No.” Nadia shook her head hard. “No, I didn’t. If I had—” She cut herself off, swallowing whatever came next. “I wouldn’t have… I mean—”
She stopped again.
Elwood’s gaze flicked to her, catching that stumble.
“I thought Roy had set things up,” she said instead. “For us. For the baby. I thought… I thought I was going to be okay.” She looked around the office like it had betrayed her personally. “But I guess not.”
I set the papers back down on the desk.
“Have you seen Fletcher since yesterday?” I asked.
“No.” Nadia’s answer was immediate. “I tried calling him when I found the papers. He didn’t answer.”
She sagged back into the chair behind the desk, one hand braced under her belly, the other still clutching the edge of the paperwork like it might change if she held on tight enough.
“I just needed things to go right,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “For him. For us.”
I felt bad for her because things hadn’t gone right. Not even close.
I glanced at Elwood. He gave a small shake of his head—no magic here. Nothing lingering. Nothing obvious.
“We should go,” Elwood said quietly.
I nodded.
“Nadia,” I said. “We need to call Grady and let him know what you found.”
She looked up at me, eyes red-rimmed and tired, and nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
We left her there, surrounded by papers and broken expectations. The air in the brewhouse felt heavier than on the way in. Outside, I paused, drawing in a breath that didn’t taste like hops and death while my wolf paced.
“Thoughts?” I asked.
Elwood looked out over the tree line like he might find answers there, and who knows, maybe he would. “I’m sure Roy thought he was doing the right thing. He was excited about being a father.”
I looked back at the brewery. “Roy’s death, the contest, and the hexes are connected somehow.”
Elwood nodded sadly. “I think so.”