Chapter 31 #2
The florist shop is a quaint little place tucked between a coffee shop and an art gallery, its window display featuring winter arrangements. White poinsettias, frosted pinecones, and wreaths wrapped in red velvet ribbon. I pull up just as an elderly woman flips the sign to “Closed.”
I’m out of the car before she can lock the door. She looks up through the glass, takes in my expression and whatever desperation is written there, and her features soften. The lock clicks, and she opens the door.
“We’re closed, but you look like a man with an emergency.”
“Something like that.” I step inside, breathing in the dense floral scent. “I need red dahlias. As many as you have.”
She moves behind the counter, already assessing her stock. “Red dahlias specifically? That’s particular.”
“They’re her favorite.”
“Ah.” Understanding crosses her face. “And you need to apologize.”
“That obvious?”
She pulls buckets of flowers from the cooler.
“Honey, I’ve been doing this for forty years.
I know an apology arrangement when I see one coming.
” She selects dahlias first, then adds white lilies and cream roses.
“These lilies symbolize regret. The white roses convey a sincere apology. And your red dahlias—those are devotion.”
I watch her hands work, building something that looks both elegant and intentional.
“Will it help?” I ask.
She glances up, her brown eyes kind but honest. “Depends on what you did. But it’s a good start.”
I sign the credit card slip and add five thousand to the tip line. Her eyes widen when she glances at it, but I’m already on my way out the door.
My phone rings as I pass the town limits. Cade’s name flashes on the dash display. I tap to answer.
“Yeah?”
“We’ve got a problem. Caleb Hunter was spotted heading toward the sanctuary twenty minutes ago. Alone, driving erratically.”
Ice floods my veins. “Luna?”
“Still in the main house. Cameras show her letting Shadow out the back door for his evening run.”
Fuck. That means her protector is outside when she needs him most.
“Patch me into the feed.” I press harder on the accelerator. The Range Rover responds, engine roaring as I take the curves faster than I should.
“Check your screen.”
The dashboard display splits to show multiple camera angles from inside Luna’s house.
She’s moving around the kitchen, unaware of the danger approaching.
The soft flannel shirt she’s wearing, one of her grandfather’s she loves so much, drowns her slight frame, sleeves rolled to her elbows.
Her blonde hair tumbles from a messy knot at her nape, the strands falling across her cheek as she turns.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. She looks so damn beautiful, so unguarded, with no clue what’s coming.
“How far out are you?”
“Fifteen minutes, maybe less if I don’t wrap this car around a fucking tree.”
I’m going seventy on roads designed for forty, but I don’t give a fuck. Nothing matters except getting to Luna.
“There’s more. He stopped at Murphy’s Gun Shop two hours ago. Picked up a Glock 19 and ammunition. He ordered it online a week ago.”
The world goes red around the edges. This piece of shit thinks he can come to Luna’s sanctuary armed? Thinks he can threaten the woman I love?
“How does a man with a restraining order against him buy a fucking gun?”
“I don’t know. Colorado law prohibits it, but I’ll have our people look into it.”
It won’t matter because I’m going to kill him tonight.
“Alert the sheriff. Anonymous tip about an armed, intoxicated man heading toward the sanctuary.”
“Already done, but she’s responding to a domestic on the other side of the county. ETA fifty-five minutes minimum.”
Fifty-five minutes. Luna could be dead in five.
“Grab the helicopter and get your ass back here. Now.”
“On my way. Damien—”
“What?”
“Don’t do anything stupid. We can’t afford to have the sheriff looking at you any closer than she already is.”
Too late for that. If Hunter touches one hair on Luna’s head, I’ll paint the walls with his blood and deal with the consequences later.
I end the call and focus on the road, but my eyes keep flicking to the screen.
“Call Luna.”
The phone rings through the speakers, but Luna doesn’t react, and I don’t hear her phone ringing.
Where is your fucking phone, Luna?
The call goes to voicemail.
Fuck!
Luna’s moved to the living room now, checking her watch. She’s expecting me and has no idea that her psychotic ex-boyfriend is minutes away from her door.
The camera feeds Cade patched through give me eyes everywhere.
Interior angles, exterior perimeter, and blind spots I built into the system myself.
The bitter irony isn’t lost on me that the surveillance system I installed to spy on her is now the only thing allowing me to watch her potential murder in real time.
But right now, I’m grateful for every lens, every angle, every pixel that shows me she’s still alive.
Luna pauses, head tilted like she’s listening. Then she moves to the window and peers through the glass. Everything about her posture changes. Relaxation drains away, replaced by rigid tension.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I press the accelerator to the floor. The Range Rover’s engine screams as I take a hairpin turn, tires squealing against the asphalt.
The microphone I disabled weeks ago so I wouldn’t accidentally trigger it is my enemy now.
I can’t warn her. But the audio comes through crystal clear as Luna backs away from her front door.
Caleb stumbles up her front porch steps, his heavy footsteps and the aggressive pounding on the wood making her flinch.
“Luna! Open this fucking door!” Hunter’s voice is slurred. “I know you’re in there!”
She approaches the door, calling through it. “Caleb, you need to leave. You’re violating the restraining order.”
The laugh that escapes his lips is ugly and bitter. “That piece of paper destroyed my life, you bitch! Open the door, or I’ll kick it in!”
My hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel. I’m still eight minutes out, and every second feels like an eternity watching this unfold.
“I’m calling the sheriff.”
“Go ahead! By the time she gets here, we’ll be long gone. You and I are taking a little trip, baby. Just like old times.”
There’s a crash as Hunter throws his body into the door. Luna stumbles backward and fumbles around, feeling for her phone in her pocket, and then her face fills with panic when she realizes it’s not there.
Go upstairs and get your grandfather’s shotgun, Luna!
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be!” Hunter’s voice booms through the door.
Another crash, and this time the door bursts open. Hunter stumbles inside, his face flushed with alcohol and rage.
“There’s my beautiful ex-girlfriend. Miss me, baby?”
“How dare you break into my house!” Luna backs toward the kitchen, her chin up in that stubborn way I know so well. “What do you want, Caleb?”
“I want my life back!”
Hunter advances on her. Her eyes whip around the room, like she’s calculating distances, looking for escape routes.
That’s my girl.
“I want you to call your lawyer and tell him you’re revoking the restraining order. I want you to admit you lied about me hitting you.”
“It wasn’t a lie.”
Hunter’s face twists with rage, and he lunges at her. Luna tries to dodge, but he’s faster than his drunken stumbling suggests. His hand cracks across her face, the sound making my vision go crimson with fury.
“You always were too mouthy for your own good.” He grabs her wrist as she tries to back away.
Luna fights back. She’s not some helpless victim. Her free hand comes up, nails raking down his face and leaving angry red trails in their wake.
“Let go of me!”
She wrenches her body away, but he outweighs her by sixty pounds.
He uses that advantage, slamming her against the counter.
The impact drives air from her lungs in a visible gasp.
Before she can recover, his hand swings back and connects with her face again—harder this time.
Her lip splits, blood welling at the corner of her mouth.
“Stop fighting me, Luna. You brought this on yourself.”
Purple blooms across her cheekbone. Blood trails from the corner of her mouth. The dashboard clock mocks me.
Two minutes and forty seconds away.
Hunter’s hand disappears behind his back. When it reappears, black metal glints in his grip. He levels the Glock at her face.
“Now, we’re going to have a real conversation about how you’re going to fix what you did to my life.”
Luna stares down the barrel of the gun. All color drains from her face except for the blood from her split lip, but she holds her ground. Even bleeding, even staring down a gun, her chin lifts in defiance.
“You’re drunk, Caleb.” Fear roughens the edges of her words, but her voice holds steady despite the tremor underneath threatening to break through. “Put the gun down before you do something you can’t take back.”
“The only thing I can’t take back is letting you destroy me.” Hunter waves the gun in the air. “Do you know what it’s like, Luna, to lose everything because one vindictive bitch decided to—”
Shadow materializes from the darkness beyond the threshold like a force of nature, 180 pounds of protective fury.
Every line of his massive frame screams lethal intent, muscles bunched, and ears pinned flat against his skull.
His lips peel back to reveal fangs designed for crushing bone and tearing flesh.
The growl that rolls from his chest carries the promise of swift, brutal justice for anyone who dares to threaten Luna.
Hunter spins toward the sound, the weapon swinging wild and dangerous. “What the fuck—”
Shadow explodes into motion. The wolf that Luna has raised with gentle hands and patient love vanishes, replaced by something primal and savage, the instinct to protect her awakening the inherent fierce wolf inside him.
The gun goes off as Hunter staggers backward, the bullet wild and high, lodging in the wall in the hallway, but Shadow’s momentum carries him into Hunter’s outstretched arm.
They crash to the floor in a chaos of fangs and flesh.
Hunter’s screams mix with the wet sound of tearing fabric and crunching bone.
The gun discharges again, the explosion deafening in the confined space.
Shadow jerks and staggers sideways, crimson spreading along his gray ribs where the bullet carved its path.
But his paws find purchase on the hardwood, and he positions himself between Hunter and Luna like a living shield.
Luna’s voice breaks on his name, anguish and fear bleeding through every syllable.
Hunter scrambles for the gun he dropped, blood streaming from the bite wound on his arm, cursing as Shadow circles him like the predator he is.