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.
