Junie’s eyes widened. “And you caught him.”
“I caught him. Fired him. Let him walk away without pressing charges because prosecution would have been messy and public and damaging to the business I’d spent twenty years building.” He ground his jaw. “He told me mercy was weakness. I thought he was making excuses for his own failures.”
“But?”
“But he was right.” The admission cost him. He felt it crack through walls he’d built so carefully around his own mistakes. “I let him go because it was easier. And he used the freedom I gave him to build Sable Acquisitions. To target vulnerable businesses. To come here, to Haven Shores, to?—”
He stopped. Couldn’t finish the sentence with her watching him, her face unreadable.
“To what?” Junie prompted.
“To hurt you.” The words came out rougher than he intended. “The attack on your shop wasn’t random, Junie. It wasn’t even primarily about the ley line or the property value. Victor chose Haven Shores because businesses here are in my investment portfolio. Because destroying them makes me look incompetent. Because—” He forced himself to hold her gaze. “Because he knew I would come here personally to investigate. And he wanted me to watch.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Weighted.
Glimmer’s scales shifted from their usual purple-green to that amber-gold that Leo had started to recognize. The color she showed when Junie was feeling complicated things about him.
“So let me get this straight.” Junie’s voice had gone dangerously even. “A man you fired five years ago has been systematically destroying Haven Shores’s businesses as revenge against you personally. My shop was targeted specifically because you’re invested in it. My grandmother’s book was stolen because—” She stopped. “Why was the book stolen? How does that fit?”
“I don’t know yet.” Leo leaned forward, the predator inside him pressing against its cage. “But I intend to find out. The encoded entries your grandmother left—someone knew about them. Knew they were valuable. Victor doesn’t move without information, and he doesn’t take risks without guaranteed returns.”
“You think someone told him about the book?”
“I think someone in Haven Shores is working with him.” It was the conclusion he’d been avoiding, but the evidence pointed nowhere else. “The attacks are too precise. Too targeted. Someone with local knowledge is feeding him information about which businesses to hit and how.”
Junie’s face went pale. “A traitor. In Haven Shores.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she picked up her pint glass and drained what was left in one long swallow.
“I hate this,” she said when she set it down. “I hate that you’re right. I hate that my shop was collateral damage in some asshole’s revenge scheme. I hate that my grandmother’s book is gone because of someone else’s grudge.” Her jaw set, stubborn and fierce. “But I especially hate that you’re sitting there blaming yourself for a situation that isn’t your fault.”
Leo blinked. “I’m not?—”
“You are. I can see it in your face. The whole ‘I should have destroyed him when I had the chance’ guilt spiral.” She pointed at him with a finger still bearing traces of Dahlia’s pastryglaze. “Victor Sable made his choices. He’s the one who built a predatory empire and targeted innocent businesses. You didn’t make him into a monster—he did that himself.”
“My mercy enabled?—”
“Your mercy was a reasonable business decision that most people would have made.” Junie’s voice cut sharply. “You’re not psychic. You couldn’t have predicted he’d spend five years planning elaborate revenge. Stop acting like every bad thing in the world is somehow your responsibility to have prevented.”
No one talked to Leo like this. Not his pride members, who respected him too much. Not his employees, who feared him too much. Not anyone, in the twenty years since he’d become alpha.
No one except this chaos witch with her ruined shop and her fierce eyes and her absolute refusal to let him wallow in guilt.
“You’re very good at that,” he heard himself say.
“At what?”
“Saying things people need to hear instead of things they want to hear.”
Her expression softened. A flicker, quickly suppressed. “Yeah, well. It’s a gift. Mostly, people find it annoying.”
“I don’t.”
Glimmer made a sound that might have been approval.
“So.” Junie broke the moment, reaching for her empty glass like she needed an occupation for her hands. “What’s the plan? I assume you have a plan. You seem like the kind of person who always has a plan.”
