diff --git a/HISTORY.md b/HISTORY.md
index 238a4ac7c..94ee05da3 100644
--- a/HISTORY.md
+++ b/HISTORY.md
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 * Fixed a bug of secondary instance's last_sequence going backward, and reads on the secondary fail to see recent updates from the primary.
 * Fixed a bug that could lead to duplicate DB ID or DB session ID in POSIX environments without /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid.
 * Fix a race in DumpStats() with column family destruction due to not taking a Ref on each entry while iterating the ColumnFamilySet.
+* Fix a race in item ref counting in LRUCache when promoting an item from the SecondaryCache.
 
 ### New Features
 * RemoteCompaction's interface now includes `db_name`, `db_id`, `session_id`, which could help the user uniquely identify compaction job between db instances and sessions.
diff --git a/cache/lru_cache.cc b/cache/lru_cache.cc
index 689242ca9..bab58a2a2 100644
--- a/cache/lru_cache.cc
+++ b/cache/lru_cache.cc
@@ -360,7 +360,10 @@ Status LRUCacheShard::InsertItem(LRUHandle* e, Cache::Handle** handle,
       if (handle == nullptr) {
         LRU_Insert(e);
       } else {
-        e->Ref();
+        // If caller already holds a ref, no need to take one here
+        if (!e->HasRefs()) {
+          e->Ref();
+        }
         *handle = reinterpret_cast<Cache::Handle*>(e);
       }
     }
@@ -398,11 +401,7 @@ void LRUCacheShard::Promote(LRUHandle* e) {
   if (e->value) {
     Cache::Handle* handle = reinterpret_cast<Cache::Handle*>(e);
     Status s = InsertItem(e, &handle, /*free_handle_on_fail=*/false);
-    if (s.ok()) {
-      // InsertItem would have taken a reference on the item, so decrement it
-      // here as we expect the caller to already hold a reference
-      e->Unref();
-    } else {
+    if (!s.ok()) {
       // Item is in memory, but not accounted against the cache capacity.
       // When the handle is released, the item should get deleted
       assert(!e->InCache());