Chapter 9
Colt
Denver Luxe is in my car. She’s in my car, and it’s fucking strange, but what’s stranger is why she’s in my car.
She saved my life. Or Finn’s life, depending on who they were trying to kill, but given that it was a Capelli, I’m assuming I was the target. Vince clearly hasn’t let the bone-breaking incident go.
Denver is soaked, her gray hoody darkened by the sprinkler water, pieces of her hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks.
I’m not much better, but luckily, I’ve just been shopping with Holly, and I’d dropped my clothes off in the car before taking her for ice cream with Helena McEwan.
Holly was exhausted and fell asleep, so Helena took her home, and I’ve never been so fucking relieved that she did.
If she’d been in that restaurant … I don’t know what I’d have done. She could have been hurt. She would definitely have been traumatized.
I brush the feeling aside to focus on the disaster happening in real time.
Denver. Still in my car. The town car is similar to a limo, with two rows of seats facing each other and a glass partition separating us from the driver.
It’s lowered right now. Taf is driving, and his gaze keeps flicking from the road to the rearview.
I grab the shopping bag from the seat across from us, and unbutton my shirt. I pull it off, and I can almost hear Denver recoiling.
“What are you doing?”
“My shirt is wet.” I toss the soaked item onto another seat, keeping my back to her as I tear open the packaging to another. I pull it on and button it up. “Do you want one?”
“One what?”
“A shirt. Your clothes are wet, too.”
She scoffs. “I don’t want your fucking clothes.”
A muscle tics in my jaw as I face her. “Denver, it’s freezing outside—”
“We’re not outside.”
“Points for observation, but you will be when you get out of the car, so do you want a shirt or not?”
“No.”
This fucking woman.
“Fine.” I sit back. “Which hotel?”
She folds her arms. “I’m not telling you.”
“Then we can explore the city while you freeze to death. Which. Fucking. Hotel?”
The anger is practically radiating off her. “The Rosalia.”
“Thank you. Taf, the Rosalia.”
He grunts in response and puts up the partition, as if maybe he’s sick of her, too. We sit in silence as we ride, and the traffic is likely due to the cops who are on their way to the restaurant. Finn will have left in his own car but will be on the phone to whoever can clean up this mess quietly.
“How do you know it was the Capellis?”
“Contacts,” she says, staring out the window.
“What contacts?”
She looks at me, her smile sardonic. “Secret ones.”
I hope she does freeze. “Ones you’re willing to protect if the Capellis start cutting your fingers off?”
“You worry about you, I’ll worry about me,” she says, facing the window again. She suddenly pats her jacket and jeans pocket. “We have to go back. I left my phone.”
“Returning to the murder scene isn’t advised. Get a new one.”
“But I need to call—” She pauses. “Never mind.”
I fish my phone out of my pants pocket. “You can call Ranger from my phone. I have his number.”
She eyes me. “Why?”
“I thought I’d need it one day.” Our gazes lock, and only then does it really hit me that this is Denver Luxe.
It’s her eyes that make me pause.
The deep, steel gray, the ring of darkness on her outer iris that makes the color more penetrating.
Her lashes are darker than her hair, which is currently a blood red as it slowly dries from the heat inside the car.
Her plump lips are a soft pink, and droplets of freckles cover her nose and some of her cheeks.
The last time we were this close, she was unconscious, but now she’s very much awake.
Alert. Alive. That life radiates from her like a beacon.
Everything she’s feeling flits across her face in real time—the pull of her auburn brows, the line between them that deepens with every second, and the fire behind her eyes that tells me she very much dislikes me.
But she also saved me.
“Why?”
Her frown deepens. “Why what?”
“Why did you kill him?”
White teeth press into her bottom lip, a moment of deliberation from someone who seemed so sure only seconds ago. “I don’t need your phone.” She looks away, the conversation clearly over.
Except it’s not. Not for me. She saved my life for a reason, and I don’t like being left in the dark.
I never thought I’d have one-on-one time with Denver again, and since leaving San Francisco last week, I’ve regretted not making the most of having her close.
In those few minutes I wasted flirting with her and taunting Ranger, I could have tried a different approach—appealing to her humanity.
“While we’re here, we should talk.”
“Nope.”
I glare at the side of her face. “You can give me five minutes.”
“I don’t have to give you anything, Colt,” she says. I ignore the way my name sounds on her tongue. Like a whipcrack. Like an insult. “You saved me. I saved you. We’re even.”
“Is that why you did it? A life for a life?”
“Something like that, yes.”
She still isn’t looking at me, and it’s fucking infuriating. “Denver, look at me.” She taps her fingers against her jeans in a slow, methodical rhythm, and my patience snaps. I take hold of her jaw and force her to face me. “You’re disrespectful.”
“I respect those who deserve it,” she bites back, but she doesn’t look away this time. “I respect Finn McEwan. I respect my husband. I don’t respect you.”
“Why?” I demand.
“Because you’re hiding your shit of a brother, and he doesn’t deserve your protection. You’re hiding a murderer—”
“Says the woman who shot a man in front of dozens of witnesses!”
“Your brother killed innocent people!” She almost shouts the words and shoves my hand from her chin. “Kind people. Good people. They died because you couldn’t keep a leash on him. Tell me why I should respect a man who shields a monster.”
“Tell me why I should respect a woman who married one.”
Her lips part, but her words are lost. She flushes, her freckles almost vanishing in the deep hue that climbs up her neck and across her cheeks.
She looks away, and now I know the conversation is over.
I look away, too, closing my eyes as I try to calm my temper that’s likely just fucked any opportunity to appeal to her. I really thought San Francisco was the last time I’d ever see her, but I’ve been granted this chance, and I’m fucking it up.
We pull up outside the Rosalia, and she gets out of the car without another word. Not even a passing insult, or a mic drop moment. She just leaves, slamming the door behind her.
The partition hums as it lowers. “Well, you fucked that up.”
“I’m aware of that,” I snap, running my hand down my face.
Taf sighs. “You were given a chance to speak to her. Now you’ll have to take the next one.”
Something I don’t want to do.
I fire off a text to Alistair, grab my coat and scarf, and get out of the car. Striding through the moodily lit hotel lobby, I spot Denver at the bar. The bartender is handing her a bottle of whiskey, and she signs a check before turning. She doesn’t look at me twice as she storms by.
“Talking is better than shooting,” I say, following her.
“Go away.”
She jabs the button for the elevator, and I stand between her and the doors. “I don’t beg, Denver.”
“Yet here you are.” She gestures at me with the bottle.
“Do you know why I’m successful?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes, cradling the whiskey in her arm like a child.
“Because I take time for people. I listen, even when all I want to do is snap their neck. The old ways don’t work anymore, Denver.
Wars cost money, and they cost lives. Are you really going to sacrifice both those things for my brother? ”
“It isn’t for him,” she snipes. “It’s for the people he killed.”
“And it’s what Ethan would want?”
She shoves me so hard, so fast, I actually hit the elevator doors. “Say his name again, Colt, and I’ll kill you, daughter or not.”
Daughter.
She knows about Amy?
I search her face. “That’s why you saved me? Because I’m a dad?”
Her jaw looks close to granite. “Move.” The doors open, but I stay still. “Move, Colt, or I swear to fucking God—”
My phone hums in my pocket, so I know Alistair has responded. I step aside, and when Denver gets into the elevator, I do, too. A man tries to follow, and I shove him out.
“Get the next one.”
He scowls at me as the doors close.
“What exactly is your plan?” Denver asks as the elevator starts climbing. The mirrored walls show a dozen versions of her, and all of them are pissed. “Talk me into saving him?”
“Yes,” I say. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“Because you won’t,” she says. “You may think you’re the big guy here, Colt, but I have connections, too.”
“The Laus?”
She straightens. “Stay out of my fucking—”
The elevator shudders to a halt. Her gaze darts up and around us, but my surprise is false. Alistair stopped this elevator, and he won’t allow it to move again until I tell him to.
“Nope, not happening!” She slams the emergency call button. It crackles and she leans close. “Get me the fuck out of here.”
Alistair’s voice is deep when he responds. “Sorry about this, miss. Technical fault.” I cover my mouth to hide my smile. “Shouldn’t take too long.”
Denver leans her lips close to the speaker. “I will give you ten thousand dollars to get me out in the next sixty seconds.”
“No can do … sit tight.”
She screams and hits her palm against the buttons before shifting her glare to me.
I lean against the railing. “Better make the most of this, Deluxe.”
“You too,” she says sweetly. “These are your last minutes on earth.”
One thing’s for sure—one of us won’t make it out of this alive.