Chapter 10
Denver
An hour passes and we don’t move. My clothes are stuck to me, my hair is still damp, and the only thing stopping me from shooting Colt between the eyes is how much firing a gun in a metal box would hurt my ears.
Colt is sitting on the floor, one knee pulled up, the other stretched out, leisurely playing a game on his phone.
He seems less than concerned about our current predicament.
In fact, he’s probably enjoying himself, the sadistic fuck.
He sighs. “Just sit down.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s rude.”
“You know what else would be rude? Smashing this bottle and cutting you up with the pieces.”
He shrugs a shoulder, still playing his game. “And messy.”
“How are you so calm?” I shriek. “We’re suspended above thin air, by a cable, in a metal prison!”
Colt slowly lifts his sapphire gaze. “That’s why you’re pacing? You’re scared?”
“Not scared, just …” I gesture around us. “Aware of our impending doom. And I really don’t want to die with you!”
“That makes two of us,” he says, and my glare has him reaching out his hand. “Give me the bottle.”
“Why?”
“So I can use it to create a parachute to get us out of here,” he says drily. “So I can drink it.”
If this were any other circumstance, I’d beat him over the head with this Macallan, but I want a drink, too. I hold out the bottle.
Sinking to the floor on the far corner of the elevator, I watch him take a swig of the whiskey. He holds the bottle out to me, and I snatch it back, making a point to wipe the rim with my damp sleeve before taking a mouthful.
Now his suit jacket is abandoned beside him, I can see the tattoos on his forearms that I was hoping to spot in the restaurant.
The art is intricate and breathtakingly realistic. It looks like veils of silk are wrapped around his skin, skulls and skeletal fingers draped in the thin, delicate material depicted by ink and a needle.
“A silk River Styx,” he says. “That’s what I asked for.”
That’s accurate. I hand him the bottle. “That’s why they call you Ghost?”
“It’s one of the reasons.” He takes another mouthful of whiskey. “I was nineteen. I thought it’d look cool.” We pass the bottle back and forth a few times, and I shiver in my wet clothes. When I next look at him, he’s holding out his jacket. “My mother would kill me if I didn’t at least offer.”
I don’t want to take it. We could be out of here in the next five minutes, and I’ll be furious with myself for accepting something from him when I don’t absolutely have to.
But I’m so fucking cold. My hoody isn’t drying, my jeans are sodden, and I’m holding back more shivers. So, I take the offered clothing and decide to hate myself for it later. “Close your eyes.”
He does, and I peel off my coat and hoody, tossing the heavy items aside.
I pull on his suit jacket, buttoning it up.
Without opening his eyes, he throws me a scarf, too, and I wrap it around my neck to hide my cleavage.
It smells of woodsy, earthy, expensive cologne that, despite who it belongs to, has me breathing in.
“You can open your eyes.”
He does, and we sit in silence.
Another hour passes, but we don’t drink more. Instead, I wallow in the fact that I killed someone tonight.
It’s never easy. I’ve killed two men since my wedding night, both of whom tried to take my life.
One was at the club, a guy who thought robbing a Luxe property was smart and turned his gun on me when he was caught.
The second was when Ranger and I had gone to a restaurant and someone carjacked us.
Ranger told me to run, but I couldn’t leave him behind, so I didn’t.
I shot a man in the heart as he tried to pin me down and strangle me.
Both times, I sobbed. Both times, Ranger told me I had no choice.
I had a choice tonight. Kill a man or let a father die. I don’t regret the decision I made, but the action wasn’t easy, and I don’t have Ranger with me this time to hold me through the night.
Closing my eyes, I try to imagine what he’d say. He’d tell me he was proud. He’d call me a survivor. His little bird. His wife.
It is my right to change you.
When I open my eyes again, Colt is watching me. I shift in place, hugging the scarf closer.
“It sits with you, doesn’t it?” he says quietly, and I focus on a speck of dust in the far corner. “I thought it’d get easier with time. The more I killed, the less it’d rob me of sleep. But it doesn’t. It isn’t even the act anymore. It’s the repercussions of it.”
“Nice to know one Harland considers the consequences of their actions.” I sniff, using the sleeve of his jacket to smooth away the hair stuck to my cheeks. “Ranger doesn’t have a problem with it.”
I’ve slept by his side after he’s killed. His sleep isn’t disturbed; his routine stays the same. He’s always Ranger.
“Well, some people find it cathartic to kill. Others don’t.”
Now, I look at him. “Do you?”
“No.” He closes his fingers into a fist, the muscles in his forearms quivering, the silk river of Styx seeming to move. “I never have.”
I watch him like I did when he stood in the street, drawn to features I shouldn’t notice.
His freshly dried hair is wilder, but still neat enough to give him a throwaway, handsome look.
This new shirt is blue, bringing out the starkness of his eyes.
And he’s playing with his bare wedding finger, running the thumb of his opposite hand into it.
“Showing me your softer side doesn’t show me Wilder’s,” I say. “Nothing you say tonight will change what he did or how he hurt me.”
He watches me with an almost sympathetic expression, and I wonder who he’s worried for—Wilder or himself. “Killing him won’t make you feel better.”
“Someone needs to pay.”
“The only person paying right now is you.” I lift my chin as if that can deflect the words.
“Trust me. If you ever stand over my brother’s body, nothing will change.
You won’t feel a switch. The grief won’t stop.
You’re not a killer, Denver. Not like that.
” The words burn through me. The insinuation infuriates me—that just because I’m not that Luxe, I’m weak. “Most of us aren’t.”
“Ranger—”
“Ranger is a different breed of man,” he interjects. “So was his father.” I maintain eye contact, unwilling to give away the truth, despite him clearly knowing it. “And I’m guessing you know who his father is.”
Yes, I do, but I’m not discussing the McEwan family history, especially with Colt. It isn’t my business, and it definitely isn’t his. I turn my body to face him and cross my legs, pulling his jacket tighter around me.
“Tell me then, Colt. If I don’t kill Wilder, what do I do? Do I let it go?”
“Yes.”
“Would you?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.” I lean forward, and he doesn’t seem bothered by the proximity. “If someone killed two people you loved in front of you, you wouldn’t walk away. You’d have killed Wilder that night, and you wouldn’t have given him another thought.”
“But you didn’t kill him that night. You’ve lost the advantage of a passionate kill, Denver.
Now you’ve had time, and plenty of it, to think about your decision.
And that’s what adults do when we’re not offered the luxury of blaming murder on a split-second decision.
” His expression isn’t angry, but it is tough.
“And when you’re given space, and time, and context, things change. ”
“What context?”
“Wilder is a human being who was going through a tough time and fucked up. Hugely. He has paid for that fuck-up tenfold. Trust me on that.”
Anger strengthens my resolve, fires up my need to raise my voice. “It isn’t enough.”
“What will be enough? Cutting him to pieces? Hearing him cry? Beg? Do you want an apology, Denver?”
I fall over my words. “No, but—”
“Do you even know what you’re asking for?
” he challenges. “Because it sounds a lot like you want to go back in time, and no one can give that to you. Blood doesn’t wash away blood.
” I search his face—for what, I’m not sure.
An answer. Permission. Something other than the truth he’s speaking.
“There’s strength in forgiveness, Deluxe.
More than anyone will give you credit for, but it’s there. ”
Strength. I don’t have or want that anymore.
I want peace. A respite from the ache that seems never ending. The constant attempts on my life, the competition, finding the will to get up every morning and step into the role of a woman who isn’t me.
The ability to be Deluxe is being pulled away from me, and I don’t know if it’s time, or Ranger, or the death on my conscience that’s causing it, but I want to let her go. I’m too tired to keep pretending.
Maybe I should accept Ranger’s ultimatum. Be his wife. Warm his bed. Answer questions from journalists about my outfits and the songs I like to run to. Maybe Ranger is right—I’ll make mistakes because I’m not her. I’m not Deluxe. I’m just not fucking strong enough.
“I searched for you for ten months,” I say, my voice low. The firmness of Colt’s expression falters. “I put almost a year of my life into finding you. Finding him. And now you’re just … here.”
And nothing is going like I thought it would.
I’ve known for a while that my fire to kill Wilder has been closer to embers than a true flame, but I thought a moment like this would reignite it.
I’d hoped the day I came face to face with him or Colt that the rush of hate that sustained me for so long would come back like a tidal wave to help me pull the trigger. It should have. I wish it would.
He reaches for the bottle and takes another swig. “You have me now, Deluxe. And it seems all we have is time and each other’s company. So … ask me whatever you want.”
A glimpse into the life of a private man. A chance to touch Ghost. To know things other men have bled to hear.
“Tell me your story.”
His smile is small. “Ghost’s story or mine?”
“Aren’t they the same man?”
“Not even close.”