Chapter 19
Colt
Denver blinks rapidly, her head back, eyes rimmed a painful-looking red.
She’s washed them out a few times and says they feel better, but they don’t fucking look it.
She’s sitting on the couch of her new hotel room and has showered and changed into pajamas.
She has a nasty bruise on her jaw, but she’s alive.
Somehow, she’s alive, after pepper-spraying her attacker and jamming a hairpin into his throat.
Once most of Spider’s men retreated or died, I looked for Denver. Lewis was shooting his way through more masked men, but there were so fucking many of them. Spider meant business tonight, and he clearly didn’t want to leave without Denver in his possession.
That thought has knocked the air from me more than once since I found her sitting on the elevator floor, eyes red, breathless and quiet.
“I really wish you’d just go to Finn’s.”
Denver shakes her head. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’re too far,” I say. “I don’t like you being this far from me. Us.” The words feel strange on my tongue, and I roll my jaw. “Just—”
“Colt, I can’t hide behind Finn or you. Besides, we could find Spider in Arizona, and this will all be over with.” She drops her chin to look at me. “Is it my eyes, or do you look like shit?”
I look at my clothes. Bloodstained, filthy, and I definitely caught the attention of the staff as I walked Denver through the lobby while Lewis checked them into the room that’s been on standby since Charlie took over her protection.
“I look like shit,” I confirm.
Denver stands, a little wobbly on her feet, and I grip her shoulders gently to steady her. “Go home,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m staying.”
“All night?”
“If I have to, yes.”
She sighs. “Holly might wake up and want you there.”
“Wilder is already home with her.” I called him when Denver was in the shower, so Holly has her dad and Charlie to keep her company. Do I want to be there? Absolutely. But I’m not her father, and sometimes I have to step back, even if it feels like the most unnatural thing in the world.
Denver says, “Well, maybe I’ll kick you out.” There’s not much fight in her words, though, and she slumps back onto the couch. “In three to five business days when my ribs stop hurting.”
I smile. “Pain relief not helping?”
“Alcohol would work better.”
I pour her, me, and Lewis a glass of whiskey. While Denver holds the glass against her jaw, Lewis returns and sits beside her. “I knew Spider had resources, but fuck me. If we didn’t have Charlie’s backup, I don’t even want to think what would have happened.”
“Pew pew, we all die,” Denver mumbles, resting her temple against his shoulder.
I ignore the strange flare of something in my chest as Lewis takes her hand.
Lewis has commented on how Ranger doesn’t like him and never has. They’ve frequently butted heads over Denver’s protection, and I doubt it was regarding Lewis’s ability to keep her safe. I’ve only seen him work a handful of times, but he’s quick, efficient, smart. Denver is his priority.
So maybe Ranger’s issue was something else. Maybe he saw something between Lewis and Denver that made him jealous.
“Sure you’re okay?” he asks her.
She nods. “Tired.”
He suddenly sighs and takes his phone out, frowning gently at whatever message he’s received. “I traced that number that’s been calling you. It’s a woman called Patricia Heller.”
“Number?” I ask.
Denver sits up. “Yeah, someone has been calling me and hanging up for months.”
Lewis asks, “You know her?”
“No, but … the name, yeah. The doctor on duty when Theo died was a Dr. Heller. That has to be a coincidence though, doesn’t it?”
“It must be. Why would she be calling you?”
Denver shrugs gently, but her frown deepens. I’ve read about Theo, her son who died just hours after being born, but she’s never mentioned him.
Lewis finishes his drink. “I’m going to bed. If you need me—”
“I’ll scream.”
He groans. “Please don’t joke about that.”
Denver grins and Lewis kisses her forehead before leaving. I rub the heel of my hand into my chest to stop whatever the fuck is happening in there.
“You’re really staying?” Denver asks. I adjust my stance, as if daring her to try and throw me out, but she just rolls her eyes. “Then at least shower and change into something of Lewis’s. You look like you just killed a bunch of guys.”
I do as Denver suggests, and despite Lewis’s T-shirt being almost uncomfortably tight, I’m grateful to be clean. Denver sits beside me on the couch, still blinking quickly.
“Let me take a look,” I say, cupping her face with my hands. I rest my thumbs beneath her eyes, pulling gently to look at the inflammation. It was red when I first found her, and now it’s closer to an angry pink.
“Are you a doctor?” she mumbles, arching a brow.
“Yes. Dr. Ghost. My official diagnosis? You have a bad attitude,” I say, and she grins, letting out a small laugh. “I also think I spot roots. Are you not a natural redhead?”
She tsks and shoves me away. We nestle into the couch.
My adrenaline started ebbing away in the shower, and now it’s almost out.
Alistair texted me to let me know the cleanup crew are almost finished, the right people at the hotel have been paid off or encouraged to stay quiet, and the police on our payroll are writing it off as a family dispute. Not entirely untrue.
“You know what I’ve been wondering since I walked out of that hotel room?” Denver asks. “If I should call Ranger.”
I watch her as she plays with her fingers. “It’s understandable. He’s in this, too.” She nods. “But you don’t want to.”
Leaning back into the couch cushions, she sighs softly. “It’s opening up a line of communication that I don’t think I’m ready for. Or strong enough for.”
“Denver, you’re a lot of things, but weak isn’t one of them.”
“I am when it comes to him.”
Something dark and twisted unfurls in my chest again. Must be fucking heartburn. “Well, it isn’t like you don’t love him, so I get that.”
“It … it isn’t love.” She pauses. “I mean, it isn’t just love. It’s …” She shakes her head and refocuses on her hands. “It doesn’t matter.”
I can almost see the words climbing around her mind, a string of sentences dying to be let free, but she has nowhere safe to place them. I’m likely the last person she would divulge the darkest parts of her marriage to, but I can at least let her know she can.
“Have you ever heard of sub rosa?” I ask.
She meets my eye. “Yeah. It means ‘under the rose.’”
“Do you know what it means in our world?”
“A vow of silence. Of secrecy.” She tilts her head. “If two members of rival families met under sub rosa, you never speak of it. And the one who did is punished. Killed.”
It’s something I learned about years ago. Two words to explain something so powerful. When Finn would disappear for days and I’d ask where he was, Helena would simply give me a weak smile and say, “Sub rosa.”
That meant she didn’t know, or she couldn’t speak of it, and when Finn returned, we’d act as if he hadn’t been gone.
I’ve met with plenty of families sub rosa to build bridges burned long before I was even born.
I’ve never spoken of it, have been tortured in attempts to get me to speak, and I have the scars to prove my silence.
“Sub rosa has been broken a handful of times,” I go on to say. “One of the most significant times was when your grandfather did it.”
Her lips part slightly. “When?”
“Your father met with your grandfather, Ryan Gallagher, your mom’s father, sub rosa to discuss marrying your mom.
Your grandfather refused to let the marriage go ahead, and said Nico had to swear to leave Cara alone, walk away, and never go near her again.
Your father, apparently, agreed.” I don’t miss the wideness of her eyes.
More stories about her parents she doesn’t know.
“The only people in that room were Nico and your grandfather. Nico said he never agreed to let your mother go; Ryan said it was the only reason they both left the meeting alive. Regardless, your father took your mother anyway and went to San Francisco.” Finn has told me the stories, of how he woke to panicked messages from Cara saying they were leaving and didn’t have time to say goodbye.
“As a result, Ryan Gallagher killed every DeLuca still in the city.”
Denver pulls in a small breath. “But … they didn’t do anything.”
“No, but it isolated Nico. Your grandfather broke sub rosa to tell everyone about the meeting, and he insisted that Nico fled like a coward, allowing his family to be slaughtered. It’s one of the reasons your dad never came back to the city. Well … except once.”
To get Ranger.
Finn had told Nico about Ranger’s existence, about how a young Ranger was making money by fighting and killing, and had a newborn, too. Nico came back here to save Ranger from himself.
Denver doesn’t say anything, likely understanding what I’m referring to.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So you can understand the important of sub rosa. That was the last time it was broken. And I think we should class this as sub rosa,” I say, gesturing between us. “What’s said tonight doesn’t leave this room.”
You’re in a safe space.
Denver swallows. “That could all be bullshit.”
I smile. “It could. So, that’s why I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone.”
“Running over more gangsters?”
“No,” I laugh. “A little more extreme.” I’m surprised to find my breath shakes a little as I form the words in my mouth.
I’m also very surprised that I’d even dare say this out loud, given the repercussions if Denver tells anyone.
Sub rosa means everything, but maybe to her it doesn’t. “Finn is my dad.”
Her lips part, and she blinks twice as fast as she did when she pepper-sprayed herself. Silence stretches and she looks away, her face twisting into an amalgamation of disbelief, shock and confusion.
“How … how do you know?”