Chapter 26 Ranger
Ranger
My knuckles meet bone again and again and again. Blood spits across a cold cement floor. The man I’m beating sobs and begs me to stop, tells me he knows nothing, but I already know that. That’s not why I keep hitting him.
I hit him because I’ve lost everything, and I can’t punish the man who took it.
My muscles burn. My knuckles split and bleed. But I keep hitting, and I’m lost in a haze of red, of blood, of rage I’ve never felt before. I thought my jealousy hit its peak with Wyatt and Ethan, but this is doing exactly what Denver said it would. It’s festering.
Cal’s voice comes through the fog, and I stop hitting, my breath cold in my chest, my shirt sticking to me. “He’s dead.”
I look at the man. The body. The corpse that no longer has a face.
I straighten. “Get rid of him.”
JJ does as I ask without question, and I snatch my jacket from a nearby chair as I leave the warehouse and head for the car.
Cal drives us home, and I stare out the window. I check my phone for messages from her, but there are none. I have endless contacts under the name “My Wife” because she keeps changing her number. I ring each of them every day. She never answers. Never calls me back.
I only don’t go to her because I want her to want me again.
I want her to come to her senses and realize I did what I did because I had no choice.
Having Wyatt’s son was never an option. As her pregnancy went on, she was letting more and more things go.
His late nights. His disappearances. The way he treated her.
She was forgiving him because she was always going to be connected to him, and that wasn’t okay.
And I always checked on Theo. I made sure the family he went to were good people, people who weren’t like us. I did what I could to make sure he was safe and happy, which was more than Wyatt would have ever done for his own fucking son.
We needed a fresh start. I did it for her. For us.
She’ll see that. And she’ll come home.
“I’m worried about you,” Cal says quietly.
He pulls the car to a stop outside the house. I ignore him, going into my home that’s a shell without her presence. It’s brick. It’s wood. It’s furniture and memories. It’s not her.
I almost burned it to the ground last week.
I lit the match and watched it flicker out.
Maybe this place is why she hasn’t come back.
Maybe there are too many memories here. We could buy somewhere else.
An apartment in the city. Or a house somewhere far away.
We could get Theo, and she could be his mom. Maybe she’d even tell me where Axel is.
I crouch in the foyer. “Wesson, boy.”
The door closes behind me. Cal says, “Ranger, you can’t keep living like this.”
I wait for the sound of claws on marble. “Wesson, come here. We’ll go for a walk.”
“Ranger—”
I’ve hit him before I can talk myself out of it.
My knuckles reopen as they meet his jaw, and he hits the ground, the sound thudding through the empty foyer. Guilt should trickle through me, even if it’s the smallest amount would be a reminder of my humanity, but the only thing I feel is the urge to hit him again.
I stand over him, my friend, my only friend. “I pay you to drive me. To watch me if necessary. I do not pay you to fucking babysit me.” I turn away and stride through the house. “Wesson!”
I pause when I notice my office door is open. I never leave it open.
Approaching slowly, I push it open farther. Standing behind my chair, arms resting on the back of it, is Colt Harland.
The man who is keeping my wife from me. Who saved her once and thinks she’s his. She isn’t. She’s mine. He doesn’t get to take her.
He smiles. “Afternoon, Ranger.”
Charlie Callahan is leaning against the far wall. He’s well known in our world, and from my reports about Denver, it’s clear she’s hired him and his men to keep her safe. A blond guy is sitting on the window ledge, his gun resting on his thigh, one of Colt’s closest. Taf, I think his name is.
Not that any of them matter, because they’ll be dead soon.
“The only way you’re leaving this house alive, Colt, is if you’ve brought my wife back with you,” I say. “And even then, I might still kill you.”
Colt shakes his head. “Denver is safe and sound and exactly where she wants to be. Exactly where Nico would want her to be.”
I try to steady my breathing. “You think she’s safe with you?”
“I know she is,” he says. “I was happy for this encounter to never happen. I didn’t need to come face to face with you because, as Finn rightly pointed out, this isn’t my fight. So, I’ll be honest from the get-go. I’m not here to kill you. I’m not even going to hurt you.”
I hear Cal enter behind me.
“Then why are you here?” I ask.
“A dog, would you believe?” he asks, laughing. “Wesson is on his way to the airport. Friendly guy.”
I lunge forward, but Taf stands and raises his gun.
If Wesson is gone, I have nothing left to bring her back. She might not come back. She won’t … I’m choking on panic, on rage, on an acidic burning in my stomach, heart, and throat.
“I meant what I said to Finn,” I say, but my voice quakes with anger. “If she is not back in this house by Christmas, I will fucking end all of you.”
“She isn’t coming back,” Colt says. “Unless she tells me it’s what she wants.”
“She doesn’t know what she wants!” I boom. “She’s never known. She walked through my doors, and I made her who she is. She was lost, and I found her, Colt, not you. You’re protecting a woman I made. And she is mine. No one gets to take her from me.”
“Then maybe you should have thought about that before you took her fucking son,” he bites back.
The words cause no reaction to the other men in the room. They all know. A cold wraps around me, fighting the heat I need to hold onto to kill him.
“What do you mean, took her son?” Cal asks. Colt’s gaze darts to him. “What happened to Theo?”
“It’s not your fucking concern,” I snap. What I do for Denver, with Denver, is my problem. It’s—
Colt stares at me, expressionless, cold. Not taking pleasure in what he knows, or what he’s about to say. “Ask him.” He drags his eyes from me before nodding to Charlie and Taf, and they head for the door. Colt pauses by me, meeting my eye. “Let her go, Ranger.”
My jaw is tight, my words hot in my throat. “So you can have her?”
He looks at me with something close to pity, but it doesn’t reignite the fire. Why am I not angry? Why can’t I fight? “Because she deserves to be happy.”
Footsteps echo across the marble foyer as Colt Harland and his men leave.
I don’t try to stop them. I don’t take out my weapon. I don’t even leave my office. I pick up the decanter of whiskey and a glass, sitting behind my desk before pouring myself a drink.
“What did you do?” Cal asks quietly.
I finish the drink in two mouthfuls. “What I had to.”
The click of the gun is familiar, and I lift my head, staring down a barrel and hoping it’s the last thing I see.
“Tell me.”
I sniff and pour another drink. “I put Theo up for adoption.”
I can feel his shock. His panic. His disgust. I’ve replayed this moment a thousand times. The day she’d find out. The day everyone would. I steeled myself against it because I knew they’d blame me. But they don’t understand.
“He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“W-why …”
“The same reason you helped me put Wyatt in the ground,” I say, finishing my drink and pouring a third. “She was never going to be mine unless she was entirely mine.” I place the empty glass down and run my hand across my mouth. “If you’re going to kill me, Cal, just do it.”
Minutes pass. I finish another drink.
And when I look up, he’s gone.
The only sound I hear is the whiskey filling the glass. But with every mouthful, the pain remains, and Denver still isn’t home.
I measure the passing of time by the slowly emptying bottle. Once it’s finished, the house is still quiet. No laughter from Denver. No conversation from Axel. No Cal asking when we’re going to work. No barks from Wesson.
The office blurs. The wedding photo on my desk falls over. I think it breaks.
I’m alone.
They took her from me.