Chapter 26
Denver
Eli is talking, his voice droning on and on. I stare at my plate of uneaten food, my fork untouched, my mind back in that car when Colt and Holly were only feet from me.
I’m twenty-six minutes away from the city.
Twenty-six minutes.
I counted.
Colt will be looking everywhere. He’ll be hunting high and low, doing God knows what to anyone who gets in his way, and I can’t do a thing. I can only be here and hope, somehow, he figures out that I’m a fucking cab drive from where we fell in love.
My first tear falls and splashes on my plate, and Eli slams his fist down on the table.
“You’re being ungrateful.”
I look at him, and I know what I should do. Apologize, smile, tell him I am grateful that I got to see the baby today, but … I just keep picturing Colt. Holly. Wesson.
Twenty-six minutes.
“Get out of my sight.” Eli waves his hand at me, returning to his meal. “Selfish little brat.”
My legs shake as I stand, the chair legs groaning as they scrape across the hardwood floor. Somehow, I make it to the door, just as Eli says, “I’ll be returning to our bed tonight.”
I don’t have the strength to beg or plead for him to allow me a night alone.
How much more can a person take? Can desperation kill a person? Can loss of hope stop my heart?
I’m close to running on empty. To deadening myself from the reality of my new life, because how else am I supposed to survive it?
What the hell am I supposed to do?
I return to the room and change. Curling up in the bed, I close my eyes and hope to God he forgets about me. Maybe something urgent will take precedent. Maybe he’ll be called away for work again. Maybe—
A sob escapes my throat, and I bury my face in the pillow.
“Colt, please find me,” I whisper. “Please, please find me.”
Minutes turn into an hour.
One hour into two.
I keep my back to the door, listening for any approaching footsteps or a turn of the handle.
Another hour passes.
Another.
I finally close my eyes when the door opens.
Under my pillow, I wrap my fingers around the knife I stole days ago. It’s a butter knife, barely even worth considering as a weapon, but it’s something.
Tonight, I fight, and I get out of here.
The door clicks closed, and footsteps approach. The handle of the knife warms in my grip, and my heart thunders quick and fast in my chest, my head pounding with the adrenaline pumping through me. My head spins and my stomach flips, but I focus on all the training Lewis insisted on teaching me.
Jab and run.
Jab and run.
Run as fast as you fucking can.
Don’t be a hero, don’t—
As soon as I feel his body heat, I lunge. His hand grips my wrist, the other covers my mouth, and he forces me back onto the bed as I scream into his palm.
Not like this, not like this—
But it isn’t Eli.
Kitrick is above me, light blue eyes darting from the knife to my face. He’s heavy on me, his body pinning mine to the bed. My breath comes in frantic pulses against his palm, and he releases my hand.
“Don’t. Talk,” he mouths, lifting off me and pulling me out of the bed and to my feet.
He takes hold of my wrist and leads me to the shuttered closet, opening it and pushing me gently inside.
The coat hangers clang around me as he ushers me to sit in the far corner.
“Don’t move. Don’t speak. Do you understand?
” I stare at him, still clutching the butter knife. “Denver, use your words.”
“I understand,” I whisper, and he closes the closet door.
There’s no time for me to wonder what’s happening or why Kitrick hid me, because the moment the closet is closed and I’m plunged into relative darkness, Eli stumbles through the bedroom door.
I watch both him and Kitrick through the slats, wiping my sweaty palm on my leg and readjusting my hold on the knife.
Kitrick laughs. “What the fuck happened to you?”
Eli is clearly drunk, clinging to the door handle, his cheeks pink. He grins. “Dutch. Courage. Hoping it’d help me forget she’s knocked up …” He hiccups. “Where is she?”
“The room.” Kitrick tucks his hands into his pockets. “You sent her there after dinner.”
“Did I?” Eli rears his head back.
“Yes, for being mouthy, as usual. I was making sure no fucker snuck her out like last time.”
Eli runs a hand down his face and groans. “Fuck. I don’t even remember that.” He stumbles into the room and collapses onto the bed, sighing into the covers. “Wake me up if you need me.”
In seconds, his loud snores fill the room. Kitrick stares at the bed and I wait, wondering what the plan is now, wondering why there’s even a plan in the first place.
Painful minutes pass before Kitrick comes to the closet door and eases it open. I stare up at him and he holds out his hand.
He could be doing this to keep me for himself. To do exactly as he promised this morning and use my mouth in a way I wouldn’t like.
But that seems risky. To go against Eli just to hurt me? It wouldn’t make sense.
Still, my hand shakes as I take his, and he guides me out of the closet.
I glance once at the snoring Eli, and Kitrick pauses at the doorway, taking out his phone.
I watch him pull up an app, several live feeds showing different parts of the house.
He flicks off each one in the hall before taking my hand again.
I say nothing, keeping my steps light as he guides me from my room. We take a few turns into a part of the house I’ve never been in, and Kitrick stops at a door, unlocking it before urging me inside and following.
A double bed with navy covers is neatly made and set into a far corner. A bureau is against the wall at the end, a television on top, and a door to the right looks like it leads to an en suite. It isn’t a large space, but it’s comfortable.
I twist my silk negligee in my fingers. “This is your room?”
“Yes.” He goes to the bureau and opens the top drawer, taking out a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt. He holds them out to me.
Clothes. Real clothes. Baggy, comfortable, ugly clothes.
A smile spreads across my face as I take them. As Kitrick goes into the bathroom, I quickly pull the T-shirt over my head. It reaches my knees, and I yank on the boxer shorts before shimmying out of the negligee.
“You can stay in here tonight, but I’ll need to put you in the room tomorrow,” Kitrick says.
My mood immediately deflates. “For how long?”
“Not long.” He watches me from the en suite doorway, his hands on his hips.
“Why are you doing this?” I watch him and the darkness seeping across his expression. “If Eli finds out you’ve lied—”
“That’s my problem, not yours. And what have I told you about keeping your mouth shut?”
“You’re a moody hero.”
He steps close and points at me. “I am not a hero. I am not your hero. Just because I have a conscience when it comes to pregnant women being assaulted, it does not mean I’m a good person.”
I chew my lip. “I mean, it kinda does—”
“Denver, shut up.”
My adrenaline is ebbing away, but it’s replaced by relief. Calming, soothing relief that I’m safe at least for tonight.
“Can I watch TV?”
He frowns. “Keep the volume low.”
I clamber into bed and snatch the controller from the nightstand, almost bouncing in place I’m so excited. I haven’t watched TV in weeks, and I immediately flick to a news channel, eyes wide, legs crossed under the covers.
Kitrick says, “Do not open this door to anyone but me.”
“Okay,” I say, my eyes still on the screen.
“I mean it, Denver.”
I nod quickly, finally looking at him. “I promise. Do you have any food?”
He levels me with a heated stare. “This isn’t a hotel.”
“Right, okay, sorry.” I sink back into the pillows and return my attention to the TV. He unlocks the door. “Thank you, Kitrick.”
He tenses as he looks at me, and I wait for him to throw my gratitude back in my face, but instead he says, “You’re welcome, Denver.”
“It’s week six of the search and still no confirmed sightings of Denver Luxe. The socialite—”
I blink, wincing at the brightness as I attempt to open my eyes. I’m lying widthways on the bed, the covers bundled around me, the TV volume as low as it can go with me still being able to hear it.
And my face is on the screen.
I push myself into a sitting position. The photograph is of me when I did a magazine article last year. The man reading out my story looks to his co-anchor. “But Ranger Luxe sure isn’t being quiet, is he?”
His co-anchor shakes her head. “Absolutely not. Ranger has been spotted across the country since his wife’s disappearance and has released another statement today.”
Text appears on the screen, and the female anchor reads it out.
“I have absolute faith that I will find my wife, and once she’s returned safe and sound, we will once again prove these allegations against her are false.
The police should focus on finding Denver, not pinning her for a crime she did not commit.
” The screen returns to the newsroom, the news anchor’s brows raised in apparent awe. “Powerful words from a powerful man.”
The lock in the door clicks, and I shuffle back in bed, my heart in my throat until Kitrick appears. He steps inside and closes the door behind him while balancing a plate of sandwiches.
“Ranger is looking for me?” I ask quietly.
Kitrick places the food in front of me. “Understatement. He and Colt are working together.”
My lips part and I watch as he loosens his tie. “What?”
“The city is a bloodbath right now.” He tosses his tie on a chair in the corner and sits down to unlace his shoes. “Anyone connected to the night you went missing is hiding, dead, or wishing they were dead.”
I’m torn between smiling and feeling nauseous. I knew Colt would do everything he could, but I hate the thought of him worrying, losing sleep …
“Can you get a message to him?”
Kitrick snorts. “Absolutely fucking not.”
“Please,” I say, and he meets my eye. “You don’t have to tell him where I am, just that I’m safe.”
“Denver, you’re not safe,” Kitrick says, and I almost shrink back. “The moment that baby is born, you are being sold. And that’s best-case scenario. Worst case? Someone buys you because you’re pregnant.” My skin chills and the nausea increases as I watch him.
“Then get me out of here.”
He shakes his head. “Outside this house is a thirty-foot wall. Men are on both sides of it. Beyond that are men placed along every road that leads away from here. The surrounding forest?” He stands and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
“Filled with cameras and men who watch those cameras every hour of every day. A rabbit can’t get close to this place without getting shot.
We wouldn’t make it past the fucking driveway. ”
I throw back the covers and follow him into the bathroom. “So … what? I’m just supposed to accept that this is my life? That my baby is going to die or be … be sold?” He runs the faucet, gripping the sink as steam slowly rises. “I don’t deserve this.”
“None of them did,” he snaps, facing me.
“Not a single woman who has been dragged through those doors deserved what happened to them. Do you think I like this? Do you think I want to bury them? Do you think I want to hear them screaming from that fucking room until their vocal cords are so raw they can’t even cry when they’re eventually let out?
I have tried, Denver. I tried to get them out.
On a few occasions, I have, but …” He runs his hand across his mouth and returns to the sink, splashing his face with water. “I’m just one person.”
My breathing is quick as I furiously wipe away a tear. “Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am.”
“It matters to me,” I say, and he turns off the faucet, running a towel over his face before looking at me. And then I know.
I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. For years, I’ve known how to spot them. Ranger taught me the signs, and so did my dad.
“You’re a cop.”
A muscle feathers beneath his jaw. “I’m a man who cannot get you out.” He edges by me and into the bedroom, handing me the plate of sandwiches before pulling back the covers. “You need to eat and get some rest.”
I throw the plate at the wall. It smashes, the food scattering across the floor, and Kitrick has me against the wall in seconds, his hand around my neck.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses.
“What is the point in a cop being here if you won’t do something?” I whisper through gritted teeth. “You’re supposed to help people. Help me.”
“And give up two years?” he snaps back, but relaxes his grip on my throat.
“I’ve been in this hell for twenty-six months.
I came out of the academy and my superiors used my rookie status.
No one would know my face, so they made out like I turned, they put me in prison, and I worked my way inside this fucking cesspit.
” He’s almost panting. “I agreed to this. I agreed to my reputation being dragged through the mud so Spider would trust me. I did it because I wanted to help.”
“Well, you’re failing!”
“I have saved thousands of women with the information I pass on,” he whisper-hisses at me. “Women who weren’t murderers.”
My lip trembles, my voice breaks, and I want to scream at him. I want to hit him, push him away, cry for what’s happening to me. “So, because I’m Denver Luxe, I deserve this?”
He searches my face, releasing his grip on me.
“… No. No, I—” He exhales so deeply I feel it in my soul.
“Eli is already watching me closely. I’ve managed to pass off the information leaks as being other rats, but I’m the common denominator here, and it won’t be long until he figures it out, especially if you go missing.
” We stare at each other, and any hope I had fizzles out.
“Denver, exactly four people know the truth about who I am. You, my boss, his boss, and me. I knew what I was signing up for, and I knew I’d have to make tough calls about who I saved and who I didn’t. ”
I palm away more tears and lift my chin. “And I’m one of those tough calls.”
In the dimness of the room, his eyes shine, and he nods. “Yes. You are.”