Chapter 27
Colt
The thumping of the music beneath my feet grounds me. It also drowned out the screams from the man I just killed, which is helpful.
Leaving the bathroom after washing off most of the blood, I take slow, measured steps to the office and sit behind the desk.
My phone is lit up, a message from Lewis on the screen.
LEWIS: LA was a dead end. Just some fans talking shit.
I stare at the text, my heart no longer deflating. At this point, I’m surprised it’s still beating. It feels as if my soul has become the only thing keeping me alive, and even that is a twisted, dark thing.
ME: Are you coming back?
Lewis reads the message immediately.
LEWIS: I’m gonna call in some favors in San Diego. Will keep you updated.
I know why he isn’t coming back. The same reason he left so quickly. This place, our home, reminds him of her, and he can’t stand being idle when we already know she probably isn’t in the city.
Slouching in the chair, I stare at the other messages. Dozens of people I trust across the country looking for one person, but every update is the same. A dead end. A lie. A rumor.
It’s never her.
I feel the presence in the doorway before I lift my eyes, but my hackles don’t rise, and I don’t bother reaching for the gun in the draw because he won’t kill me. I’m as much a resource to him as he is to me, even though neither of us wants to admit it.
Ranger Luxe enters the room as if we’re acquaintances, not enemies. Not that I married his ex-wife. Not that we’ve been on opposite sides of a war since the day my brother decided to start one.
He stands in front of the wall of bulletproof glass that separates us from the club below.
He’s a domineering presence, a legend in his own right, evil in close to its purest form.
I’ll never underestimate him, and the only reason he’s still alive is because I allow it.
He knows people I don’t, and vice versa, so I’ll use him if it brings her back to me.
Then I’ll kill him.
“Someone took her when she was a kid,” he says, his tone measured, his dark eyes scanning the crowd.
“Nico had men tearing apart her school, the city, anyone she’d come across that day.
He was distraught. I’ve never seen him like that.
Later that day, he called me and said she’d turned up at home.
Covered in scratches. Terrified. She’d waited until whoever took her stopped at a gas station, kicked out the taillight of the car, and stuck her hand out to get someone’s attention.
Once they opened the trunk, she ran. She ran, and she didn’t stop until she was home.
” He pauses, folding his arms. “She was fifteen years old and three hours away from where they’d taken her. ”
I watch him, hating myself for feeling some kind of comradery with Ranger Luxe. He broke Denver. Destroyed her. There’s no coming back from him taking Theo. But he’s also the only other person in the world who understands that it doesn’t matter how much I lose as long as I get her back.
“Are you trying to tell me she’s a fighter? Because I already know that.”
Ranger is quiet for close to a minute, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer.
“Just reminding myself that it takes a lot to break her.”
“You should know. You tried hard enough.”
Maybe I imagine Ranger Luxe wincing. Maybe I don’t. Either way, when he faces me, his expression is neutral. “I went to see the Marksons.”
The Marksons are a stronghold family in Boston. Not small. Not to be fucked with.
“And?”
“They don’t know anything.”
I lift my chin. “You’re sure?”
He dips his hand into his pocket, pulling out a velvet bag. He tosses it in my direction, and I catch it, and from the feel, I already know what’s inside.
“Some gold ones in there if you need the extra dollars,” Ranger says as I examine the teeth of at least twenty people.
I retie the bag and drop it on the desk. “You wasted time, doing all this.”
He arches a brow. “Should I start burning people alive instead?”
“It’s quicker.”
Ranger shrugs and goes to the door. He pauses, tapping the doorframe.
“Nico lost her. You lost her.” He looks over his shoulder at me. “Funny. You said I tried to break her, but I’m also the only one who kept her safe. Maybe I’m the better husband.”
“You were never married,” I hit back. “She’s my wife, Ranger, not yours. I know who she is and what she wants—and it isn’t you.”
He doesn’t move, his breathing slow and steady. I’m glad I can’t see his face when he next speaks, because his voice is tortured. “We don’t know who she’ll be when we get her back.”
He leaves, and the rage builds, a bitter, dark, angry snake coiling up my body, like smoke sinking into my skin, a spark to gasoline that I can’t control. Can’t stop.
I’m standing. I’m walking. Someone talks to me as I leave the club, but their words don’t register.
I’m outside, the alley cool. My home no longer feels like home.
The rain is like glass poured over me, glimmering, pretty blades that tear at my skin and make me bleed.
The sounds of the city are nails on my brain.
My shirt sticks to my skin.
Droplets run down my face.
And I can’t …
I can’t fucking do this.
I can’t control the monster clawing for freedom.
The need to do something, anything—
“Give me your wallet.”
I blink, raindrops clinging to my lashes, and I face the hooded man behind me. He has a battered gun in his hand and is shifting from foot to foot. He prods the weapon in my direction, and there’s a flash of lightning followed closely by the rumble of thunder.
“Wallet, you stupid prick. The last person who wasted my time died two blocks from here. Are you gonna be next?”
“Shoot me.”
The streetlight reflects his eyes, and he frowns. “What?”
“Shoot. Me,” I say, stepping toward him.
His tongue darts out, wetting his bottom lip, and he cocks the gun. “I will.”
“Do it,” I say quietly, adrenaline pumping through my blood, thick and heavy and bitter.
His finger twitches on the trigger. My hand darts out, pointing the weapon down as the bullet fires into the ground. My other fist lands in his face, a sickening crack half muffled by the rain. He stumbles. I advance on him. I toss the gun aside, metal clattering against stone.
I don’t need a weapon.
I am a fucking weapon.
The mugger’s back hits the wall, and I seize his hoody, bringing my forehead into his nose. He yelps and I throw him to the ground, my heel cracking against his already broken nose.
“Get the fuck up,” I say. He groans and turns over, trying to scramble away. I seize him and lift him to his feet, throwing him into the wall. “Don’t run, you fucking coward. You wanna run around killing people? This is what fucking happens.”
He tries to hit me. I weave left, then right.
I punch him in the throat. He chokes, his eyes widening.
“Hit me!” I roar, and he does.
It doesn’t even break my skin.
My knuckles meet his cheekbone, a repeated attack, my body numb to the pain and exertion it takes to beat a man.
He slumps to his knees, and I grip his hoody, keeping him upright as I continue my assault.
Our blood mingles and is lost to the rain, his cries drowned out by the city sounds as I push him closer to death.
His skin breaks. His bones snap. Teeth dribble onto the floor between us.
The monster I’d tamed for Callie, hid for Amy, and eventually buried for Denver … he laughs. He revels. He watches on and encourages me to keep going.
Ghost—stretching out his muscles like he’s been asleep for far too long.
Ghost—a demon made of shadows rising to full height and soaking in the cold, rain, and blood.
Ghost—no longer my past. He is me. I am him.
I’m Ghost.
And I realize I’m the one who’s laughing.
As I beat a man to death.
The house is quiet when I return. I drop my keys onto the coffee table and take a seat on the couch, resting my elbows on my knees and threading my fingers through my hair, tugging at the strands.
“I’ll only know how to love you for the rest of my life.”
Denver’s voice, her smile, her laugh tries to soothe the ache in my chest. Like cooling water across broken, burned flesh, I hear her whispering in my ear.
“You really love me?”
Tears burn my eyes, and I only lift my head when Alistair says my name. He’s crouched in front of me, brows pulled together in concern as he examines my blood- and rain-soaked shirt.
“What happened?”
All I can do is shake my head.
He grips the back of my neck. “Colt, you need to stop this. You can’t kill your way back to her.”
“Then tell me what to do,” I say quietly, my voice breaking. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do with this … this festering feeling.” I blink, and tears mix with the rain and blood on my face. “I’m rotting from the fucking inside.”
My friend watches me with more anguish than I’ve seen in a long time, and we both know there’s nothing he can say. There’s no remedy for this pain. No balm to soothe a soul this raw, no stitches strong enough to pull together a heart this broken.
I’m beyond repair until I’m with her again.