Chapter 32
Colt
Ithought I was beyond repair.
I thought that even when I found her, the pieces of my soul that I tore away with every life I took would never return. I had accepted that even when I had Denver in my arms again, I wouldn’t be the same man she fell for because he had become a broken, tortured thing.
But it’s been seconds, and I’m healing.
Minutes, and I’m breathing again.
She’s with me. She’s safe.
Reluctantly, I let her go, and she sits on the steps of the manor home. Kneeling in front of her, I cup her face, the relief quickly replaced by rage when I see her split lip and the beginnings of a bruise across her jaw.
“I’m okay,” she says, taking my wrists gently.
But she isn’t. Her cheeks are hollower. She has dark circles under her eyes. Darkness floods my heart when I think of what’s happened to her, what Eli has done, what he planned to do—
The darkness stutters to a slow and steady trickle when Denver presses my palm against her stomach. To the small, barely noticeable bump.
She smiles at me, her eyes shining, and she doesn’t have to say anything to know that I know.
“Our baby,” I say quietly, my first real smile in months spreading across my face.
She nods. “Our baby.”
My family.
“I love you,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’m sorry I—”
“None of that.” She runs her fingertips across my beard. “No apologies. No wishes. We made it. All three of us.”
Three of us.
My family.
“Jesus, Sebastian,” Taf says as he takes the steps. “You look like shit.”
I lift my head to see Sebastian leaning against the open doors of the home, pale and bloody. “Thanks. Medical attention would be fucking fabulous.”
Taf is already requesting it through his earpiece as my gaze travels to the other man standing with us.
He’s shirtless, angry red marks across his chest—pieces of his skin missing. He’s watching me warily, eyes darting between Denver and me.
“This is Kitrick,” Denver says, taking my hand. I help her to her feet. “He’s been keeping me safe.”
Kitrick. The man who called me and said he would help get Denver and Sebastian out, and all I had to do was wait.
I didn’t believe him. Why the fuck would I?
Until he told me something few people know—the robin tattoo.
I had no choice but to wait after he said he’d turn off the security systems all around the home, giving us easy and quick access to Denver.
And he’d also mentioned something else.
“Marnie,” I say, looking down at Denver. “Where is she?”
Her light brows pull together. “It … it wasn’t her. Some woman was pretending. Or at least that’s what she said before …she was upstairs. She might still be there.” She tightens her hold on my hand. “Can you check? Check if it was her? She could have lied … everything happened so quickly.”
God, what if she had lied? What if we got this close and it wasn’t her?
“I’ll show you where,” Kitrick says, attempting to hide a wince as he pushes himself off the wall he’s leaning against.
“Dude, I can see muscle I should not be able to see,” Taf says. “You need to wait for this doctor.”
“I’m fine,” Kitrick says, looking at Denver. “Are you all right?”
She nods slowly. “Yeah. I think. But … I can’t go back up there. I don’t want to go any farther into this shithole than I have to.”
I reluctantly release her hand. “Taf, you don’t let her out of your sight.” He gives me a nod, and I kiss her, longer than I have to, longer than I would any other time I’d only be leaving her for a few minutes, but I have a feeling I’m going to prolong every kiss with her from now on.
As Charlie and Cain’s men continue sweeping the house and grounds, I follow Kitrick up the wide staircase and down the hallways. We pass some bodies, but he doesn’t even glance at them, seemingly unaffected by his colleagues’ brutal demise.
“Why were you helping her?”
“I think that’s a conversation you should have with Denver.”
The back of my neck prickles. “It’s one we’re having right now.”
He pauses outside a door and pushes it open without answering me. The bedroom is empty.
Kitrick takes his phone out, his palm bloodied. “I’ll show you the CCTV. Maybe you’ll recognize her.”
It’s been years since I’ve seen Marnie, but I know I’ll recognize her face. If this is her, it means she betrayed Denver, but we also have no idea what she went through to get to this point. The things she had to do to survive.
He shows me the phone—the footage of a brunette entering the house with Spider.
“It’s not her,” I say, hiding my relief from this stranger. “Do you know if Marnie could be alive? Did you hear anything about—”
“If Marnie Harland is alive, the only people who knew about it are Spider, Eli, and whoever bought her last,” he says simply.
“I started working for Spider after he took her, but she was a big deal. The only people who knew her whereabouts were the ones who would never tell a soul. Wasn’t worth how they’d die over it. ”
I run my hand across my beard. There’s still hope. There must be.
“We should get back to Denver,” he says.
For a reason I can’t explain, the way he says my wife’s name crawls under my skin and gnaws at me. I search his expression as I move forward. “Let’s revisit my earlier question. Why did you help her?”
“That’s a weird fucking way to thank me.”
“I’m not a patient man, Kitrick,” I say. “This is me remaining calm for my wife’s sake. I’ll continue where Spider left off regardless of what you did for her. So answer my fucking question.”
He eyes me for a few seconds before cursing under his breath. “I’m a fed.”
Now, that was not the answer I expected. “Undercover.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
He rolls his shoulder, as if revealing his secret doesn’t unburden him but only adds to the weight. “Two years. Spider recruited me from prison after the bureau manufactured a sentence for me for taking bribes.”
My frown deepens. “You trashed your own career to go to prison and get in with the Eddardses?”
“Yes.” He bites out the word.
“A selfless cop.”
“Fed. And yes. Funnily enough, I came into this job wanting to do good.”
I snort, and he looks so wildly offended that I laugh. “Sorry, kid, it’s just been a while since I heard idealism like that.”
“Kid? We’re the same fucking age.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I know you, Colt Harland,” he says and squares his shoulders as if that could give him the extra inches to meet my height.
“I know the shit you’ve done. The people you’ve killed.
You may be known as a gangster who doesn’t dabble in drugs, but you cozied up with people who did.
Protected them, too. You’re scum. All of you are. ”
“And yet, you protected my wife.”
He doesn’t hide his blanch quick enough. “She’s pregnant.”
“So you’d have let her die otherwise?”
Now, he falls silent. The itch under my skin returns. Had this been any other doe-eyed kid making eyes at Denver, I’d have laughed it off, but the idea of him being close to her and not me? Of him protecting her when I couldn’t?
That makes me want to hurt someone.
“Get over it and fast,” I say quietly, but not without venom. He swallows but doesn’t avert his gaze. “I’ll find it cute for about two fucking minutes before I add you to the list of the other men I’ve killed.”
I pass him and go back into the hall, eager to get back to my wife—eager to go the fuck home.
When I return to the foyer, Denver is leaning into Taf’s chest, her eyes closed. He’s rubbing her back, and she’s smiling at whatever he’s saying.
“Where’s Sebastian?” I ask, and my heart warms when Denver opens her eyes and immediately comes to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and resting her ear against my chest.
God, she feels good. Like my future and home.
“Charlie’s medics are looking at him. It was a through and through, so he’s lucky. Where’s the cut-up cop?”
I arch a brow. “You knew he was a cop?”
“Yeah. Spotted it the moment I walked through the doors. I mean, look at him,” he says, nodding behind me. I turn to see Kitrick taking the stairs slowly. “He screams law and order.”
Denver chuckles into my chest, and the sound has me scooping her up, one arm under her knees, the other at her back.
“Ready to go home, Del?”
Her sigh is filled with weeks of exhaustion. “Yes, please.”