Chapter 73
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Ace
Song- One Number Away, Luke Combs
The guy from the alley didn't make it.
He's laid out on the dirt floor of our barn, covered by a tarp, and he ain't getting back up. Died about ten minutes after Colten brought him in.
I hit him too hard. Or maybe I hit him exactly hard enough, and his body just wasn't built to survive the kind of rage that's been building in me for weeks with nowhere to go.
Either way, I never got the name. The one word he choked out in that alley. Died with him.
"Romeo is attempting facial recognition, but you made quite a fuckin' state of his face," Colten says as he walks back in, phone pressed to his ear.
Ain't no one going to be able to recognize this asshole. I beat him beyond anything dental records could help with. But you never know what tricks Enzo and Romeo have up their sleeve. If anyone can do it, it's them.
"He thinks Italian. Likely," Colten says, lowering the phone.
I nod, staring at the tarp. Italian. Not Greek. That shifts things. That shifts a lot of things. And leads me back to a mafia princess on a power trip in LA.
Hunter accepted her offering of Carson and gave her nothing in return. She told us we didn’t want her as an enemy.
"Well, he sure as shit ain't a cowboy," I say.
He had nothing on him. No wallet. No ID. No cell. Not even in his car. These people know what they're doing. You don't send a man with no identification to follow someone unless you've already planned for the possibility that he doesn't come back.
Which means whoever sent him knew this was a risk. And did it anyway.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
The vibration cuts through everything. I pull it from my back pocket.
Unknown number.
The same unfamiliar area code. The one I didn't call back. The one that sat wrong in my gut.
My chest tightens.
"Give me a minute," I tell Colten and stride out of the barn.
The sun hits my face. I walk until I'm out of earshot, lean against the hitching rail, and hit accept.
I don't say a word. Just listen. Holding my breath. Heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. That same earth-shattering reaction that happens when only one person in this world is with me.
Silence on the line, followed by little shaky breaths.
Breaths I could never forget. Not in six years.
Not in sixty. I'd know them in the dark.
I'd know them in a crowded room. I'd know them on my deathbed because those breaths are the soundtrack to every night I ever held her while she fell asleep.
"Harper." My voice comes out rough. "Is that you?"
The breathing collapses into full-blown sobs.
"Baby, talk to me."
I keep myself calm. But on the inside, I’m panicking like fuck.
I rub at my chest. That ache is there. I press my hand flat against the hitching rail to hold myself upright because my knees are threatening to give out.
She's crying. Harper is crying, and I'm hundreds of miles away, and I can't hold her, and I can't fix it, and I can't—
"I-I need you, Ace. Please." Her voice is wrecked. The ghost of a voice that used to be full of fire and sass.
My heart slams against my ribs.
"He's dead. I k—"
"Stop, sweetheart. Don't." I cut her off. "Don't say another word. Not on the phone. Just take a deep breath for me."
I don't know who's listening. I don't know if her phone is compromised. I don't know anything except that the woman I love just tried to tell me she killed someone, and I need her to stop talking before those words exist anywhere but between us.
She tries to breathe. Chokes on it. Tries again.
"I don't know what to do, Ace." A whisper. "I just need you. Please. Please help me."
That word. Please. The same word she said on the ridge. The same word she said in the barn. The same word she's been saying, in different ways, for six years. Every unanswered text, every ignored call, every silent night, all of them were just different ways of saying please.
And I told her I was done. I told her it was over. I told her to let me go.
Fuck that. Fuck every word of it. Me and her will never be over. There is no end to our love. Not in this lifetime, not in the next.
I take a deep breath. Close my eyes. And there is only one answer.
There has only ever been one answer. Since I was sixteen years old and a girl with honey-blonde hair and a crooked smile sat next to me in English class and changed the entire trajectory of my life, there has only been one answer to every question Harper Jones has ever asked me.
Yes.
"I'm coming, Harper. I'll get the jet, and I'll be there in two hours. Are you safe?"
"Y-yes. I am now."
I am now. Three words that gut me. Is she safe because Hudson is dead? Or because I’m coming for her?
And I nearly didn't pick up. Yesterday, when she called, I didn’t answer. I should have fucking known it was her. My gut was screaming at me. I should’ve known when she looked like a ghost walking down the aisle towards him.
"Good girl. Just sit tight. Stay in your room and text me the address. I'll be there as quick as I can."
"I'm sorry, Ace." The sobs crack open again. "I'm so sorry. For everything. For leaving. For the wedding. For not calling sooner. For all of it. I'm sorry."
Every word is a blade. Not because she's hurting me, but because she's hurting. Because this woman has spent six years apologizing for loving me too much and not enough and in all the wrong ways, and she's still apologizing from the floor of whatever nightmare she's trapped in.
"Stop apologizing, Goldie. You hear me? I don't want your sorry. I want you safe. That's it. That's all I've ever wanted."
I just want her.
She cries harder. And I stand there, gripping the rail, staring at the mountains, listening to the woman I love fall apart hundreds of miles away and feeling every sob in my own chest like a fist.
"Two hours, baby. That's all. Two hours and I'm there. I’ll fix this."
I’ll fix anything. There isn’t a line I wouldn’t cross to make sure she’s okay. I’d give up my damn life for this woman and die happy.
"Okay," she whispers.
"Harper."
"Yeah?"
"I love you. Whatever happened. Whatever you did. I love you. And nothing changes that. You understand?"
A pause. A breath. And then, so quiet I almost miss it…
"I love you too, Ace. I will never stop."
The line goes dead.
I stand there. Phone in my hand. The screen dark. The whole ranch spread out around me, beautiful and vast and completely fucking irrelevant because the only thing that matters is three hundred and seventy miles west in a city I've been told never to set foot in.
Hunter's voice in my head: Under no fucking circumstances do you go to LA. You do that, you risk starting a war.
I pocket the phone.
My girl is in trouble. My girl called me. My girl said please and I need you, and I'm sorry. She told me someone is dead, and she's alone and she's scared.
There isn't a war on earth that would stop me.
I walk back to the barn. Colten is on the phone. He sees my face and hangs up.
"What happened?"
"I need the jet."
"For what?"
"I'm going to LA."
His face hardens. "Ace. Hunter said—"
"I know what Hunter said."
"He said under no circumstances—"
"Harper just called me. She's in trouble, Colt. Real trouble. And I'm going to get her. I think she’s killed Hudson."
“Holy fucking shit, Ace.”
He stares at me. Reading my face the way he reads everything. But what he sees isn't strategy. It's a man who's already made his decision and will walk through him to get to the door if he has to.
"Hunter's going to lose his mind," Colten says.
"Yeah. He is."
"This could start a war."
"Maybe. Ain’t we already in one?" I say, nodding to the dead body on our floor.
"You could get killed."
"Maybe. Some cunt just tried to shank me in an alley. I ain’t safe anywhere."
He's quiet for a long moment. Then he cracks his neck. Rolls his shoulders.
"Then I ain't letting you do this alone."
"Colt, you don't have to—"
"Shut up, Ace. You're my little brother. You think I'm going to sit on this ranch while you fly into a war zone by yourself?" He pulls out his phone. "I'll call the pilot. You've got twenty minutes to pack. And I’ll tell Hunter. We’re going to be in serious shit for this."
"I need ten."
"Then you've got ten."
He dials. I'm already moving. Toward the house. Toward the only decision I've ever been completely certain of.
Three hundred and seventy miles. That's what separates me from her. One hour in the air. Another thirty on the ground. She's alone in a city full of enemies, covered in a dead man's blood.
I'm coming, Goldie.
I promised her two hours. I'll make it in ninety minutes.
And God fuckin’ help anyone who gets in my way.