Chapter 10 #2
I exhale deeply, hating that his words echo my thoughts, hating that I have anything even remotely in common with a Harland. I reach for the bottle.
“Then start from the beginning.”
So, he does.
“My story isn’t dramatic. I wasn’t pulled into this life for vengeance, and I wasn’t raised in it like you. I saw the life the McEwans had, and I wanted it. So, when I was fourteen, I started delivering packages for the Craigs. Then I was collecting money. Then heads.”
“Spooky.”
He smiles. “It wasn’t long until I saw potential outside of the drugs.
Guns and money specifically. Craig was too stuck in his ways to see it, but he eventually realized that fighting me wouldn’t end well for him.
So, I absorbed everything he owned, handed off the drugs, and focused on weapons and laundering. ”
I remember Ranger telling me before we were married that Wilder wouldn’t deal in drugs. It made no sense to want to work with Ranger if that was the case, but he seemed determined, anyway.
“You don’t like the drug side of the business.”
Colt shakes his head. “No, I do not.”
“But you’re close with the McEwans.”
“It’s our one point of contention.”
I tilt my head. “A strange moral compass.”
“As long as it keeps spinning.” He runs his tongue across his bottom lip, as if needing the taste of the whiskey but not wanting to ask for the bottle. “Any other questions for me?”
“Ranger said that you refused to let the Italians or Russians use your routes. That Wilder fucked up your relationships with almost all the families in New York. But I saw you with Finn … none of that’s true, is it?” He shakes his head slowly. “You’re friendly with all of them.”
“… Not all.”
“Most.”
Another nod.
How is that even possible? What kind of negotiation skills does this guy have?
“Why did Wilder want anything to do with Ranger?” I ask quickly, suddenly concerned he might shut down my questions.
Colt is quiet for a moment, a shadow crawling across his expression.
“Because his need to escape the city outweighed how much we hated the drugs. Foolishly. Temporarily.”
Escaping his mistakes. An experience Wilder and I seem to share.
“Why are you so close to the McEwans?” I ask.
Colt’s lips tilt up into a warm smile. “I always knew of them. Ronan McEwan is my age, and we sometimes took the same route home from school. My mom wasn’t eager to have us mix, given who the McEwans are, and kept us apart.
But one day, I was walking home and spotted a kid with far newer sneakers than I’d ever seen, let alone owned, and I tried to mug him. ”
Ronan McEwan. Ranger’s half-brother. The next in line to take over the McEwan legacy, although he’s a legend in his own right already. I haven’t heard much about him, only that he’s as fair as a man can be in this world. And absolutely nothing like Ranger.
I ask, “And that kid was Ronan McEwan?”
“It was. He was bigger than me back then, and he tried to kick my ass.”
I place my palms together in a prayer. “Oh, to have been a fly on the wall.”
He glares at me. “Anyway, my shirt was ripped, and I was covered in blood and mud. I knew my mom would kill me, and Ronan said he’d ask his aunt to clean me up.
I nearly punched him for his pity, but he just told me to shut up and follow, so I did.
Helena cleaned me up, sewed my shirt, and then yelled at us for fighting in the first place. ”
Helena McEwan. Finn McEwan’s wife. The Queen of New York without ever having to hold a gun.
“Anyway, Helena took me home, and it turned out she knew my mom. After that, Ronan and I were pretty inseparable.” He tilts his head. “I wonder how different things would have been with Denver DeLuca a couple of blocks over.”
That’s a strange alternate reality. If my parents hadn’t moved, I’d have probably gone to school with Ronan and Colt.
My parents left New York because my mother’s family, the Gallaghers, didn’t want their daughter marrying a DeLuca.
They didn’t speak much about their life before San Francisco, but it was clear that things were more than a little tense.
“We’d have all been friends,” Colt says.
I snort. “Let’s not push it. My dad wouldn’t have wanted me mixing with men like him.”
“But you married Ranger.”
His words from the car come rushing back to me. I married a monster, a man my father would have hated me marrying.
“Well, the heart wants what it wants.”
“Maybe your heart would have wanted me.”
My laugh is loud and Colt grins at me, his eyes sparkling. “Colt, I’ll tell you what Ranger tells every man who has flirted with me. You couldn’t handle me, so don’t even try.”
“I have no doubt about that,” he says, and this time, he does reach for the bottle. “While we’re stuck here, can we just pretend?”
“Pretend what?”
“That you’re not you, and I’m not me. You’re not a Luxe, and I’m not a Harland.” He drinks more. “That you don’t hate me, and I’m not the reason you hurt?”
My breath shakes a little as I let it out. “You’re not the reason I hurt, Colt.” His name feels strange in my mouth. Maybe it’s the whiskey.
His gaze is penetrating, but not cruel, not powerful, not the look of a man in control.
Just a man.
The brother of my enemy.