Chapter 23
Colt
I’m woken by soft crying. I inhale quietly, blinking my eyes open, and my neck aches when I sit up. It’s dark outside, and the sandwich that Helena brought me just after lunch is still beside me.
We’re home after a quiet flight. Denver went straight to bed when we arrived, and we’ve taken turns sitting with her.
She isn’t silent anymore. She cries more than she sleeps.
This is the third time she’s woken like this, anguished sobs buried in a pillow.
I dread to think what she’s dreaming about, and wish to God I could take it away.
Taf spent the day with Holly, holding her a little closer than usual. Lewis sat in silence for a long time. Finn didn’t ask me how it went. Neither did Helena. But Finn did sit with me, a whiskey in both our hands, and his company was enough to keep me grounded.
When Denver’s breathing evens out, I stand, blinking back tears of my own. I go to the window to open it, to breathe in cool air that will calm the anger that wants to burn wild again.
And that’s when I see him.
Across the street. Leaning against his parked car.
Ranger fucking Luxe.
The ability to calm myself vanishes. The rationale falls away.
And the want to hurt him overcomes every sense I have.
I don’t grab my gun as I leave Denver’s room and stride down the hall. I take the stairs quickly, and I’m opening the door before anyone can stop me. The evening air does nothing to cool my skin, my rage.
Ranger watches with indifference as I stride toward him.
The arrogance of him. The fucking audacity.
We’re close when he pulls his gun, arm outstretched, finger on the trigger, and the moment is reduced to seconds.
And in those seconds, I realize that Ranger Luxe’s power comes from the belief that he is always a step ahead.
Always a rung higher on the ladder of our lives.
He lives in a world where he’s feared, where he’s the king.
But he’s in my fucking city now.
I lean, my left hand darting out to grip his wrist, shoving the gun toward the ground as he fires. The bullet hits the cement, and my other fist meets his jaw. Any other man would have gone down, but with his size, all that happens is that he falls back into his car.
But I knew that would happen. I knew that because my power doesn’t come from arrogance. Finn taught me from a young age never to underestimate anyone. Not the person above or below me. Anyone can find the strength you take for granted and turn it against you.
I disarm Ranger, and the gun is against his forehead before he can recover from the punch. I step back, distance important to maintain control. I pull back the hammer.
“I won’t kill you. That’s her right. But you have two minutes to get the fuck out of my territory.”
Ranger rolls his jaw, touching his lip and the spot of blood I’ve drawn from him. He straightens up, and we’re eye to eye.
“Two men have tried to take her from me, Colt. They’re both dead. Do you think you’ll fare any better?”
“I’m not taking her. And the fact you think that’s the only reason she’d walk away means you don’t know your wife at all.” He steps forward, and my finger hovers over the trigger. “If you give me no choice, she’d understand.”
Ranger stills, smart enough to know even he couldn’t survive a bullet to the head.
His attention flicks behind me, and for the second time in my life, I see Ranger Luxe weaken a little at the sight of the woman he loves. Because I know it’s her behind me, descending the steps, ready to face the cause of all her pain since she was twenty-one years old.
“It’s okay, Colt,” Denver says quietly. “He won’t do anything.”
I don’t believe that for a second, so although I lower the gun and take a step back, I don’t leave. A glance back at the house shows me that Finn and Ronan are at the door, and the men Finn called will be watching closely, too. If Ranger steps out of line, his blood will coat this street.
Denver keeps distance between herself and her husband. Her face is pale, eyes red, and she’s pulled her hair away from her face to reveal … nothing. No expression. No hate or anger or despair. She’s hollow.
“Come home, Denver,” Ranger says. It isn’t as soft as it should be. Not a demand, not a plea.
“No.”
He searches her face. “After everything we’ve been through, this is what makes you walk away? A fucking casino? A few letters?”
He doesn’t know.
My attention moves to Denver as she processes that information, too. Something I’ve seen in her before sparks to life.
Power.
Not the blazing flame it usually is, but a reawakening.
“You want me to come home, Ranger?” she asks, her tone flat.
“Yes,” he says, far too sharp for a man who should be pleading.
She drops her hands to her sides. “Beg. Get on your knees and beg me to come home. And I will.”
Ranger looks at me. At Finn. At Ronan. Humiliation and pride keep him standing. Denver doesn’t move.
But after a moment, he swallows whatever pride he has and gets to his knees.
I almost step back. It’s such an alarming sight to see twice in my life. The first time was pure relief that Denver was alive. Now, he’s at her mercy.
“Come. Home.”
“Say please.”
He grits his jaw. “Please, little bird.”
Denver examines his face with relative indifference. Like he’s a toothless snake, and she was the one who removed the poison. She steps forward, and I tense. The car is close. He could grab her, take her, and my heart thunders at the thought of him doing just that.
But Denver doesn’t seem afraid. She reaches out and runs her fingertip across his jaw.
“Do you remember our wedding day? You looked just like this,” she says softly. “You lied to me then, too. About my father’s will. About the women Wyatt slept with. You lied about everything.” My breathing gets harder to control the more I hear. “You were so angry with me.”
Ranger slides his hands up her outer thighs and grips her hips gently. “But we got through it.”
“We did, didn’t we?” She smiles. “You forgave me for taking your son from you.”
He nods. “I did.”
“Can I forgive you for the same?”
Men do two things when they experience true fear.
Some thrash, and scream, and beg, and cry. Their bodies become a twitching mess of tears, piss, and sweat.
Some go totally still. The fear is encased in their skin, a scream trapped and lost in a throat, an odd kind of acceptance that seems almost peaceful.
Ranger Luxe does the latter.
His voice cracks. “Denver—”
“I’m going to tell you something you once told me, my love,” she says, her voice still frighteningly calm.
“I am the only person left in this world who loves you. Do you remember saying that to me?” Ranger says nothing, his breathing fast. “I am the only thing you love more than yourself, aren’t I?
I am the reason you exist. The very reason you hate yourself less than you should.
And you are losing me.” He shakes his head, lips parted, eyes wide.
“And you can blame circumstance, or obsession, or Wyatt, or Ethan, or anyone else, but this is no one’s fault but yours.
And I hope it eats away at you. I hope it fucking festers in your chest until you wither away and die. ”
She shoves his hands from her waist, and he lets her. She turns from him, and Ranger keeps shaking his head, like he can’t process what’s happening.
“I made sure he went to a good family,” he says, and Denver stops.
“I checked on him constantly. He was happy. I made sure he was happy. And you know you never would have left Wyatt if you’d kept his child.
” Ranger’s breathing shakes, but he keeps going, a fool determined to dig his own grave.
“You would have forgiven him for anything if you had his son.”
She faces him again. “You mean I would never have let you manipulate me into killing him.”
“You took that gun of your own free fucking will, Denver. I would have been satisfied doing it myself.”
“You’ll never be satisfied!” she screams. The sound climbs down the street like whips of shadows across a sunlit path, darkness and fear and grief wrapped up in four words.
“You asked me to leave Ethan. I did. You asked me to marry you. I did. You told me to become Deluxe.” She hits her chest. “I fucking did. But it was never enough, was it? You’ve created this delusion where I’m the perfect woman because I’ll just bend and twist and crack my fucking bones into whatever shape you want from me!
And I can’t do it anymore, Ranger. I can’t be your fucking doll! ”
“You’re not …” He stumbles. Ranger Luxe fucking stumbles over his words. “I love you.”
She shakes her head, looking past anger and into exhaustion.
“You don’t love me. You locked me in a box and called it choice.
I never had a choice. I never had anything other than you, and I accepted it when I should have fought back.
” She stares at him. “I chose you over Ethan. I chose you over happiness that you said was fragments. Do you want to know what I choose now?” That fire in her expands again, the flames growing higher, burning in the deep steel of her eyes.
My pride, my admiration, flares alongside it.
“I choose the family that didn’t choose you. ”
And I watch in real time as Ranger Luxe, the most powerful man on the West Coast, stays on his knees and lets his wife walk away.
I remove the clip from the gun and the loaded bullet, pocketing both before tossing the useless weapon at Ranger’s knees. I head toward the house, where Denver has already disappeared inside.
“She’ll forgive me,” Ranger says. I pause and face him, and he’s staring right at me, not a flicker of doubt in his expression or tone. “She’ll need time, but she’ll come back to me. She always does.”
I shake my head, my laugh more a breath of disbelief. “Not this time. And Ranger? The next time you even think about taking her, hurting her, coming within feet of her, I want you to remember who is standing behind her.” His jaw tenses. “You have an hour to get the fuck out of my city.”