Chapter 49
Colter was so furious he could barely breathe, because anger was easier than admitting his heart had just been split open by the two people he wanted most in this world.
He sat on the back porch with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and an empty mason jar he’d stopped bothering to use. The night was thick, cool enough to raise goosebumps on his forearms, but he barely felt it. Every swallow burned less than the one before.
“How long you been out here?” Boone asked, settling into one of the porch chairs like he planned to out-sit Colter’s stubbornness.
Colter took another pull from the bottle. “Long enough.”
“Long enough to pickle a kidney,” Eli said, taking a seat on the other side of Colter, boxing him in. Fuckers.
“Long enough to forget how to use words,” Boone added.
“I’m using words just fine,” Colter muttered.
“Grunts don’t count,” Eli said. “You’re the emotional equivalent of a barn animal right now.”
Colter flipped him the bird.
Boone grinned. “There he is. That’s the brother we know and love.”
At the word love, something in his chest pulled tight.
Jagged enough to notice but familiar enough to ignore.
Love had a way of doing that—slipping in quietly, then leaving damage behind when it went.
He’d believed in it once, without hesitation or armor, and it had shattered him for it.
Left him standing in the aftermath, trying to piece together a version of himself that still made sense.
Tonight, he wasn’t sure he believed in love anymore. At least not the kind that didn’t hurt. Not the kind that didn’t ask for blood before it gave anything back.
Colter scrubbed a hand down his face. The wind cut across the property; the barn sat as a dark silhouette against the stars. “She made a whole damn dossier on us. Like we were enemy combatants.”
Eli tapped a page with his knuckle. “To be fair, this is impressive indexing. She should’ve joined intel.”
“Stop admiring the enemy’s work.”
“I’m just saying, if she wanted to build a case file, she built a damn good one.”
Colter glared. “You both suck at comfort.”
“Good, because we’re not here to comfort,” Boone said. “We’re here to stop you from drinking whiskey like it’s electrolytes.”
“She lied, Colt,” Eli said. “She was scared and young and that’s a bad combination.”
Colter slammed the bottle down. “No shit. She chose this route because she wanted control. She wanted leverage to engineer the narrative. She wanted—”
“A dad,” Boone cut in quietly. “For her kid.”
“She had one. She just didn’t tell him.”
“And now you’re pissed about missing the job,” Eli said.
It cracked something open—because that was it. Missing the job. Missing the title. Missing the first five years.
“I missed everything,” Colter said, voice breaking. “First words. First steps. First fevers. First drawings. I wasn’t there to hold her through nightmares or clap for her at preschool. I wasn’t there at all.”
And that was the part that was breaking him.
Not the lie or the file. Hell, it wasn’t even the years. It was the question underneath all of it, the one that had no clean answer: Who was he now?
Not the man who didn't have a daughter. Not yet the man who did. Something unfinished and nameless in between standing in a room full of crayon drawings and wearing a cape—trying to figure out what the hell a father was supposed to feel like when he found out five years too late.
Boone didn’t flinch. “You didn’t know to be.”
“That doesn’t make it easier.”
Eli flicked to the next sheet. “You love that little girl.”
“I’d kill for her.”
Boone nodded like, finally, the real conversation. “Okay, so the dad part’s sorted.”
“Sorted?”
“Mostly,” Boone amended.
Eli slapped the folder closed. “Now we get to the part you’re avoiding. The woman.”
“I am not talking about Sutton.”
“You already are,” Boone said.
Colter stared at the grain of the porch planks. Sutton’s tear-swollen eyes flashed behind his lids. The way she said I love you like she meant every bleeding inch of it.
Eli watched him closely. “You love her.”
Colter didn’t answer.
Boone kicked Colter’s boot. “Say it.”
Colter shook his head. “She lied to me. She built everything we had on secrets. She let me fall for a kid without telling me she was mine. She—”
“Is all you’re thinking about,” Eli cut in.
Silence.
Boone lowered his voice. “And that’s what you’re really afraid of.” Colter looked up sharply, but Boone held his gaze. “Losing her. Losing them. Loving big and getting wrecked just like with Mom and Dad. One car crash and everything good disappears.”
A nerve in Colter’s cheek twitched.
Boone didn’t soften. “You think if you don’t let yourself love a family, you can’t lose one again.”
Colter felt it like a sucker punch—hot and dizzying, accusing and true.
“You’re not protecting yourself, Colt. You’re hiding behind anger and custody threats. Behind whiskey.”
Colter looked away, eyes burning.
“Yeah,” Boone said gently. “There it is.”
“What the hell do I do now?”
"Wrong question."
Colter looked up. "What?"
"You keep asking what you do about what she did.
That's the anger question." Boone leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"The real question is what kind of father you want to be.
What kind of family the three of you are going to build.
Because that's what she was trying to figure out too—just from the wrong direction. "
Eli nodded once. "She wasn't asking if you were worthy, she was asking how to hand you something she'd been carrying alone for five years without dropping it."
Colter stared at the bottle.
"She got it wrong," Boone said. "But she was asking the right question. Now you get to answer it. So. What kind of family do you want?"
Colter was quiet for a long time.
"The kind that doesn't quit," he said finally.
"Then sober up, breathe, and go tell them that."
Eli nodded once. “Fear’s allowed. Running isn’t.”
Colter bowed his head. He didn’t cry. He didn’t break. But for the first time since the PI file hit his hands, he let himself want his family.