Page 102 of Finding Denver

Chapter 26

Ranger

My knuckles meet bone again and again and again. Blood spits across a cold cement floor. The man I’m beating sobs and begs me to stop, tells me he knows nothing, but I already know that. That’s not why I keep hitting him.

I hit him because I’ve lost everything, and I can’t punish the man who took it.

My muscles burn. My knuckles split and bleed. But I keep hitting, and I’m lost in a haze of red, of blood, of rage I’ve never felt before. I thought my jealousy hit its peak with Wyatt and Ethan, but this is doing exactly what Denver said it would. It’s festering.

Cal’s voice comes through the fog, and I stop hitting, my breath cold in my chest, my shirt sticking to me. “He’s dead.”

I look at the man. The body. The corpse that no longer has a face.

I straighten. “Get rid of him.”

JJ does as I ask without question, and I snatch my jacketfrom a nearby chair as I leave the warehouse and head for the car.

Cal drives us home, and I stare out the window. I check my phone for messages from her, but there are none. I have endless contacts under the name “My Wife” because she keeps changing her number. I ring each of them every day. She never answers. Never calls me back.

I only don’t go to her because I want her to want me again. I want her to come to her senses and realize I did what I did because I had no choice. Having Wyatt’s son was never an option. As her pregnancy went on, she was letting more and more things go. His late nights. His disappearances. The way he treated her. She was forgiving him because she was always going to be connected to him, and that wasn’t okay.

And I always checked on Theo. I made sure the family he went to were good people, people who weren’t like us. I did what I could to make sure he was safe and happy, which was more than Wyatt would have ever done for his own fucking son.

We needed a fresh start. I did it for her. For us.

She’ll see that. And she’ll come home.

“I’m worried about you,” Cal says quietly.

He pulls the car to a stop outside the house. I ignore him, going into my home that’s a shell without her presence. It’s brick. It’s wood. It’s furniture and memories. It’s not her.

I almost burned it to the ground last week. I lit the match and watched it flicker out. Maybe this place is why she hasn’t come back. Maybe there are too many memories here. We could buy somewhere else. An apartment in the city. Or a house somewhere far away. We could get Theo,and she could be his mom. Maybe she’d even tell me where Axel is.

I crouch in the foyer. “Wesson, boy.”

The door closes behind me. Cal says, “Ranger, you can’t keep living like this.”

I wait for the sound of claws on marble. “Wesson, come here. We’ll go for a walk.”

“Ranger—”

I’ve hit him before I can talk myself out of it.

My knuckles reopen as they meet his jaw, and he hits the ground, the sound thudding through the empty foyer. Guilt should trickle through me, even if it’s the smallest amount would be a reminder of my humanity, but the only thing I feel is the urge to hit him again.

I stand over him, my friend, my only friend. “I pay you to drive me. To watch me if necessary. I do not pay you to fucking babysit me.” I turn away and stride through the house. “Wesson!”

I pause when I notice my office door is open. I never leave it open.

Approaching slowly, I push it open farther. Standing behind my chair, arms resting on the back of it, is Colt Harland.

The man who is keeping my wife from me. Who saved her once and thinks she’s his. She isn’t. She’s mine. He doesn’t get to take her.

He smiles. “Afternoon, Ranger.”

Charlie Callahan is leaning against the far wall. He’s well known in our world, and from my reports about Denver, it’s clear she’s hired him and his men to keep her safe. A blond guy is sitting on the window ledge, his gun resting on his thigh, one of Colt’s closest. Taf, I think his name is.

Not that any of them matter, because they’ll be dead soon.