Page 118 of Finding Denver

“Get out, Wilder,” I say, running my hand down my face as I go to the mantle.

His laugh is one of disbelief. “Colt?—”

“I’m not fucking her; I’m in love with her!” I bellow at him, and he stares at me like he doesn’t know me. The irony of that isn’t lost on me, because he’s felt like a stranger for years.

“Tell me you’re fucking kidding.” he says. “She wanted to kill me not long ago.”

It’s an effort not to tear through the furniture to get to him. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t carry the weight of your fuck-up every single day? You really think it hasn’t crossed my mind how fucking pointless this is?”

He stays in place, looking torn between apology and hate. “I?—”

“What, Wilder? What? What do you want to say? You’re sorry? You wish you could change it? You wish that the one woman I’ve loved since my wife died wasn’t being taken from me because you threw a tantrum and killed half a dozen people?” I grip the coffee table and turn it over, candles and crayons and glasses scattering across the room. “Tell me how fucking sorry you are, Wilder. For everything you did. For burning Finn’s routes, for nearly isolating the man who raised us because you couldn’t handle being told what to do. For starting a war you had no idea how to fight. Tell me how sorry you are!”

“I am!” he screams. “I say it every day! I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, but I was … I … I lost Marnie, I?—”

“And I lost Callie. I lost Amy. And you know what I did? I punished myself, not everybody else!”

“My wife was stolen from me!” His eyes are glassy, hisvoice breaking. “You have no idea what it’s like to know she’s still out there in pain, needing me, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it! You know where Callie is. You know where Amy is. Your family is gone, but at least they’re at peace! What about Marnie? Where the fuck is she? What are they doing to her?” He sobs out the final word. “It fucking haunts me. I look at Holly and I see Marnie and how I’m doingnothingto get her back. I’m in this house, or I’m at Mom’s, and I’m fucking dying inside.”

My mind is torn apart by images. Of Denver walking away, of Marnie making coffee the day she was taken, of Callie in a delivery room, of Amy in a hospital bed. Of so many people we’ve lost. Of grief that feels like smoke between us, climbing into our lungs and across our minds and clouding any happiness we have left.

I pull Wilder into a hug, and he sobs into my shoulder, clinging to me.

Denver is right. He will always be here. He will always be my brother. I can’t give up on him; I never will. I won’t let him fight alone, and maybe I’m setting myself up for failure by letting him rely on me, but I don’t know what else to do.

And as my brother cries in my arms, I realize I have to let Denver go.

She’ll never forgive him. I’ll never walk away.

I love them both, but I’ve made my choice.

And I choose my family.

Chapter 32

Denver

Itap my pen against Ronan’s desk, gazing at endless paperwork, a mix of invoices and delivery slips, unfinished to-do lists and scribbled notes. It’s a mess, and I’m trying to organize it, desperate for anything monotonous. If I think too hard, I’ll think about him, and I’m too tired to replay last night.

Lewis listened as I ranted about Wilder. How he showed up, tried to talk to me, to do what … apologize? Explain himself? As if that would change anything. I finally came face to face with the man I’d searched for, and I walked away. For the same reason I stopped searching for him.

For Holly. For Colt.

“Your flight booked?”

I lift my head and meet Alistair’s eye. He’s holding a laptop, as always. His silver hair is freshly cut, gray suit impeccable, but his light brown eyes are heavy with exhaustion.

“It is.”

He’s not a big talker, not to me at least, and I sometimes get the impression that he isn’t my biggest fan.

“I’ll be busy over the next few days, so this is probably goodbye,” he says. “So … goodbye.”

How warm and fuzzy.

“You’ll look out for him?” I ask quickly. “When I go? You’ll … you’ll make sure Colt’s okay? And Holly, too?”

Something cold crosses his expression. “I’ve looked out for Colt since I was eleven years old, Denver. I don’t need to be reminded how to be a friend.”