Page 36 of Finding Denver

He shrugs a shoulder, still playing his game. “And messy.”

“How are you so calm?” I shriek. “We’re suspended above thin air, by a cable, in a metal prison!”

Colt slowly lifts his sapphire gaze. “That’s why you’re pacing? You’re scared?”

“Not scared, just …” I gesture around us. “Aware of our impending doom. And I really don’t want to die with you!”

“That makes two of us,” he says, and my glare has him reaching out his hand. “Give me the bottle.”

“Why?”

“So I can use it to create a parachute to get us out of here,” he says drily. “So I candrinkit.”

If this were any other circumstance, I’d beat him over the head with this Macallan, but I want a drink, too. I hold out the bottle.

Sinking to the floor on the far corner of the elevator, I watch him take a swig of the whiskey. He holds the bottle out to me, and I snatch it back, making a point to wipe the rim with my damp sleeve before taking a mouthful.

Now his suit jacket is abandoned beside him, I can see the tattoos on his forearms that I was hoping to spot in the restaurant.

The art is intricate and breathtakingly realistic. It looks like veils of silk are wrapped around his skin, skulls and skeletal fingers draped in the thin, delicate material depicted by ink and a needle.

“A silk River Styx,” he says. “That’s what I asked for.”

That’s accurate. I hand him the bottle. “That’s why they call you Ghost?”

“It’s one of the reasons.” He takes another mouthful of whiskey. “I was nineteen. I thought it’d look cool.” We pass the bottle back and forth a few times, and I shiver in my wet clothes. When I next look at him, he’s holding out his jacket. “My mother would kill me if I didn’t at least offer.”

I don’t want to take it. We could be out of here in the next five minutes, and I’ll be furious with myself for accepting something from him when I don’t absolutely have to.

But I’m so fucking cold. My hoody isn’t drying, my jeans are sodden, and I’m holding back more shivers. So, I take the offered clothing and decide to hate myself for it later. “Close your eyes.”

He does, and I peel off my coat and hoody, tossing the heavy items aside. I pull on his suit jacket, buttoning it up. Without opening his eyes, he throws me a scarf, too, and I wrap it around my neck to hide my cleavage. It smells of woodsy, earthy, expensive cologne that, despite who it belongs to, has me breathing in.

“You can open your eyes.”

He does, and we sit in silence.

Another hour passes, but we don’t drink more. Instead, I wallow in the fact that I killed someone tonight.

It’s never easy. I’ve killed two men since my wedding night, both of whom tried to take my life. One was at the club, a guy who thought robbing a Luxe property was smart and turned his gun on me when he was caught. The second was when Ranger and I had gone to a restaurant and someone carjacked us. Ranger told me to run, but I couldn’t leave him behind, so I didn’t. I shot a man in the heart as he tried to pin me down and strangle me.

Both times, I sobbed. Both times, Ranger told me I had no choice.

I had a choice tonight. Kill a man or let a father die. I don’t regret the decision I made, but the action wasn’t easy, and I don’t have Ranger with me this time to hold me through the night.

Closing my eyes, I try to imagine what he’d say. He’d tell me he was proud. He’d call me a survivor. His little bird. His wife.

It is my right to change you.

When I open my eyes again, Colt is watching me. I shift in place, hugging the scarf closer.

“It sits with you, doesn’t it?” he says quietly, and I focus on a speck of dust in the far corner. “I thought it’d get easier with time. The more I killed, the less it’d rob me of sleep. But it doesn’t. It isn’t even the act anymore. It’s the repercussions of it.”

“Nice to know one Harland considers the consequences of their actions.” I sniff, using the sleeve of his jacket to smooth away the hair stuck to my cheeks. “Ranger doesn’t have a problem with it.”

I’ve slept by his side after he’s killed. His sleep isn’t disturbed; his routine stays the same. He’s always Ranger.

“Well, some people find it cathartic to kill. Others don’t.”