Page 7 of Freeing Denver

“None of your fucking business.”

“You can’t go anywhere without security, Denver. You know that.”

I pause, resting my hand against the wall. He hates me, but I’m no use to him dead. He doesn’t trust me, but he needs me until I’m no longer useful. Never has concern been so fucking selfish.

“Lewis,” I call up the stairs. It’s seconds before my security and friend comes into view, brows raised in question. “Can you drive me somewhere?”

“Give me two minutes.”

Alistair stares at me, jaw ticking. “Taf should go with you, too.”

“Just like Taf replaced Lewis tonight?” I hit back. Alistair had said Lewis wasn’t needed, but I know he doesn’t trust either of us. “I choose my own security, and I trust Lewis.”

“Well—”

“I don’t care what you think, Alistair!” I rage, my cheeks heating. “I’m not your fucking puppet!”

I think the thing I hate most about Alistair is how bored he is when he’s around me. I’m insignificant, a nuisance, not even a real threat. He looks at me like that now, as if I’m a puzzle not worth solving, a trophy leader he can have by his side. Even his anger reaches a certain level then cools off. He doesn’t even hate me. I’m a bump in the road, that’s all.

“Stay away from Vince,” he says.

Colt’s chestrises and falls in a rhythm I could predict with my eyes closed. The tubes in his throat and arms are the same as always, the sounds of the machines don’t change, and he doesn’t move. I hold his hand, running my thumb over his knuckles, fighting the desperate urge to cry.

Antonia, Colt’s mom, is sitting on his other side. She’s knitting, a hobby that she’s said she’ll teach me. She’s talked me through it a dozen times, and I listen because I know it’s a distraction for her. She lost one son. She might lose another. She can talk to me about the different shades of gray if she wants to.

Antonia was the one who told Holly about Wilder’s death. I offered to be there, but she wanted to do it alone. The change in Holly has been devastating, her usual chattiness replaced with wide-eyed silence. The little girl who danced up to front doors on Halloween and roared like a panda is now withdrawn and barely eating.

“He looks different.”

Antonia nods. “I trimmed his beard. I know he likes it, and I doubt he’d be pleased if I gave him a clean shave.” Her smile is brittle as she focuses on her knitting. “Do you like his beard?”

Antonia knows that I have feelings for Colt. My almost constant presence by his side gives that away. But I haven’t gone into detail because I’m wearing a wedding ring, and the fewer people who know that my marriage to Ranger is a lie, the better.

“I do,” I say. “He was clean shaven in his wedding photos, though. And he does look handsome.” I grin at her, and Antonia chuckles.

“Callie said the beard made him look angry.”

I laugh, pressing the back of Colt’s hand to my cheek. “He smiles too much to look angry.”

Antonia makes an approving humming sound. “He smiles a lot with you?”

My cheeks warm. “I think so.”

We sit in grief-riddled silence for a while. Antonia hugs me when she leaves, and Lewis excuses himself to stand outside the private room. Once we’re alone, I do what I always do and gently climb up beside Colt, nuzzling into his arm.

And I cry.

I cry as I hold him, as I miss him. He doesn’t smell like Colt anymore. Not expensive cologne or pine fresh bodywash. It’s clinical. Cold. Not him.

My tears wet the hospital pillow, and I press a kiss to his cheek. “I miss you so much.”

I think about our final days together—dancing, laughing, making promises and plans.

And now he’s here, like this.

I place my hand on his chest, on the tattoo of the void where his heart is. He told me he had this done after he lost Amy.

“There’s just a space where my heart should be.”