Page 28 of Taking Denver

Ace says, “Ranger worked with her dad, Nico DeLuca. Big-time Italian mobster.”

“Like… the mafia?” Zeke whispers excitedly.

Ace nods. “Nico and Ranger were business partners and ran San Francisco together. Denver’s dad was as scary as Ranger, but he died in a car accident a few years back and left Ranger everything.”

Sebastian stares in abject horror. “Even his daughter?”

Ace’s shrug is anything but casual, and he casts me an apologetic glance. “I don’t think so, but photos started popping up of Denver and Ranger after her dad died. Everyone assumed they were dating, but then she married Wyatt Ledger. You’ve really never heard of Deluxe?”

“Deluxe?” I sit forward.

Ace nods again. “That’s what the media call her.”

The nickname that had spurred her into a rage when I’d said it. I pinch the bridge of my nose, a headache building.

“Are you okay?” Sebastian asks quietly.

No, I’m not okay. I’m grappling desperately with who Denver supposedly is. It has to be exaggerated. She has fire, sure, but she isn’t danger adjacent. Except, she is, isn’t she?

“How did her husband die?” Sebastian asks, and I whip my head to look at my friend. “She told me this morning that he’d died. I was going to mention it when we were alone.”

Dead. Not divorced, not separated.

“Well…” Ace chews his lip. “Everyone thinks Denver did it.”

“Not a fucking chance,” I cut out the words before I can process them.

I may not know her that well, but I’ve been alone with her, and despite fearing she might tear me apart with words, she isn’t a murderer.

“I agree with Ethan,” Sebastian says. “I’ve met criminals in the ER. Murderers, rapists, dangerous people… she isn’t one of them.”

Ace shrugs, somewhat noncommittally. “Well, he was killed in a carjacking a few months ago.”

“When? Before she came here?” I ask.

“I’m not sure about the dates. No one is,” he says. “All people know is Wyatt Ledger got shot in the head, and then the media couldn’t find Denver. She could have been grieving, though?—”

“Or on a flight,” Zeke offers, raising his brows. “Running.”

Fuck. It looks that way. If her husband was murdered and then Denver left San Francisco, she looks guilty, doesn’t she? If I’d been on the outside looking in, that’s what I’d think.

But I’m not on the outside. I’m firmly within this mess, paddling in it like a fucking idiot.

“What if Ranger killed her husband because he was jealous?” Zeke asks. “Ethan, you can’t go near her.”

I squeeze my jaw. “It was a carjacking.”

“Yeah.” Ace scoffs out a laugh. “What carjacker shoots a guy in the forehead?”

I stand. “I don’t care why Denver’s here or what happened to her husband. I care that she’s alone with Ranger, and she said she didn’t have a choice.” I throw money on the table for the food. “I’m going to check on her.”

The entire walkback to the hotel, I struggle to breathe. My phone is burning a hole in my pocket with the urge to searchwhether what Ace was saying was true, but it feels like a betrayal to trust the internet over Denver.

I’d love to say she’s given me no reason to question her, but there are several bullets and a lie to the police that say otherwise. I mean, technically, it wasn’t a lie; I just left out valuable information, like who the hell I’d almost beaten half-to-death, but I doubt that distinction matters much. It’s one thing to lie to protect a woman I hardly know; it’s another if my lie is attached to a criminal organization.

The black limo car is outside the hotel, and a man is leaning against the hood, smoking a cigarette, his suit at odds with the vacationers around him. He eyes me as I pass.

When I reach Denver’s door, I pause. This Ranger guy is clearly still here, but I have no other way to contact her. I don’t even have her number.

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