Page 1 of Finding Denver
Prologue
COLT
They call me Ghost because that’s what I am.
A soul. A phantom. An apparition.
I’ve been doing this job for eighteen years, and for half of that, I’ve worked in the shadows. I’ve killed in them, too, but it meant I could walk down the street and no one would know my face.
I became a ghost because the anonymity gave me and my family peace.
But before I became Ghost, I was Colt Harland.
Growing up, we had enough. Our cupboards were never empty, and our Christmases were twinkling lights and ribbon wrapped gifts, but I saw the life others had and wanted it. I saw the cars parked outside the nicest hotels in the city, the designer suits and Rolexes sported by men that I knew would one day fear to speak my name.
I wanted that life—their life—and I wanted it fast, so I inserted myself into a world my mother begged me to avoid.
I started delivering packages when I was fourteen, ones that would’ve landed me in juvie if I’d been caught. By eighteen, I was collecting heads instead of boxes. By nineteen, the man who employed me had handed me his empire because he knew what I’d do if he didn’t.
I took what he had, and I made itmore.
I went from standing behind the seat at meetings to sitting among the most powerful men in New York. The McEwans ruled the city, and the head of their family took me under his wing. Soon, the Russians wanted me to return their calls. The Italians did, too. A powerful, respectful man was what they called me. A man willing to bend tradition where necessary.
A man to fear.
I wore my kills like badges of honor. Any opportunity to extend the pain, I did it. If they crossed me, they took days to die. If they threatened my family, their death echoed through their bloodline. My rise was quick, brutal, and lucrative. It was all that mattered to me.
Until I met Callie. A sharp-tongued brunette changed everything, and the power I’d worked so hard for became an afterthought. I wanted date nights without worry. I wanted movie days in bed. I wanted dancing in the living room and vacations without bodyguards.
Within six months we were married, and I happily stepped into obscurity. I made sure that no evidence of Colt Harland existed outside of my physical being or the whispers on the street. The only men who knew my face were dead or too smart to let my description pass their lips. Besides, they understood. Given the chance, some of them would fade into darkness, too. We may be rivals in territory and power, but we all have something in common.
Family is life.
And I made my family mine.
By the time Callie was pregnant, we could take walks without second glances in our direction. We could go on vacation, and I could trust my closest men to run things without me. I only worked if I had to.
My brother called me a fool. He said I was diluting my power. But if anything, it was the opposite. I killed without trace, appearing from the darkness to take information and blood, and then I’d vanish again.
But then, I lost everything.
A busy house became quiet. My reason to hide was torn away. Work became the only thing I had left. It is the only thing I have left.
So I’m not hiding anymore.
“It’ll change everything,” Alistair says from beside me as our drinks are placed on the table. The server gives me a quick, pink-cheeked smile before sweeping her dark ponytail over her shoulder and heading back to the bar through the sparse, mid-week crowd. The bar is quietly lit, and conversation is murmured, intimate. “Coming out of the shadows after so long … people will wonder why. They’ll think you’re planning something big. A takeover, probably.”
Alistair Chase is my oldest friend. Sometimes more of a brother than my actual brother, I can rely on him for anything. He’s the smartest man I know, opting to stick to computers rather than weapons, and it’s helped us maintain a legitimate financial front.
He runs his hand through his thick, silver hair—he started graying when we were sixteen and resisted peer pressure to dye it. Besides, that and his silver beard suit him, and anybody who comments on it is asking for the pain that follows. Alistair may not be hired muscle, but his physique says otherwise. I’ve seen him snap a man’s neck with very little effort.
To Alistair’s left, Anthony “Taf” Sanders—the actual hired muscle—enthusiastically nods his agreement. He got his nickname after a girl at school once gifted him saltwater taffy every day for a week, and he admitted he still had no idea she liked him. He’s another old friend, but a few years younger than Alistair and me. A blond-haired, blue-eyed brute is what my mother affectionately calls him, and she’s not wrong. And unlike Alistair’s pressed two-thousand-dollar suit, Taf is in a shirt I’m fairly sure he bought right after we left high school. It’s faded and strained over muscles he’s grown since then, but he’s a creature of habit.
Two men I’ve known since we were boys. Since we sat around a battered kitchen table and ate good food my mom made and talked about how we’d rule the city one block at a time.
When Wilder was better than he is now, the four of us were unstoppable. Whispers told of Wilder’s temper, Alistair’s smarts, and Taf’s fists. If you caused trouble, the severity of your punishment depended on who was sent to your door.
“Let them think what they like,” I say. “And who the fuck am I taking over, exactly?”
