One Year Ago
“It’s been years, why don’t you just tell her the truth?” Paige plants her boots on the knobby log next to the fire and crosses her ankles, “Since when are you such a scaredy cat?”
“I came this close—” I pinch my thumb and forefinger together, “to shooting Brett through the fucking head.”
“I know, Col,” she says gently, “but it wasn’t your fault. Like, really not your fault. You were literally unconscious. You didn’t choose to have a neurological disorder. She’s an intelligent, educated person, so why wouldn’t she understand?” Paige studies me from across the fire, shadows dancing across her face as she waits patiently for my response. “I don’t think you’re giving her enough credit,” she adds.
Maybe not, but there are other reasons she’s afraid of me. Ones that make what I did even more complicated.
“You’re right, she is intelligent.” When I stare into the flames, I can see Brett’s face right in front of me and my heart feels like it’s in a vice. “She’s the most perfect human to walk this earth, and she makes all of this—” I motion to the snow-capped peaks and mirrored lake behind us, "look like my dad’s front yard in Gunnison with five cars on blocks.”
“Well, I think you’re just being a wimp,” Paige arches a brow, drawing a laugh from me, “people might wish they didn’t say or do certain things, but true regret is getting to the end of your life and realizing you should’ve said or done something. And, of everyone I know, you’re the last person I’d think would be afraid of telling someone how you feel.”
I toss a wad of dry grass into the fire and shoot her a warning look, “There’s more to it, Paige.”
“Bullshit, there is,” she scoffs with a glint in her dark almond eyes, “there’s only now, Col. Saddle up, or get left behind.”
And, by the next morning, Paige was gone, too.
The crack of that pine woke me from a coma, the branches skewering my flesh along with hers, bleeding me out and breaking my heart for the last time. And, on the side of that mountain, as the snow began to pile up, I had to make yet another promise that I wouldn’t leave her—that I’d come back for her and bring her home. I promised her that I’d always remember the last thing she said to me and that her death would have meaning.
I don’t have Paige or my sister anymore, but Brett is still alive. She’s still here, and I won’t leave her behind, either. Even though I tried to let her go, wandering aimlessly through the wilderness, I couldn’t really let her go, even if she wanted me to. So, I didn’t.
Saddle up, or get left behind. Because Paige is right, the only future that exists is with Brett. Everything else is a lukewarm, diluted, fake version of life. And that’s what I tell Sergei when I break the news that I’m going back to the lower 48. He understands, because you need things to talk about while you’re staring into a pure white landscape for weeks on end, searching for predators. In addition to every other fucked up thing that’s happened in my life, I told him about Brett and why I left.
That why, when I found out who’d gotten to her in my absence, I climbed into my Bronco with Pony and started driving. A week later, Sergei was all in, fresh off a flight from Whitehorse, sitting on Dallas and Alex’s balcony with me, making himself at home.
“Why don’t you just—” he raises his arms like he’s holding an imaginary rifle and blows a puff of air through his lips, “done. What’s the problem?”
Sergei also has no chill.
“Because,” I pause to give Pony a scratch behind the ears before he lays back down, “he can’t be a martyr. He has to voluntarily set foot on my property, he has to die with my bullet in his skull, while trying to take what’s mine. And everyone has to know what he did.”
“So much drama,” Sergei mutters in his thick, Russian accent, “Americans have to romanticize everything. If you want romance, just make her a nice Solyanka—I’ll give you my mother’s recipe—serve it to her in his skull, and use the rest of his body to fertilize a rose garden you plant just for her.” He shoots me a smug grin as he takes a drag off his cigarette and blows the smoke out into the night sky.
It’s not a bad idea.
“Look,” I scoff, “I can’t just shove him out a window and call it a day.”
Sergei shakes his head dismissively, “You’re not wealthy enough or high enough in government for that.”
I may not have endless resources or government connections, but Sergei’s connections along with my own favors called in from the past will do just fine. All I know is the next day, he pulls his Lexus LC 500 up to the loading dock of a grey, non-descript warehouse on the west side of the city—where he’s never set foot in his life—gets out, and walks inside. He returns a few minutes later, tosses a cardboard box wrapped in packing tape in the backseat, and flies back out onto the interstate like we were never there.
Back at the apartment, Sergei rips open the tape and begins unboxing the meticulously packed contents, “Chess, not checkers,” he states bluntly, tossing me one of the small boxes on top, “don’t let your emotions overwhelm intelligence.”
Soon, the kitchen table is covered in unbranded cameras and surveillance equipment of questionable legality, likely shipped from places that fall under United States import restrictions.
I don’t know that I’d call it luck, but a few days later, Bowen leaves town for an entire week—with my girl.
Trade-offs...
By the time he returns, I have eyes on both Brett’s condo and Bowen’s property and I can see both exteriors as well as their living rooms through encrypted feeds on my phone. But even though I’m already half dead inside, it still takes every ounce of willpower not to walk into Bowen’s house and shoot him in the goddamn face after the first time I watch him fuck her over the back of his sofa. Instead, I end up with a few new scars.
Again, trade-offs…don’t let your emotions overwhelm intelligence…then call me the fucking Zen master.
Bowen’s lucky I’m not as impulsive as he is, otherwise I would’ve waited until Brett left for Thursday dinner with Barrett and burned his house down with him inside when she moved in with him a couple months later. I’ve heard that’s the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths—impulse control. He and I are a match made in hell. This is also about the time that things start getting really interesting.
The first time I see Hannah Bailey go into Bowen’s empty house, I think it’s pretty weird. And then, when she starts doing it more and more, and she starts poking around back in the bedrooms, I start paying attention.
Hannah’s always been a simp, following Bowen around like a lost puppy, hoping he’ll give her attention that never comes. There were times she’d get distracted, though, and that was usually whenever I’d come around. She’d drift away from Bowen and, as soon as he noticed, he’d reel her back in like a fucking trout. He’d never give her a shred of attention, but hell if she thinks she can ignore him. And after this long, Hannah isn’t going to change. She detests Brett and her intoxicating presence, consuming Bowen’s attention, even living in his house, sleeping in his bed just to spite her.
She hates Brett, and it’ll make her do things—desperate things—just like last time.
Hannah likes to talk, act like she’s more threatening than she is, especially to other women. But as soon as you challenge her, a feather could knock her over. Which is why it gives me so much pleasure to pay her a visit and warn her to leave Brett alone. When she sees me, her face looks just like Hildy’s when she heard my voice behind her in the Starbucks line.
No wonder they’re best friends. They’re the same, and they both probably ran back to Bowen as fast as they could to tell on me. But I knew they would, and I knew it would only add to his anxiety, because every day he has to square with the fact that I have access to Brett when he doesn’t, which drives him crazy.
Brett, Alex, and Dallas working for the same company was like the stars aligning—undeniable proof that the universe never forgets, and the universe will always dole out justice when humans fail. And once I set foot in that building, I have eyes on her 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I make sure I’m the one watching her, protecting her, knowing who’s walking past her door, into her office, and for how long.
It’s not difficult. All it takes is solidifying my reputation as the most deranged asshole on security detail to get exactly what I want. All it takes is staying quiet, staying alert, and seizing opportunities when they present themselves.
I shouldn’t have even been in the control room that day, but as soon as Alex mentions reorganizing the security zones, I decide to stick around a few more minutes.
Speaking to Nate, Alex points to the corridor of newly rehabbed office space on the north side of the second floor, “With these new offices, it adds more square footage to Zone 5. So, you can either keep this quadrant or I can move it to Zone 4 and it’ll even out the distribution.”
“I’ll take it,” I say from my seat across the table, not looking up as I scroll through my phone.
“It’s fine, I’ll keep it,” Nate grins, thinking that’s the end of it.
