He walks past me. Close enough that I catch his cologne again, the same expensive, clean scent from the Scottsdale hospitality suite, and the memory of him saying Grant's name in that room—‘Fine young man. Terrible loss.’—hits me at the base of the skull.
This man shook my hand. He looked me in the eye and said my brother's name like a eulogy, and the whole time he was calculating whether I needed to be handled the same way.
I expected triumph. Vindication. The righteous satisfaction of watching justice arrive on schedule.
What hits me instead is grief. Sharp and fresh and completely sideways, cutting through the adrenaline before I can brace for it.
Watching Merrick in handcuffs doesn't bring Grant back. Doesn't undo the death or the time I spent lying to a man I love about who I am.
Colt doesn't ask if I'm okay. He pulls me against him, one arm locked around my shoulders, his chin on the top of my head.
The gesture isn't gentle. It's possessive and absolute, the physical equivalent of a door slamming shut between me and everything that wants to tear me apart.
I let him hold me. I press my forehead into his collarbone and breathe against the worn cotton of his shirt and let his heartbeat do the work my own can't manage right now.
"He's not lost," Colt says. His voice is low and rough against the top of my head. "Grant is the reason they just cuffed that man. Every piece of evidence, every witness, every thread we pulled started with him."
"I know."
"This is his." His arm tightens. "The arrest. The case. The story. All of it."
I pull back enough to look up at him. "He'd hate the attention, you know. He'd want to be in the stands with a beer, watching Merrick walk out, making some terrible joke about karma and bull riders."
"He'd say Merrick should have known better than to mess with a Corbin."
"He would say exactly that." The laugh that comes out of me is wet and ragged and surprises us both. "And then he'd buy everyone in the section a round and tell the story six times."
"Getting louder each time."
"Every single time."
We remain standing together, his arm around me and my face against his shirt, and the laughter fades into something quieter and harder to name. The arena hums below us.
We watch as the other bull riders finish their rides. The arena empties in stages, the crowd thinning, the noise winding down. Neither of us is ready to leave the spot where we watched the man who killed Grant walk out in handcuffs.
My phone buzzes. Torres.
Merrick in custody. Shell companies frozen. Accounts seized. I'll be in touch tomorrow with next steps.
I show the text to Colt. His jaw unclenches by a fraction.
"She works fast," he says.
"She's been waiting longer than we have."
He nods, then looks toward the empty VIP section. The abandoned bourbon glass catches the overhead light. The leather chairs are pushed back from the table at the angles where their occupants left them.
"Grant told me something once," Colt says. "Driving between events, three in the morning, middle of West Texas. He said the circuit was the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. That the cost was going to come due for the people cheating the sport."
"He was right."
"He was always right. Annoying as hell about it, too." His mouth fights a smile. "You Corbins. Every last one of you."
"Annoying?"
"Right."
I lean into him. His arm stays around my shoulders, and we stand at the railing watching the empty arena below us.
