His hate and rage are filtered inward. Aimed directly at himself in animosity and loathing. Being left alone is the very last thing Rocco needs right now.
“Anything I can do?”
“Wanna suck my cock to help me forget?” he asks sarcastically.
“No.”
“Then leave.”
“No.”
He smiles viciously. “No?” He steps toward me, a warning painted across his face.
“You don’t scare me,” I tell him confidently.
“I should.”
I shake my head. “Why? Because you’re losing your shit right now? We’ve all been here, Shay. Your temper isn’t anything I haven’t felt before.”
He looks saddened by my declaration. “You’re nothin’ like me, beauty. Trust me when I tell you it’s a good fuckin’ thing. Everything I touch... everything I love... it dies.”
A statement. One he whole-heartedly believes.
“Mom. Mira. All my doing. Parker was smart,” he urges me to understand. “He found someone to love more than he does me. He saved himself by finding purity to erase his sins.”
“Surely you don’t believe that?”
“Give me another reason why anyone that gets close to me seems to be stripped of their last breath.”
He looks so broken down by his own unreasonable belief.
“Anyone who got close to Marcus died, Rocco. Lila, Mira, even Kane... they’re on Marcus. Not you.”
Eyes boring into mine, he looks disgusted by my argument. How could I think anyone but him is the reason for life’s downfall? Every shitty thing that this world has on offer is a weight on his shoulders he’s burdened with holding.
“You know,” he ponders, refusing to discuss his responsibility in his mother’s death any further. He drops his ass onto a kitchen stool, thick arms crossed over his chest. “Control is the one thing in my life I crave. I pride myself on it. I can stand in a ring and have some jerk lay blow after blow to my body, but I control that. I let them hit me,” he confesses candidly. “I want them to think that they’re in control because there is nothin’ that fucks with your psyche more than realizin’ you have no fucking control. That you’re helpless. I wait until they’re at their most confident and then I claim it back.”
“Sarah played you at your own game,” I guess.
His head shakes side-to-side, a look of distaste twisting his features. “She didn’t need to. I was outta my depth the moment I stepped into that room. She knew it. I knew it.”
His large palm rubs down his face.
“You have it back now,” I push. “Your control. You could’ve gone out and lost your mind but you didn’t.”
Shame stares out at me from the agony in his eyes. “That’s not true. I couldn’t fight, Cami. I would’ve fucking killed someone. I locked myself in this cage, all but beggin’ Maggie to come over to stop me leavin’.”
“She could stop you from leaving?”
“She can be pretty persuasive.”
“Ew.”
He stands. “Doesn’t matter, you interrupted before I could tell her to fuck off and go on the search for a concussion.”
He’s telling me he didn’t fuck her. That he didn’t want to. Not in the end.
“Who you fuck is none of my business.”
“Was just letting you know,” he murmurs distractedly.
“What about Parker?” I change the subject. “Why not call Parker?”
He eyes me with contempt. “I haven’t shared that your father and I are workin’ together. Add that to the fact that I have no intention of sharin’ that I’m on the search for your mother. He’ll go all sensitive Parker on me. He’ll tell me he needs me, that I matter to him. He gets in my fuckin’ head,” he complains.
“Oh, no,” I gripe sarcastically. “Not someone who loves you. How inconvenient and insensitive of him.”
“Fuck off, Rein,” he grumbles, opening and closing cupboard doors in search of something. “You came to see if I’m okay. I’m clearly not, but I’ve had my meltdown. Your conscience can rest easy.”
Grabbing a bottle of tequila from the last cabinet, he holds it up in triumph. “I’m about thirty shots away from being comatose. Can’t fucking kill anyone then, can I? You can go now.”
I move into the kitchen. “You’re unhinged, Shay. You’re about two-point-five-seconds away from severing someone’s head from their body. Congratulations, you have a babysitter once again. Where are your fucking limes?”
He glares at me for a beat before tipping his head to the fridge.
Chapter Nineteen
Rocco
My nightmare won’t end.
The screaming. High-pitched and panicked. Over and over again. Their pain is so real, it beats inside of me in time with my heart. A thick and steady strum of surrender.
I can’t place the voice, my head throbbing with recognition, but mind a step behind.
My stomach turns, ten tequila shots too many twisting in my gut, even in sleep.
Please, the voice begs.
No, it cries.
A woman. One begging for her life.
“Mira?” I groan, pushing through the clouds in my head. It’s not just a fucking storm. It’s a tornado of its own making. The horrors of my past rotating so rapidly, I can’t tell the collateral of one fucked-up decision from another.
“HELP!”
Startled into consciousness, I sit up in my bed. My breathing wracks through my body sluggishly. My shoulders lift as my chest expands, dropping back wearily as it deflates. I suck in the deepest breath I can, filling my lungs to capacity.
Thumb and finger to my eye sockets, I press, working to relieve the throb in my temples.
Crying.
It’s soft. A haunting echo in my eardrums.
It also wasn’t part of my nightmare. It was, is, real, infiltrating my unconscious and forcing me awake.
It hasn’t stopped. Gentle whimpers of pain filtering from my living room.
Stumbling down the hall in a sleep-induced stagger, I take in the scene before me.
Camryn sits alone on my couch, body quaking with stuttered sobs. Dark hair, loose from its usual confines, hangs in a knotted mess, shielding her face from view.
Unsure if she’s still asleep or awake, I approach slowly.
“Camryn,” I test, afraid to startle her.
Shaking shoulders aside, she doesn’t move.
Kneeling in front of her, my chest tightens. Beautiful enough to be a painting, memorialized for eternity, she’s the saddest muse I’ve ever laid eyes on. Misery shades any light shining from within her. Caught in the dark corners of her mind, she’s hollow, her soul looking for escape.
I recognize the despondency she’s trapped within. Her haunted thoughts and memories her very own straight jacket, keeping her as an unwilling prisoner. I recognize it because I’ve sat in that very spot, I’ve seen it all from her view and it’s an ugly place to be.
Caught between the limbo of slumber and consciousness, she stares at nothing. Heavy, wet tears dropping from her eyes and sliding down her sleep creased face.
“Beauty,” I call, my hands framing her face, trying to get her eyes to look at mine.