“He’d leave.” Parker steps forward, gesturing the siblings to sit, following suit after their asses reluctantly meet the couch once again. “For days on end. Sometimes weeks. He’d never tell me why, but I knew it was important. Important enough that he never stopped trying. It started seventeen years ago, I’m assuming while your mom was still pregnant, and it hasn’t stopped.”
He lets that sink in. A cold, hard truth neither of them was expecting. “You can drag our name through the mud,” he offers vehemently. “It’s not like it doesn’t deserve it. The Shay name is fuckin’ poison, we know that better than anyone. You can claim we didn’t understand, but you’re wrong. We lived with Dempsey too. He killed our fuckin’ mom, took a gun to her head and shot her. We were left with him and our piss weak excuse for a father, who wasn’t much better. The only light we had left was our aunt, and he took her from us as well. You had it worse, there’s no doubt. We had our mom until our teenage years, you didn’t, not the way you should’ve. Not in the way I remember Kendall. But you can’t fuckin’ say my brother didn’t look for you.”
Jesse and Blake look to one another, a look of uncertainty dancing between them.
“Whenever he came up empty-handed, which was every fucking time, he’d throw himself into a ring. He’d let some fucker beat him for failing you. I didn’t understand it. Now I do. Your dad looked for you; he searched high and fuckin’ low, he bled for you. He lived for you all these years. Whatever Marcus Dempsey told you, it was a fucking lie.”
“He’s right.” Codi’s voice echoes the soft click of the office door. “Marcus Dempsey was a monster.”
The twins stand as she steps into view.
“Your eyes,” Blake breathes.
“Are his,” Codi answers freely. “He and my mother had an affair and I was the result. A child born of hate and disloyalty. I was lucky that this man” —she steps toward our dad, grabbing his arm, hugging him— “took on the role of my dad and never looked back. I found out Marcus was my father the day he died.”
Jesse looks torn by the information being unloaded, his eyes looking at each of us, working to see deeper. Fighting to read lies in amongst the truths. “This is all too much to take in,” he murmurs, the original bite in his words lost to bewilderment. “Blake and I need time to think all this through. We came to thank Dominic for slaying a demon we couldn’t, and have found a family we were convinced we didn’t want.”
Quiet descends on the room, no one quite sure what to do or say.
“We have a dad.” Jesse looks at Rocco in an ambivalent rapture. Not quite sure the man before him is real. More a figment of his imagination, one he’d dreamed of as a child, but never let himself hope for as he matured by circumstance.
“It’s too much all at once,” he confesses, looking to his sister for support.
“Jesse looks like a cloned version of his uncle. I’m apparently the spitting image of my murdered grandmother. Our father looks as unhinged as Marcus promised he was, but also kind of sweet in the way he’d kill anyone that would hurt us, which is so confusing. Our uncle is also married to the daughter of the guy who forced us to grow up in purgatory all because he was all kinds of deranged. Too much, is the understatement of the farking century. We need to decompress.”
“You can stay here,” Dominic offers.
“That’ll be a hard no.” Blake smirks. “We’ve survived this long without handouts or help, we’re good. But a bit of that food you had circling around for Uncle Tattoo and his model wife here would be awesome.”
“Please,” Rocco begs of them, the desperation in his voice slicing across the room in heartache. “I don’t expect you to accept an invitation to stay with me and that’s cool. But you came here with trust for Dominic. You were right, you can trust him. I promise you that. I’ll leave, if that’s what you want,” he grits out, hating himself for saying it. “But let Dominic give you a roof and food while you’re sortin’ through this mind fuck.”
Looking at one another, they share a silent conversation none of us are welcome in on. “We’d feel comfortable if you weren’t here.”
Ouch.
He hides the hurt their words cause him, dipping his chin once in understanding. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” Turning to my father, he nods. “You’ll make sure they’re comfortable?”
“Of course,” Dominic assures him.
“It seems all hopeless right now.” Rocco stuffs his hands in his pockets, unsure what to do with them. “But we’ll work it out. I don’t wanna frighten you, but I’ve searched my life for you, I ain’t gonna let you go without a fight. You deserve that, someone to fight for you. That’s me…” He trails off, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “You might not believe it, but... you’re mine, which means my life is yours.”
He walks out without another word, the power in his declaration left in the room like the aftermath of a wedding reception; messy and chaotic and overflowing with evidence that love is real. And it’s confusing as fuck.
“I’ll go with him,” Parker offers, but I stop him with a hand to his arm.
“I will. He needs a friend right now. He’ll feel like you need an explanation. One he’s not ready to give you.” I look at the twins. “My dad, Parker, and Codi have got you. Please don’t leave before you give him a chance. He wouldn’t recover. Just… please give him a chance.”
“Ryn,” Codi calls after me as I step through the front door. “You sure you’re up for this?”
I shrug. “I’m the only friend he’s got. Hard as it might be, it’s my job to show up.”
Looking back to the house, Codi nods in apprehension.
“You’ve got this, Codi.” I read her reluctance. “They’re just kids.”
“They won’t even look me in the eye,” she laments.
I step closer, grabbing her shoulders. “They’re scared, Codi. Looking into your eyes is like looking into the eyes of a monster that breathed fear into them all their lives. Tell them your story. Show them who you are.”
Exhaling heavily, her eyes close on a nod.
“I’m sorry all this happened on your wedding day,” I apologize. “You should be locked away with your husband celebrating.”
“Are you kidding?” She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Rocco and Parker have a family we didn’t know about. This is the greatest gift I could’ve asked for.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rocco
“Move.”
She doesn’t. Her feet stationary in front of my door, halting my exit.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” I grit, my nostrils flaring in a fit of anger I can scarcely contain. “Move.”
“Can’t do that, Shay.” She tips her head to the side, drinking me in in a way that I know she’s trying to read my inner thoughts. It’s futile. It’s a fuckin’ tornado in there. Swirling around so fast I can’t decide if I’m elated, petrified, insane, heartbroken or just fucking incensed.