My dad was right. If you’re looking back at your past, you’re going to stumble into your future. I wasn’t going to do that. I finally felt at peace. I felt free and I was going to embrace that like the love of the man holding me up.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rocco
Dominic’s guys are on their way to do clean-up. I didn’t give him too much information. Enough for him to know that Sarah and Jonathan were dead and that Camryn and I were alive.
He started yelling at me over the phone, sprouting some shit about me goin’ off half-cocked, but I hung up. I had my girl back and I was gonna enjoy that fact. I also needed to get back to my kids. Which meant I needed to call Archer and ask him to bring them right the fuck back home. A call he was more than happy to receive.
Camryn sits quietly in the passenger seat of my car, dozing in and out. She assured me she didn’t have a concussion and that I needed to calm my farm. A bit fucking hard to to do when your girl is bruised from head to fucking toe.
It makes me sick thinking about the things that she went through. The way Jonathan hurt her. But as angry as I am, as fucking raging as I am, I have no urge to fight. All that unfiltered rage has taken a backseat to my need to be with her. To make sure she’s okay.
Even in the warehouse. The way he stood over her when she was aiming to shoot. I could’ve killed him. I have no doubt I had enough anger within me to rip his head clean off his fucking body. I wanted to beat his face into the ground until there was nothing left but blood and gristle. I craved to tear him apart, limb from limb and set him on fire.
But more than any of that. I needed to get to her. I needed to make sure her finger didn’t press down on that trigger. Jonathan was wrong, she definitely had it in her. I have zero doubt, but she didn’t want to. The fear was painted openly in her eyes. He read it as her fear for him, but it wasn’t that. Not at all. It was the fear of taking another person’s life that gave her pause.
“Is Jesse okay?” She breaks me from my thoughts.
“The two of you look like twins.”
Her right eye—the one not swollen shut—closes in sadness.
“Hey.” I lean over, taking her hand in mine. “He’s fine.”
“Why was my mother so toxic?” she asks, a desperation for answers dripping along her words in prayer.
“Sarah was messed up, beauty. Same way Marcus was. Same way Kane ended up. Circumstance has a lot to do with it… I’m guessin’ so anyway. But I think they had somethin’ evil brewin’ within them to make them turn so fuckin’ nasty.”
Unhappy with my answer, she looks out the window on a defeated sigh.
“Kane’s evil was power.” I pull her attention back to me. “Some people can’t handle it. People like him. He craved it like nothin’ I’ve ever seen before. When he had it, somethin’ switched in him. His humanity just disappeared.”
She watches my profile as I drive, her hand still holding onto mine in a delicate urgency.
“Sarah, I don’t know. I’m guessin’ the drugs and alcohol fucked with her enough to strip away her conscience. Easy to forget all the shitty things you’ve done when you’re blacked out half the time. She took the shitty things that happened in her life and let ‘em fester inside of her, Cami. You had far worse shit happen to you and you built your life on helpin’ others. Like I said, somethin’ evil just pumpin’ through her veins.”
“And Marcus?” she tests quietly.
“Should’ve been swallowed from the get-go. Even that would’a been nasty enough for his mother. No rhyme or reason with that cunt, beauty, he was plain fuckin’ evil. Born into an earthside purgatory that never should’ve existed.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
Lifting her hand to kiss her knuckles, I smile against her skin. “‘Bout time I repaid the favor, don’t you think?”
Blake jumps on me the moment I open the door of my loft. Arms and legs wrapping around me like an octopus. She says nothing, not that she needs to. Her actions scream louder than any words could.
Jesse, a little more graceful, hugs into my side. But he refuses to lift his head. I feel the wetness of his tears dampen the cotton of my shirt and I swallow down my need to do the same by squeezing him into me tighter.
“Could fuckin’ kill you.” Parker approaches. “I haven’t even begun to deconstruct everythin’ that just went on, but when your two kids aren’t attached to you, you better believe I’m gonna beat your ass.”
I smile at him, lifting my hand for him to grab hold. “Like to see you try, doll face.”
Cami, standing by my side, has been swamped by her sister and dad. Too many arms trying to hug her at the same time.
“Guys,” she grits out. “Few bruised ribs here, chill.”
Tears are streaming down Codi’s face. “Ryn, oh my God. You’re so hurt.”
“Physically I’m a bit of a mess,” she agrees. “But I feel great, Codi. I promise.”
“I’m so sorry, Ryn.” Blake adopts her nickname with an ease that makes my heart thunder in my chest.
“You have nothing to apologize for, sweet girl. I promise. Like I told Codi, I feel great.”
Dominic, eyeing me like he’s ready to pull a pistol on me any second, steps closer and I hold a hand up.
“You once told me that when retaliation is taken out in temper and impatience; it’s messy and tends to lead to incrimination.”
He stares at me blankly.
“So you’re welcome.”
Glancing to Camryn and then back to me, he swallows heavily enough that we can all hear it. “Thank you.” His words are barely audible beyond the lump sitting in his throat.
“Do you need a hospital, Cami?” This comes from my son, standing cautiously against my side, watching her in regret. He feels responsible for the wounds decorating her face.
“Nah, kiddo.” She attempts to smile. “Nothing some steri-strips, a bandage, and a large glass of vodka can’t fix.”
“And frozen peas,” he adds on the start of a smile, relief softening the stern look in his face.
She laughs, the movement enough to cause her pain, not that she lets on.
“Not a scratch on you.” Archer only makes his approach after our families have swarmed us. “I feel like I need to mess your pretty face up for old times’ sake.”
“Only if your wife is happy to have you go home bruised and broken.”
“Absolutely fucking not.” A smoking hot brunette moves to stand beside my friend, big brown eyes dancing in curiosity. “Annabelle Dean,” she introduces herself. “And I’ll have to kill you if you ruin his pretty face, I’m more than a little fond of it.”
I lift my chin in greeting, watching the change in Archer’s face the moment he looks at hers.
Whipped.
For. Fucking. Sure.
“Don’t fuckin’ look at me like that,” he gripes. “You’re so far down the same rabbit hole, you can’t even see the fuckin’ light.”
“Whatever that means,” Annabelle muses, looking at Camryn with a look that bleeds exasperation. “It was nice to meet you guys, even under the shitty circumstances.” Grief flashes through her eyes, one of camaraderie and shared feelings. A story of heartache untold. “We should be getting back to Sachi.”