Parker
I pace the polished concrete floors of our loft, pausing at any small insignificant sound. My breathing is sharp, difficult. I can’t fill my lungs. I feel like a junkie waiting for his next score; scratching at my skin, tearing at my hair. I’m a fucking mess. My mind, my emotions, they’re a fuckin’ train wreck.
I don’t know who I’m trying to protect anymore. Who deserves it more.
Codi. Rocco. Mom
Mom. Rocco. Codi.
Me.
Fuck.
Rocco hasn’t been home since he bailed and I have no fucking idea where he is, what he’s doing. God, he could be at Codi’s place right now. That gives me pause and I shake the thought from my head. No. I saw the fear, the worry stamped along Camryn’s face, she would’ve made her sister do as I say. I have to trust that, that Camryn saw enough sense to seek out Dominic.
Dominic Rein.
I want to kill that motherfucker. If he hadn’t taken something so important from Rocco and I, maybe this story would’ve ended differently. Maybe Codi and I could’ve found love in an honest way, not a road paved with deceit and lies. It’s his fault. All his fucking fault. He’s taken everything from me, continues to do so.
The click of my front door sounds and I turn, watching it open, my feet stopping their incessant movement. Mira’s soft smile hits me and my heart seems to start the beat it forgot to manage only seconds prior.
I pull my first full breath of air.
And I cry.
I pull at my hair. I drop to my knees. And I cry.
My head falls into my hands as I beg her to help me. To fix it. To save Rocco. To protect Codi. To tell mom to forgive me.
Mira rushes to my side, her ass hitting the hard floor as she pulls me into her arms, my head falling to her lap as she holds me. I’ve been here before, in this moment. Broken and fragile.
Eighteen years ago, Mira held me in a similar way. Offering my comfort when I found out my mom had died. I laid in this position for hours. Crying on and off, Mira rubbing my back. Singing to me. Talking to me. Reassuring me that we’d survive.
Only difference now is I’m twice her size, not the other way around. I’m not a boy. I’m a grown ass man. Falling apart in a way that I never thought I’d experience again. I assured myself I’d never let anyone get close enough to cause me this type of pain. Heartbreak is worse a second-time round. You’d think it’d be easier. You’ve felt it before so the suffocating emptiness, the excruciating helplessness doesn’t catch you unaware. You expect to feel it. What you don’t account for is having your heart ripped to pieces when it’s was only just starting to heal. Having the raw scars pulled apart, inch by inch. Making you feel the pain you once upon a time thought would kill you, happen all over again. Worse, the cruelty of the realization that the person that had started to heal those shattered pieces of your heart, is the reason it’s been decimated once again.
Then imagine all of that was your fault. That the pain you’re living in right at this moment, while your heart is being ripped apart is nothing compared to knowing that the reason that heart felt anything good when you thought it hopeless could be taken away from you. Smashing the last damaged part of your heart into a million irredeemable pieces with it.
I feel like my lungs are collapsing. I feel as though everything inside of me is being ripped in two, torn to pieces, starting inside my chest.
This time I don’t believe Mira’s words of hope. Her reassurance sounds like fairy tales, all lies to my ears and this makes me cry harder. But I let her continue, I let her try because here in this single moment, she is all I have left. She’s the only person in my pathetic existence that still loves me.
I don’t know how long we sit there for. Long enough for my tears to run dry. For my rough sobs to morph into staggered breaths.
“Thank you for coming,” I finally speak my first coherent sentence and her hand pauses briefly on its glide along my back.
“Always. Whenever you need, Parker. You know that.”
I sit up, knees bent, elbows resting atop of them as I rub the remaining wetness from my eyes sockets. My eyes feel raw, my copious tears having cut like sandpaper. I drop my head, steadying my breathing before I can look Mira in the eyes.
“Plan was to kill her. To take her life. To steal away the good from Dominic like he did us.”
Her eyes close tightly, tears dropping along her cheeks. The gray in her eyes shines with her tears and I can see so much of mom in her in that moment. The beauty in her sadness. It gives me pause, because split seconds like this magnify the way I miss her and for a single, confused moment I consider I should’ve gone along with Rocco’s plan. Our original plot to seek revenge.
“I fell in love with her,” I laugh, the sound full of misery and heartache. “Fuck. It was so easy to do. The instant I met her and she smiled at me,” I recall her genuine grin, her dancing flirtation. “I was gone. Fuck, Mira. I never stood a chance.”
I crack my knuckles, looking away, considering the months that unravelled from that first encounter.
“I pretended for a while. I let myself believe I was just enjoyin’ her, that it was nothing more than me playin’ with her before…” I shrug, not wanting to say the words again. Kill her. Take her life.
“I don’t know who I was pretendin’ for in the end. Me or Rocco. Lying to Roc gave me more time with her, sure. But I think admitting the truth fired my self-hate, I failed her, Aunt Mira,” I drop my head, the shame I feel filtering through my words. “Mom. I failed her. The one last thing I could give her, vengeance and I couldn’t do that.”
I feel her in front of me and I lift my head to stare into the stormy gray eyes of my mother’s. “You did no such thing. Vengeance is not what Lila would’ve wanted, Parker. God, it’s the last thing she would want.”
“It’s what she deserves,” I argue.
“I don’t disagree. But not this way.”
She grabs hold of my hands, squeezing tight. “The last thing you could do for your mother, the one thing she would want for you, more than anything,” she waits for me to meet her eyes, hers searching mine, pleading with me to understand. “Is your happiness. She only ever wanted you and Rocco to have happiness, to feel loved.”
“Dominic Rein killed any chance of that when he took her life.” Rocco’s voice startles us both and I move quickly to stand.
Mira steps in front of me, working to protect me from the blistering anger radiating from Rocco. This woman, fuck. She’s tiny. Petite and fragile, but has never questioned putting herself in harm’s way for me or Rocco. It’s earned her a fair share of beatings, I have no doubt, she would never tell us outright. But I’ve seen the bruises. I’ve watch her nurse broken bones brought down on her from that psychopath our dad trusted with his life.
Rocco notices the small movement, the seemingly insignificant step that placed her in front of me, his face twisting in hurt. She’s betrayed him. Made him feel the way her husband does. Unhinged.
“You don’t need to protect him from me,” he spits.
“Not what I was doing,” she moves toward him, unconcerned by his bristling anger. “You’re both messed up by whatever ill-directed plan you’ve created in your heads in search of peace. I’m protecting you from one another.”
He pulls her into his body, hugging her to his side, his eyes never leaving mine as he places a kiss on the top of her head.
“Nothin’ ill-directed about it, Mira. Their family stole something from us. We planned to do the same to them. An eye for an eye.”
Planned. That’s the word he used. Past tense.
Stepping from Mira’s embrace he moves closer to me. “You’re dead to me. You’re the one person who was supposed to have my back. Like I’ve had yours. You were supposed to be on my side. MY SIDE,” he yells, his finger crashing into his chest repeatedly.
“I needed this. I. Needed. This. I thought you had a fuckin’ heart, Park. I thought you had good inside you. How fuckin’ twisted is it that I’m the only one who family means something to, that is guided by loyalty.”
“Never questioned that, Roc. Always saw that in you.”
He barks out a laugh. “You can keep your bitch. I won’t touch her. I’ll do that. For you. But that’s it. We’re done. You couldn’t find it in yourself, you couldn’t love me enough to offer me peace, so fuck you.”
Panic rises, flooding my body and I step forward. “Roc. Please. You and Mira are all I got. I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry. For being weak. For failing you.”
“Save your fuckin’ tears,” he gestures to the water coating my cheeks, the ones I didn’t notice falling. “Save your fuckin’ apologies, they don’t mean shit.”
His words are spiked with hurt, with disappointment, with regret. His eyes glisten with the tears he rejected from me. Every word he speaks feels like a stab to my gut.
I’ve lost everything.
Everything.
Every single pivotal moment we’ve shared in life, as brothers, as a unit flashes in my mind and I close my eyes against the sting of their memory. Of the betrayal I’ve served to him because I fell in love.
I hate myself.
I despise myself.
He’s right. One hundred percent. I searched, fuck did I search, but in the end, I couldn’t find it in myself to give him the one thing in life he’s been looking for. I couldn’t love him enough to let him try to find his peace.
He’s right to cut me off. I’m the most selfish motherfucker on this sorry planet.
Locked in our stare, I long to reach out, to pull Rocco into my body. To hug him and let him reassure me that it was all gonna be okay. That we’d survive. We’ve survived worse. Haven’t we?
“Parker. Codi’s voice hits me and I stumble back a step, my eyes searching for her.
She’s standing by the door, her eyes skirting between Rocco and I, apprehension coloring her messy appearance.
Her shirt is on inside out, one jean leg folded up, the other pull down. Her hair is thrown haphazardly on top of her head, thick clumps fallen from her untidy bun. Her creamy skin is blotchy and red, her normally brightly shining eyes, dull and hollow in her face. She’s been crying, is crying.
Why the fuck is she here?
I tried to save her. She said no. I told her to let her dad save her and now she’s here. I’ve betrayed my brother, my family and she’s ignored everything.
I stalk toward her, rage and fury tickling under my skin. “You fucked it,” I yell in her face, caging her in with both hands punching at the wall by her head. “You fucked everything,” I spit, my eyes shaking with the fury drowning me.
“She deserved vengeance. Our revenge was for her. For us. She was stolen from us. Her life was stolen,” my breath stutters, tears forming in my eyes as fast as they fall along my cheeks.
“You were supposed to be our retribution. You were our way to retaliation, a way to make it right. If only slightly,” I shrug my large shoulders before leaning in close, breathing in the scent of her hair.
So sweet. So familiar.
Forcing my hand away from the wall, I hover it over the creamy column of her neck, my entire arm trembling with the indecision of the movement.
Right here and now, I could make it right. She wouldn’t stand a chance. My palm would close over her throat and I’d steal her last breaths.
My mother would be avenged.
My brother would have peace.
I’d be left with nothing.
And Codi would be dead.
Dead.
Clenching my hand into a fist, I pull it away, slamming it into the wall over and over again.
“You fucked it,” I repeat. “You fucked everything,” my scream cutting off on a pained shout. “You took my heart and you made it yours. You made me love you.”
Codi stands statue still through my tirade. Her frame shaking, tears leaking from her eyes. But she refuses to back down, she holds my stare, letting every emotion clawing its way from body rip her apart.
The disgust I feel for myself leeks heavily into my declaration. Placing the blame for giving over my heart, solely on her. Like I didn’t force this upon her. Like I didn’t hijack her peaceful life, on a lie, and take ownership of her heart.
“Worse, you forced me to understand him,” I accuse, betrayal dancing in my gray eyes and slicing through my tone. “I hated my father; despised the angry, evil man he became. But I get it now,” I nod, my eyes tracking over her face, the love I feel for her driving its way forward, pushing aside my hate, if only momentarily. “If someone took you away from me, if someone stole you from me, brutally, like your family took my mom, my soul would be lost too.”
In an uncharacteristically, intimate show of affection from someone barely holding their humanity in place, my large hands cup her cheeks, pushing up into her hair as my face moves forward, my nose skating along her jaw. “I’d go black,” I whisper. “I’d happily walk into the bleak, empty depths of hell and make sure everyone I came into contact with, felt my hate.”
I stay buried in her skin, my face moving to touch my lips along her neck, against the hurried beat of her pulse, erratic in its alarmed state.
The monster she’s spent the last few months convincing me didn’t exist, was very much alive. Vibrating with indecision and volcanic anger. Pulling back, I move my hands to my head, my palms skating along the shorn sides, elbows coming in to close my tortured face away.
My jaw is set tight, a heavy tick pulsating in the rigid line. The line of my neck is strained, thick cords of muscle prominent with the tension in my body. My eyes, when I let myself see her, would show her the swirling mass of contradiction living inside of me. Gray and lost with the unconscionable love I feel for her. But shadowed with hate, clouded with the vengeance I so desperately desire.
Our feelings are a disaster. Twisted and pulled in every direction by fear and need. By intimacy and hate. By loyalty and devotion.
Our affections were a mess.
Our love was tangled. Knotted and impossible; neither of us having a single clue as to how we unwind it. On how to make it right.
Because looking into her eyes, she seems to understand the heaviness inside of me. She’s trying to understand the pain I’ve lived with for almost twenty years. Maybe in reality, the agony, the heartache of my life was always there for her to see, painted clearly on my features. Maybe it’s begging to be seen. I never thought so until now, but staring into her clouded purple eyes, I know she sees it all.
“Your plan for revenge was based on a lie, Parker,” she whispers. “All this hate, it’s aimed in the wrong direction,” pain slices through her accusation.
I scowl down at her, pushing away from the wall, irritated that she’d come in here, after all I’ve lost and defend him.
She glances to Rocco, the color in her face fading with what she reads on his face. But as scared, as intimidated as she is, she steels her spine, standing upright and meeting his glare head on.
“Lying bitch,” he spits. “You don’t know shit.”
“Rocco,” Mira interjects, but he silences her with a sidelong glance.
“I spoke to my dad,” Codi continues, her focus now on Rocco, working to convince him, disregarding me in that moment as a no one. “Your dad believed it was our family, but it wasn’t. He promised.”
Rocco’s laughter slides across the loft with hate. “Oh. We should totally believe your dad. Real fuckin’ standup guy.”
“Would I be here if I thought it were true,” Codi bites out, anger flaring in her eyes. “Would I put myself in harm’s way if I knew deep in my heart my father took the life of your mother.”
He shrugs. “You’re stupid enough to fall for this guy when he was playin’ you. Seems your stupid knows no bounds.”
Pain cuts across her face a part of me wants to reach out, to reassure her. To tell her it wasn’t a lie. Not in the end. Convince her my love was, is real. But the larger part is pissed she’s even here. I’ve lost everything because I was stupid enough to fall in love with her and she couldn’t love me enough to keep herself safe.
My heart is thumping heavily in my chest. So loud I can hear it. I’d guarantee I could see it on my naked skin if I took the time to look.
“He told me the police investigated him for months, Parker. There wasn’t a single shred of evidence.”
“Dominic Rein is a career criminal, he knows how to covers his tracks. That means shit all.”
She closes her eyes against Rocco’s argument, taking a deep breath before opening them again.
“I believe him. He has no reason to lie to me about this. He didn’t do what you think he did. He didn’t kill your mom,” she finishes weakly.
Fuck, do I want to believe her. How easy our life would’ve been if that were true. But it’s not. No one else has motive. No one else had the means.
“I’ve lost everything because of you. Fuckin’ everything. My family,” I gesture to Rocco. “My heart,” I spit in disgust. “Peace. I’ve got nothing left. Nothing. And you come in here, after I’ve thrown EVERYTHING away to save you. Worse, you put yourself in danger to defend him. To defend the man that stole the greatest part of me.”
Our eyes lock and so much passes between us.
Loss.
Regret.
Hurt.
Betrayal.
Love.
Hate.
“Who do you think you are?” She seethes, moving forward to push at my heaving chest. “How fucking dare you. You did this. YOU,” she screams. “What the hell did I have to do with this? Nothing. I was living my life, peacefully and you forced your way in. I pushed you back. More than once, but you kept coming back.”
Every emotion exchanged has been lost to her pain, to the hurt I’ve caused her. It twists her face, wets her eyes, shit, her body is trembling with it so hard I’m surprised she hasn’t lost her ability to stand.
“You made sure I didn’t stand a chance. You took the purest part of me,” she stabs at her heart. “the part I guarded so heavily and you claimed it. You stole it.”
Her chin trembles unwillingly and she bites down on her bottom lip to stop me from seeing it. So hard she robs the soft cushion of color. It pales against the trauma of her bite and I wanna reach out and free it.
“I can’t breathe anymore,” her hand wraps tightly around the creamy column of her neck, her breath stuttering as she lets go. “Because I don’t know how to exist without you. How fucking stupid is that?” She whispers bitterly.
She thinks it’s stupid, but all I can find in myself at her statement is relief. That I’m not alone in the way I feel. In the way I feel consumed by her. In the way I can begin to stomach having to survive this torturous journey of life without her.
Gone are Rocco and Mira. All that remains in the hollow space of the loft is me, watching as my heart bleeds out in front of me. I can taste her heartbreak it’s so potent, so rich. But that’s always been Codi. Real. Genuine. No façade. No pretense. She’s always offered me what I could never give her back. Not completely. Honesty. The deepest parts of who she is.
“Your brothers right, I’m as stupid as they come. You played me and I danced right into your little game. Eyes closed. Heart open.”
Her words are quiet. Hauntingly broken. The pain holds me hostage, slicing through me and remaining, forcing me to reconcile how much I’ve hurt her.
“Screw you,” she sobs, her face twisting in irritation as the cry slices from her throat jaggedly. She drags in an uneven breath, her arm moving angrily to wipe away her tears. “Screw you,” she echoes, more forcefully this time, “for standing here and throwing blame and hate my way. How dare you tell me that I’ve taken anything from you. I gave you everything in here,” she touches her heart again.
“I gave you everything,” she repeats softly. “And all you’ve given me in return is a broken hymen and a shattered heart. Only things I’m left with now is pain, regret and blame.”
The truth of her words hangs heavily between us. The fury in her blazing eyes dares me to disagree. They challenge me to argue against the fact that I’m the biggest fucking asshole to ever walk this planet. The men I so fiercely despise; my father, Marcus, Dominic; their indiscretions, their flaws, the evil that lives inside them, is nothing, fucking nothing compared to the rotting soul I seem to host within my body.
I can’t dispute her words. No one single spoken syllable. She gave me all of her. Every inch of her body. Every fragment of her soul. Every morsel of her mind. And every last shred of the love inside her oversized heart.
Everything.
“I’m sorry your mom died,” she spits, the fury inside her eyes having claimed her completely, coursing through her veins with unrelenting control. “I’m sorry she was taken from you. I’m sorry you’ve let your pain manifest into hate. I’m sorry the both of you are so black inside you can’t see any light when it shines down on you. I’m sorry that all your mother would feel is disappointment that the two people she spent her short life loving, turned so hateful.”
Her words hit hard. They steal the breath from my lungs and cause my feet to stumble backward with the force behind them.
Because they’re true.
I know that.
Rocco knows that.
Codi knows that.
“FUCK YOU,” Rocco rages, stepping toward her and before I’ve registered what he’s doing his gun is held tightly in his grasp, barrel pointed straight at Codi’s face as he stalks toward her.
I push her back without a single thought, Rocco’s gun hitting me right over my heart. My nostrils flare and I shake my head.
He refuses to meet my eyes, looking over my shoulder at Codi. “I promised him I wouldn’t kill you,” he bites out, his arm shaking with his glock tucked against my chest.
“Rocco,” Mira cries, her small frame trying to force her way in between me and Rocco. She yanks at his arm, desperately working to move the gun from my heart. “Stop. Please.”
“Maybe I should kill him and his bitch. Rid myself of his disloyalty and get the revenge I fuckin’ deserve,” he spits, emotion clogging his throat.
“Can’t let you do that.”
Rocco startles at the rich voice that filters across the loft and our eyes seek out the source.
He’s bigger than I imagined; easily standing eye to eye with both myself and Rocco. His build is similar to mine, not as bulky as Rocco, but not small, still muscular, even for a man in his mid to late fifties. His brown hair is neat, his face clean shaven, his skin free of ink. His hands are held palms out, mid-way up his body, his feet slowly walking into the loft, eyes darting to his daughter then back to Rocco.
Dominic Rein. The cause of the nightmare that is my life just walked into our loft, a stance of surrender in his cautious approach.