wired differently, Camryn. Things that may sit on your conscience, likely won’t sit on mine. Who is to say who is right?”
“But we know what actions are fundamentally wrong as human beings. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if general fucking common sense prevailed? Don’t kill anyone. Don’t cheat, don’t steal, blah fucking blah. Shouldn’t we stick to that?” I argue.
“Maybe,” he concedes. “But the world isn’t that simple. Where is your moral compass?” he tests. “Is it aligned with mine? With Rocco’s? What about Codi’s?”
I don’t speak, too engrossed in his thought process to even mumble a syllable.
“Codi believes in second chances, in giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Rocco, on the other hand, believes in retribution. He believes in people paying for their sins, himself included. If you wrong an innocent, you pay with blood. I imagine you’d sit somewhere in between,” he shrugs, not waiting for me to confirm or deny his belief. “I don’t think any of you are necessarily wrong or right. We’re different, and that is where the world will always sit, Camryn, whether that makes sense to you or not.”
I sit back in my seat, letting everything he said settle within me.
“I enjoy talking to you,” I tell him quietly. “We don’t do it enough anymore.”
Sadness brushes through his eyes, dropping along his features as he blinks. “I lost you some time ago, beautiful. I don’t know why, but I wish you’d talk to me about it. I gave in to your wish and left you to find yourself. But it backfired on me, in the end, I feel as though you not only didn’t find yourself, you lost who you were.”
I drain my glass of Sake. “I just don’t know who I am anymore.” Not a lie, but also not the complete truth. “I haven’t for a long time. Everything I thought I knew seems lost.”
“Why do you have to decide who you are?”
I frown. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re remembering you were, thinking that’s who you should be. Am I right?”
I shrug and nod at the same time.
“Why can’t you just be who you are? Life changes us all, Ryn. Stop looking backward. If your focus is behind you, you’ll find yourself tripping into your future, bruised and broken.”
Chapter Seventeen
Rocco
“Always thought Dominic would be the first to find me. Connected asshole that he is.”
I don’t answer, letting her believe what she will. That I’m alone, working without the help of her husband’s connections.
“What I don’t understand.” She edges away from me, feigning fear as she moves against the wall and closer to the single window in the airless dump she’s now calling home. It’d be humorous if it wasn’t so idiotic, moving toward a window she can’t escape from, pinning herself against a wall. “Is why you care if I live or die. What have I ever done to you?”
I scowl, taking two steps into the shithole she’s settled into. What a fucking fall from grace. Living in the warm contentment of the Rein mansion, only to find herself in this fucking squalor, begging for fucks from a teenager and scoring drugs off kids younger than her own.
“Are you following your father’s lead, relighting the Rein versus Shay vendetta? Killing me ain’t gonna pay you any dues.”
“Stop talking.”
Her feet falter at the stone in my voice. Her act of innocence wearing away with every second I’m forced to stand in her company.
“You had to know,” I threaten, letting my eyes drift over the ripped couch and stained carpet. “That your lies, your sins would come back to fuck you in the ass. That they’d make you bleed.” I kick at the trash by my feet, letting myself move closer.
Her feet stop, her fearful act dropping away altogether, the real Sarah Rein showing her face; horns and all.
“How did you find me?” she asks curiously, her head tipping to the side in contemplation. “You’ve been searching for that junkie ex-girlfriend of yours for years without success.” Her eyes widen in mockery, the malice in her irises spiking like wildfire.
I step forward in warning, unable to hide the shock on my face at the mention of Kendall.
“Oh, you didn’t think I knew about her,” she jibes, thoroughly enjoying herself. “I know a lot of things about you, Rocco Shay. Things that that last remaining little family member of yours doesn’t even know,” she sneers, a poisonous smile tracking over her red lips. “You have a thing for the broken ones, maybe it makes