Reining Devotion: A Chaotic Rein novel

by Jenner, Haley

  My jaw feels ready to crack, the might in which I’m holding it shut strong enough to split stone. The ridge of my fury is ready to spill over like a volcano, violence my own reign of lava. The trust Dominic forced upon me forgotten about, my need to kill clouding my vision.

  “Anyone ever told you to live in the moment, Shay. That focusing on the past will only drown you.”

  “Kendall,” I ground out, my voice like sandpaper. “Where is she?”

  She laughs at me. An ear-piercing chuckle that leaves me cold.

  I surge forward, unable to control myself, my hand wrapping around her throat before she can register what’s happened. Her skin is warmer than I imagined it. I pictured the cold touch of death to coat her skin. Instead, the thick, healthy rhythm of her pulse throbs under my touch. The wildfire in her eyes dies out, replaced by tears of pain, the blue staring back at me glossed over in evidence of her lack of control.

  Still, I feel five steps behind her, waiting for the penny to drop and my world to fall away.

  “Shay.”

  Pulling my gun from the waist of my jeans, I hold it up to Tivoli, halting his movements. He contemplates me for a beat, feet balancing over the threshold of the shitty apartment.

  My hand, still eagerly wrapped around Sarah Rein’s throat tightens in panic.

  She smiles—the psychotic bitch—barely able to pull a full breath, grins at me in triumph. I grip harder, shooting my eyes back to Dominic’s man, my chest expanding in want as I feel Sarah struggle to breathe under my palm.

  Her eyes bulge in her face, looking too big to be normal. The sickly shade of her skin is marred with large, red blotches, teasing me with the promise of how she’d look dying slowly at my hand.

  Hands raised in surrender, Tivoli looks unaffected by the scene before him. He expected this. Or maybe Rein did. Either way, he’s not surprised or panicked by the barrel of my gun aimed at his heart.

  “Get out,” I command, my fingers twitching to close completely around the slim line of Sarah’s neck, wanting to steal the last of her breath completely.

  It’d be so easy. Two to three minutes and she’d pass out, a few more and she’d be as good as dead. Rid from the world and more importantly, my nightmares.

  I feel out of my depth. Control slipping from my resolve with every second that passes blindly by. I’m better than this. I’ve trained myself to be better. I’m the cunt that laughs at the motherfuckers who get caught in their heads, unwilling and unable to foresee their own downfall.

  “You know I can’t do that,” Tivoli murmurs, edging closer.

  I crack my neck in unfiltered rage. For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do. I’m strung up, held between my savage need for vengeance and my newly formed fucking conscience.

  The thought of killing Sarah Rein has been at the top of my to-do list from the moment Marcus stepped foot into my apartment, unfurling the truth like a never-ending ribbon.

  I want this.

  I fucking deserve this.

  I was convinced I needed it.

  Not anymore.

  Dominic’s trust aside, doesn’t he fucking deserve a slice of the pie? He had to live with this piece of shit for years, knowing she was betraying him. He lived in fear that she’d steal his daughter away. She and Marcus ruined my life, but she forced Dominic to live in hell for years.

  Confident Tivoli won’t jump me and force my hand before I’m ready, I turn my full attention back to Sarah.

  “Why’d you do it? Lila? Why did she have to die?”

  She stares at me blankly before opening her mouth to speak. My hand, too tight around her neck, cuts off her ability to make a sound. It makes me smile and pisses me off all at once. I enjoy using her like a puppet, knowing her waste of a life is so feeble in my hands. I feel like a god, her completely at my unbalanced mercy. But I want answers. I want to hear her traitorous mouth tell me why she thought she could play God with my mom’s life.

  I reluctantly loosen my grip and she sucks in a thick breath, almost choking on it.

  “I should’ve known you’re fucking useless. Of course, Dominic found me. You’re just the little bitch he sent to bring me in.”

  I step into her, punching a hole in the wall beside her head. “Lila!” I scream. “Tell me fucking why!”

  “Why not?” she coughs out, flinching at my fist pulling back from the broken plaster by her face. “She was nothing to me. Nothing but a fucking snitch that could get me and Marcus killed. I weighed it up for about point-one of a second and decided my life was worth more.”

  I step into her body, my hand lifting her up the wall to bring her eyes in line with mine. “You were fuckin’ wrong,” I seethe. “See, if you died right here, no one would avenge you. Fucking no one. Not your husband, who sent me here to collect you and deliver you to death. Not your kids who begged me to make you pay. Not your dead little fuck buddy that is far better off bein’ eaten by worms than he ever was breathin’. Your life ain’t worth shit and you know it.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You think I care.” She struggles, her legs kicking, hands pulling at mine to loosen my grip. “You think I give two shits about that asshole my parents forced me to marry,” she croaks out, her words barely audible. “Or the fucking spawn I was forced to raise for him. I had hopes for Codi once upon a time, but she proved to be as useless as her sister.”

  My body zaps at the mention of Camryn, of how dismissive this bitch is about the life of her own flesh and blood.

  “I don’t fear death, asshole. This world didn’t give two fucking shits about me and I’ve paid it the same respect. You think you’re some hero for playing vigilante for your dead mother.” She laughs and I step away from her, no longer trusting my own restraint.

  She massages the thick red welts marked along her skin. “You’re exactly like me,” she spits. “Life is worthless; both yours and that of those around you. I could put a bullet in you right now, and you wouldn’t regret your life. Your stupid brother would mourn you for as long as it took for him to lodge his cock in my daughter and you’d be forgotten. You’re no one special, Rocco Shay. Never were. Marcus told me how you were your father’s greatest failure. Too much heart in you to be useful in any way, but not enough to make you a decent human being. He knew your brother was like his cunt of a wife; all feelings and emotion. You, on the other hand, had potential. It’s a shame really that you’ll never reach it. You’re too weak to even kill me,” she whispers. “You’re gonna take me back to Dominic like a good little soldier. Let him take the one thing you fought all your life for. Pathetic.”

  I point my gun at her face and she steps into it, a fierceness in her eyes that reminds me so much of Camryn, my arm shakes.

  They’re so alike. A mirror on fast forward, features aged on Sarah, but scarily similar to her unwanted daughter. Their long brown hair, the soft tan of their skin, the distinct blue of their eyes.

  It gives me pause. Another moment of uncertainty.

  “See.” She moves, the blood-red of her lips a breath away from my ear. “Weak.”

  My fists clench with the need to pound against flesh, to break skin and see the gush of red decorate my hands.

  She might look like her daughter, but where death haunts the shade of Sarah’s eyes, Camryn’s shine with a scared need to hope.

  Consumed by my rage, I don’t see her move.

  A taser being fired sounds like a thousand cicadas swarming around my ears, or like that irritating static of a radio or TV that hasn’t been tuned. Small and pestering, but fuck does it hurt.

  My entire body tenses involuntarily, locking me in place. Pain slices through my body like a bolt of lightning striking through me from the very top of my head to the very tips of my toes. Within seconds my body drops to the ground without warning.

  Tivoli moves in my peripheral, having stayed quiet up until this point. But she’s faster, picking up the gun I’d dropped when I hit the ground, aiming it in Tivoli’s direction in silent
warning.

  His feet stop.

  “I’ll fucking kill you,” he warns.

  “Not if I get you first,” she taunts, one hand held tightly to my gun, the other on the taser she dropped me with.

  Lowering the aim of my gun, she doesn’t hesitate and I watch the bullet pierce Tivoli’s leg, sending him to his knees on an agonized grunt.

  I move to sit up, but she points my own gun at my face. “Next time I see your face, I’ll kill you and that useless daughter of mine you seem to be caught on, just for shits and giggles. It’ll be nice watching you bleed that pain again. It’ll be like Lila and Kendall on repeat.” She grins.

  She steps over me.

  “Where is she?” I bite out, the ache in my body stopping me from attempting to move.

  “She ain’t anywhere, handsome. Like your mommy, the bitch is dead.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Camryn

  They lost her.

  Not in the way someone will tell you they’d lost their wife or husband. With sadness in their soul and tears in their eyes.

  She’s gone, but not dead. They lost her. As in, she escaped.

  My pathetic excuse for a mother overcame two grown fucking men to flee.

  One with a score to settle.

  The other literally trained to kill.

  I take my hat off to her, she’s one sneaky bitch. But no one ever claimed otherwise.

  Dad got the call as we were finishing up our lunch. Tivoli, who had been shot in the leg, was on his way to the hospital to be stitched up. Surface wound he assured my father, his pride having been dealt a greater blow than his leg. Sly as she is, apparently Sarah has horrible aim.

  Rocco is now MIA. Tivoli said he took off after her as soon as he could stand. She’d tasered him. Shot him straight in the chest with five thousand volts. Apparently her aim isn’t as bad with a taser as it is with a gun. If I didn’t hate her enough to wish they’d succeeded in forcing karma down her throat, I’d laugh. What I’d give to taser that son-of-a-bitch and watch him fall to the ground.

  I can’t tell if I’m more pissed off at the fact that Sarah got away or relieved that Tivoli and Rocco aren’t severely hurt. Maybe a mixture of both. I’m comfortable in my concern for Tivoli. He’s family. He started with dad as a teenager, only a few years older than me, he’s more of a brother than a soldier. And he’s earned his place as a trusted right-hand to my father.

  Rocco, well, apparently I’m still in denial about the fucked up friendship we seem to be feeding into.

  The elevator door slides open on a soft chime and I step into the hallway, irritated at myself that I’m even here. I’m just checking he’s not dead, I tell myself for the twelve thousandth time. Or more likely, checking he’s not on his way to kill someone else.

  That’s all.

  Nothing more.

  Nothing less.

  I’m doing my duty as a good citizen to the world. Checking their well-being with an angry Shay on the loose.

  There’s a good chance he’s not even home, I tell myself. He’s probably run off to one of his illegal fights, letting someone beat his skull in to dull the pain.

  Jackass.

  The scars on my leg throb in a silent reminder that I have no right to judge his way of coping. I feel attacked and ashamed at my body all at once, grinding my teeth in irritation at my own weakness.

  I knock softly, rolling my eyes at how pitiful the sound of my knuckles are. I knock harder.

  The door opens with force, a bristling Rocco standing on the threshold, sans shirt.

  He can’t hide his shock at my presence, eyebrows pulling down in thick slashes over his crazed eyes. “Fuck are you doin’ here?”

  I hide the hurt that his cutting accusation causes.

  He doesn’t want you here, Einstein.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him this way. He looks just like he did the day Mira died. Pacing his loft like a panther, ready to claim your jugular with his bare hands. Only this time he remains still, the veins on his arm protruding in fury.

  “Nice wounds.” I gesture to the superficial injury on his chest, ignoring the nasty voice in my head.

  He grunts in annoyance, eyes skating over me like I’m a stranger. An unknown unwelcome in his space.

  “I just thought I’d—”

  “Rocco.” A blonde steps into my line of sight, cutting the sentence off in my throat, a bottle of whiskey in her hand. “Oh, hey,” she greets on a surprised smile.

  I lift a hand lamely in silent acknowledgment.

  She’s exactly who I’d imagine would be Rocco’s type. Large fake tits, superficially tanned skin, her figure enviably curvaceous. A skin-tight leopard-print dress covers her body; a tank-style top that follows the line of her body all the way down to her bare feet.

  “I’m Maggie,” she introduces herself eagerly.

  Before I can reciprocate, Rocco steps closer to me, the door moving with him enough to cut her out of view.

  There’s chaos in his eyes. Uncertainty and hint of regret as he scans my face intently.

  I want to reach out and reassure him. Ease the skittishness in his person. He resembles a caged animal; wild in the way he wants to rip out your throat, savage in the silent burn to be loved.

  “I should go.” I speak before he does, turning on my heel and making for the elevator in an awkward rush.

  The world, obviously working to do me a solid for delivering me the ultimate in embarrassment, lets the doors slide open immediately. I don’t hesitate in jumping inside, tapping at the close button faster than a new judge on The Voice.

  Maggie.

  She’s even got a nice wholesome name. What the heck is she doing with the likes of Rocco Shay? More importantly, why the fuck do I care?

  I rush out onto the ground floor, making a beeline for the exit doors. But I can’t walk through them. My feet pause, the automatic mechanism forcing the doors open, only to close them again when I make no attempt to move.

  I won’t fucking tell anyone you don’t hate me as much as you pretend you do.

  Truth is I don’t hate Rocco Shay. Not even a little, and that’s a bitch of a reality check to swallow. He’s the closest thing to a friend I have in this world. Someone who sees the broken pieces of my mind, the fractured shards of my soul and accepts them all without question. Moreover, he seems to appreciate them.

  Since the tumultuous end to my last relationship, I threw myself into work. Work couldn’t harm me, not in the way trusting another person could. My work couldn’t raise havoc in my life. It never made me question everything about who I am, about who I used to be in the way another person could.

  My career took me in like a guardian angel, keeping me busy enough in an attempt to forget every horrible facet of my life.

  Only recently has the brutal reality of loneliness crept in. Years spent alone in the darkness of my nightmares finally catching up to me. Codi and my father aside, I have no one. Dad has his work and Codi now has Parker to steal away her free time. That leaves me with the company of only me, myself, and I. Not to be a bitch, but me, myself, and I can be a total cunt to chill with at times. She’s jaded beyond belief and can be downright negative. Not to mention she is boring as fuck.

  Enter Rocco Shay. The absolute brute that fell into my life, bleeding and seemingly as broken as I was.

  The man I’d sworn to hate for the rest of my days.

  The man who could have stolen the life of my sister away from me.

  My best friend.

  Jesus Christ. I deserve to be stoned to death.

  Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.

  I came here to check on a friend. One, that from a simple look into his slate grey eyes, is not okay.

  “Fuck,” I exclaim, apologizing to the middle-aged woman walking into the building on a graceless smile.

  He’s occupied, I concede. Happily so. Maggie is beautiful—I don’t let myself read into the pain that slices into me at that—she’ll
gift him some peace. Even if it is for the limited time it takes to get his rocks off.

  I should leave, I tell myself as I move toward the lone couch in the lobby, dropping myself down.

  I’m a fucking idiot, I think, settling into the soft leather and making myself comfortable while I wait.

  Stalker much, Camryn? I curse myself as the elevator sounds.

  Maggie steps out, waving over her shoulder as she steps from the giant metal box, a smile on her pretty face. She notices me immediately, offering me a quick wink before stepping through the exit doors and disappearing down the street.

  Once I can no longer see her, I glance back at the elevator, a silent and somber Rocco braced against the frame, keeping the doors from closing as he watches me.

  I stand without invitation, keeping his eyes as I approach. I step past him without speaking, standing at the back of the small space, my lower back pressed against the glass as I wait for him to move.

  He presses the button to his floor silently. Standing with his back to me the entire way up, his eyes remain pinned to mine in the reflection of the door. Indecipherable in the metallic blur, but poignant enough to make me swallow.

  He doesn’t wait for me as the doors slide open, stepping onto his floor, expecting me to follow.

  Which I do.

  I feel like the ultimate third-wheel as I step into his loft, Maggie’s presence screaming at me for being the loser I am. Rightfully so.

  Rocco watches me cautiously, moving into his kitchen to place the counter between us. A shield of sorts. From what, I’m not sure. But I appreciate it as much as he seems to need it.

  “Why are you here?”

  I lift my shoulders, only to let them fall heavily in indecision. “To check on you.”

  “Why?”

  I lick my lips. “Because Dad said you were hurt.”