Claire

Mom said that Rogue had lost his way and if anyone could put him on the straight and narrow, it had to be me. I wished I had that much faith in him, but I just didn’t. She tried every emotional blackmail in the book to get Rogue to live with me.

“Your father would be so proud.”

“For the first time since you’ve been a lawyer, you can really help people.”

Mom wasn’t happy that I’d decided to join a firm and not the public office like Dad had. Dad had prosecuted a guy whose wife had decided to blow my dad’s brains out after the trial. She didn’t even get life after confessing that she had done it. Just a simple stint in a mental hospital for a little while and she was out.

Like there was nothing wrong with what she had done.

The only man that had ever truly loved me was gone.

The bitch broke my heart and the public office crushed my world.

She was walking the streets as if she had done the best thing in the world. I would have thought that the public office would have done more to protect my dad’s honor.

They put her away—that was what Dad’s boss said to me.

That was the first time in my life that what I had strived and studied for so long had become a big question mark. I used to listen to Dad talking about his cases and think that would be me when I was older.

That was then. Right now, helping Rogue would maybe give me a sense of that. The bitch that blew away my dad got out three years after she had gunned him down in front of the courthouse. Even though it was ten years ago, it still felt like only yesterday.

As we rode to my apartment, the pair of us were quiet. I didn’t know what to say to him. Some part of me felt like a bitch for blurting to Rogue in the diner about Richard. The other part was glad that I had told him the truth. Rogue had come out of jail for five minutes and already he was up to his old tricks.

I thought jail was supposed to help criminals.

Make them see the error of their ways so they would come out and not want to commit crime again. Then again, the national department statistics said otherwise. Over half of them committed another crime in the first year.

Shit, I had to put my personal feelings aside and just think of Mom. She was going through hell. Richard was completely different from my dad. He was friendlier, worked a hell of a lot less, and paid her attention. It was clear from the time they both kept bumping in the coffee shop and she introduced him to me that they were going to get married. I just didn’t expect it in the first year of them dating, and I certainly didn’t think that the basketball hero that they used to talk about was his son.

History had a funny way of repeating itself. And not in a good way. Richard was our sports coach. He was going to be professional, but like his son, he was injured. The only difference was he decided to continue and go to college to help other kids. He never became bitter and twisted about his injury like his son.

The mood in the car was sterile. I turned on the radio to try and change the mood. Every time I turned to look at Rogue from the corner of my eye, he was just staring out of the window. As if he was on a different planet.

As if he didn’t want to be here. Luckily, it was a short drive to my apartment.

I buzzed to get into my apartment’s garage and parked the car. Rogue had never been to my place. I had some of his stuff in his room that his dad managed to get out of his old place. During the last few years, we’d hardly seen each other, let alone spoken, so this was going to be tough. Thoughts about telling him that we were here and he could get out of the car as I parked were erased as I parked the car. Rogue got out in silence.

He didn’t know where I lived or anything.

Yet, he never asked any questions.

I got out of the car and headed toward the elevators and he followed me like a lost sheep. As I pressed the button to go upstairs, I looked at his face one more time and I could see that Rogue simply didn’t care where we were. Tears were swelling in his eyes. I didn’t have to explain that this was my place.

This was going to be tougher than I thought.

I didn’t think Rogue had feelings.

Now, I could see that he had a whole heap of them.