Page 31 of Sin and Redemption

“Where’s Sara now?”

“Her mother is with her. Sara doesn’t need me there,” I said without a hint of emotion.

Amo tilted his head, his eyes narrowed in thought. Sara was his cousin. Of course, he was worried about her well-being too. “She’s been through a lot. So have you.”

I shook my head and rose to my feet. “I’m fine. Let’s do some sparring. I need to move my body.”

Amo and I sparred for close to two hours. “I can cancel the meeting with Maddox. He can update me tonight at dinner.”

I shook my head. “No. I promised to help my parents with the shelter this afternoon. Go.”

Amo nodded, then grabbed his gym bag and left. In the past year, we’d done more emotional chitchat than in our entire lives before then. Fuck. I missed the easier days.

I picked up the phone and messaged Liliana. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t message Sara.

How’s Sara doing? Should I come home?

We’re on the way to our place. Sara wants to spend a few days with her family until she’s come to terms with the situation.

I wasn’t even surprised. Hell, I was almost relieved. I definitely wasn’t the person who could take care of Sara in a situation like this. We didn’t know each other well, and the baggage from the past still weighed too heavily on our shoulders. And how the fuck could I possibly console a woman who lost the baby inside her?

She loved her family. They were what she needed—not a man she had no choice but to marry because of our world’s moral rules.

Okay. Let me know if Sara or you need anything.

You should go see your family too. It’s not a good idea to be alone right now.

I was surprised by Liliana’s concern for me. It was hard for me to grasp that she didn’t hate me for what had happened, but Liliana and Romero were good people, especially in our world.

I decided to head home right away instead of picking up my stuff in my apartment. Primo still lived with my parents when he wasn’t traveling for business, so I could borrow some of his clothes.

The moment I parked in the driveway on my parents’ property, the door swung open, and Mom came rushing out. I’d thought she’d still be at work in Gianna’s gym. To be honest, I’d hoped she was. Her emotionality might trigger emotions in me I had no intention of experiencing.

She hugged me tightly. Excited barks and yowls sounded from the dogs in their cages. Mom had closed the screen door so Bacon and the other house dogs were stuck inside and couldn’t greet me.

“Who told you?” I asked quietly. “Liliana?”

“She called me to make sure I was there for you when you arrived. I raced here.” She pulled back and cupped my cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Max. I can’t believe how much you and Sara have to go through. It’s not fair. Not fair at all. Yesterday was a day of joy and then this.”

“Yesterday was many things but not a day of joy, and today only confirmed what I’d known from the very start: building something good on a rotten foundation will end in destruction.”

Mom lowered her hands as I straightened. “One horrible incident won’t determine Sara’s and your future. You two will have a beautiful family one day. I’m convinced of it.”

Mom’s convictions were based on wishful thinking. She thought because she wanted something for me out of motherly love, it would become true. Life didn’t work that way. Fate had a nasty temper and loved to kick me in the balls.

“We can’t have a family because there’s no way Sara will ever want to be with me.”

Mom let out a small sigh. “It’ll take time, but you two will find your way to each other.”

A day of hard manual work would keep the thoughts away and maybe make me exhausted enough that I’d have no trouble falling asleep tonight.

“I’m here to help with the new fencing,” I said firmly, turning my attention to the dog shelter on my right. After a flood of new arrivals from a secret dog fighting club, with several dogs that needed to be in solitary confinement because of their behavioral issues, the shelter was getting too small. Finding new homes for the dogs was often close to impossible. Today, we would build another open area where the more social dogs could live in a pack, plus create a few more solitary cages with enough space to allow the nervous and confused dogs space to run.

After a moment, Mom dragged her concerned eyes away from me and motioned to the fencing material on the bed of Dad’s gray truck. I knew he was still busy with a client and would be home later.

Mom shivered. She was only in gym clothes, and the temperatures were around the freezing point today. I ran hot, so the cold barely bothered me, but even I needed to put another layer over my T-shirt.

I headed into the house, and after greeting Bacon and the four other dogs, all of them pit bulls, I headed upstairs to Primo’s room and grabbed a sweatshirt and a jacket that looked as if a lumberjack owned it from his wardrobe. I set out to work right away. With a pickax, I pummeled holes into the half-frozen ground so we could set the fencing posts in concrete.

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