Page 29 of Breaking Through the Doubt (Espen Jetties #4)

29

LESLIE

My throat felt like it was closing. That weight I’d carried around was suddenly crushing my lungs. She was dead, and it was all my fault. I gave them money. They bought drugs with it. She overdosed. If I hadn’t, she would still be alive.

Tears ran down my cheeks and I didn’t try to brush them away. Words wouldn’t leave my lips until the police were gone. “It’s my fault.”

Corey stepped closer but each step he took toward me, I walked backward until my spine hit the wall and I couldn’t go any farther. “What do you mean?” It wasn’t accusatory, but curious.

“I should have told you sooner, but I was on the road, and we didn’t see each other until yesterday. Then we were together. The rest of the world fell away like it always does. I wanted to tell you. The right moment hadn’t come yet. Now we’re here and...” My bottom lip trembled. The rest of the words wouldn’t come out.

“Leslie, come sit on the couch and start from the beginning.”

I shook my head, unable to bring myself within touching distance of him. I didn’t want to be that close when he ended it between us. If he touched me, I’d sob and beg for him not to leave me. Instead of moving toward him, my body slid along the wall until my ass met the floor. I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, making myself as small as possible, trying to protect what was left of my heart before he took it from my chest.

Corey stepped closer, but stopped at the other end of the hallway, keeping a measurable distance between us. He took a seat across from me. “I’m not sure what has you so scared, but tell me. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” He said that now. How quickly would his mind change when he heard what happened?

“Remember the last time we were together, and you tattooed me?” I absently ran my finger over my inner arm, over the skin that was still healing.

“Yes.”

“When we parted ways after, you got into your car and left. I was on my way to mine, but I heard a noise, a cry. I went to the alleyway and there… there was…” A sob left me. I couldn’t hold it back. “Your mother was there with an angry mark on her face. She’d been hit and was crying.” The whole night had been living on a loop in my mind. Now it was ten times worse because she was gone. Corey’s mother was dead.

“Okay. What happened next?”

“I went to help her when a guy appeared and started shouting at me. He reached her fast and started hurting her again. I told him to let her go and things went downhill even more. He… he shoved her to the ground and took a swing at me. I didn’t hit him first. I wanted to but I didn’t. He was the one who came for me.” Corey had to understand I didn’t instigate it.

I sucked in a deep breath and pushed on, needing to get it out before he could speak again. I was purging my soul, laying everything bare for him. “We fought and I didn’t stop until he was out cold. I didn’t kill him; he was just out. When I stood, there was another guy there, filming the whole thing and he was holding on to your mother.”

Corey shook his head. “I can see where this is going.”

“But I was the stupid one. I fought and then they blackmailed me. They told me if I didn’t pay them, they’d go to the police, and I’d be plastered all over the news. Not only did I not want that for my team, but I didn’t want that for you and your dad.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand.”

“Shit,” he bit out. “You paid them?”

I nodded. “I didn’t know what else to do. When I didn’t give him an answer fast enough, he threatened her with a knife to her throat. I wanted to protect everyone, and the only way I thought I could do it was by giving them what they asked for. He released her and deleted the video while I stood there. The moment I walked away, my stomach sank, and I felt like shit. I wanted to tell you, but I was leaving. It wasn’t the kind of thing you say over the phone. Then I got back, and you know the rest.”

“Leslie…”

“It was my fault. If I hadn’t given them the money, they wouldn’t have been able to buy the drugs and she’d still be alive.”

“That’s not how it works. She would have found another way to get high, another way to get the money. You didn’t force the drugs on her. You didn’t make her take more than she should have.”

Burying my face in my arms, I kept my head down as tears continued to flow. I couldn’t look at him. He was defending me, but I was the bad guy here. I was the enabler. “I’ll go to the police,” I mumbled. “I’ll tell them it was my fault. They should know why this happened.” I’d do whatever it took to make things right.

“Hey, look at me,” he said in a soft voice. When I ignored him, he got closer. I heard him stand and pad up the hallway before dropping down in front of me. He clasped my biceps and gave me a gentle shake. “Leslie, I need you to look at me.”

I finally lifted my tear-stained face.

Corey reached up to brush my tears away. “It wasn’t your fault. I need you to hear me. You were in a bad spot and did what you thought was right. You were looking out for your friends, and me and my dad. I’m not mad at you. If anything, I’m mad at her for what she did to you.”

“You shouldn’t be. They were abusing her.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure she was using them to get drugs. She wasn’t innocent. I bet if you found that guy again and asked him how many other people he swindled out of money, he’d have a fucking list. That’s what they did, got money for drugs any way they could. Leslie, you did nothing wrong.”

I heard his words, although they didn’t sink in and take root. They floated with other words I’d said, and what the police did. With everything that happened. Memories, good and bad. It didn’t change that he lost his mother. He lost the woman who brought him into this world.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Please let me make it right.”

“There’s nothing to do. You’re not going to the police. Even if you did, they wouldn’t fault you. You didn’t commit a crime. They wouldn’t even be able to find the men who did that. They could be on to another city, another woman or man to take advantage of. All of them are users. You were a victim in this.”

“No, I knew what I was doing.”

“You did, but so did they. When they chose to buy drugs and get high, they knew the risks. This is on them. Not you.”

“We should find them to get justice for your mother.”

“Justice?” He scoffed. “There’s no justice to be had here. She abandoned me. Left me while she went to find her next high. I wasn’t anything more than an inconvenience to her.”

“Corey…”

“No, Leslie, you have to listen. There is nothing to be done about any of it now. She’s gone. She went down this road of her own choosing. Not you. Not me.”

“You still lost your mom.”

“Can you really lose someone you never had?”

“I’m—”

“Don’t. Please don’t be sorry. Thank you for telling me, but I need you to know none of this is on you.”

I wouldn’t go to the police unless he wanted me to. His words made sense. I didn’t buy her drugs or shoot her up. I didn’t force pills down her throat or whatever drug she did. I was responsible for my actions and my actions alone. They blackmailed me. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel like the lowest of the low for what happened. A life was still a life.

“Look at it this way,” he said. “Say I had a brother, and he was using. He didn’t have the money, but I did. He begged me for cash to get a meal because he was broke or for something else, and I gave in. I handed him what money I had. Would it be my fault if he turned around and used that money to get his next fix? What if it killed him? I didn’t sell him the drugs. I didn’t find the dealer for him. Those were his actions. My mom was a known addict, had been for a long time. She didn’t want to get help. One day, this was bound to happen.”

“I’d still like to go down there and tell the police what happened.”

“Let this lie. For me. I need closure and won’t get that if we make it more than it is. Besides, there won’t be any proof that you supplied the money to her. The guys you paid weren’t even there. Just her. All you have is the random account you sent the money to that, by now, could be shut down. And even if they find them, there will be no proof they’re the ones who gave her the drugs. You’re a victim. End of story.”

Corey leaned forward and fully pulled me into his arms. I held on to him as my tears dried. I shouldn’t be the one upset, he should. Although I understood why he wasn’t. She was a stranger to him. He didn’t have good memories of her or a need for justice. To him, justice was her finally passing from the drugs she put above him and his dad. Oh god, his dad.

I leaned back. “Your dad.”

“I know. I’ll tell him but I’m leaving you out of it. Dad will remember her how he wants. Not how she was at the end. I want to preserve that for him.”

I understood that. Why ruin his dad’s memory of her. If I did go to the police, that would do the same. It would also open things up and the closure they both needed would be out of reach. Logic was finally settling into my mind. I had to let this go for Corey and his dad.

I wasn’t the dealer. I wasn’t her pimp or whoever that was with her. It wasn’t me beating her or handing her drugs. I was simply their target, one with a lot of money and a reputation for fighting that they used against me.

Fuck, when did everything get so messed up?

It was my turn to bring Corey into my arms. He held me tight, his body fitting between my legs as I spread them. We still sat on the floor in the hallway for a while as we both calmed and soaked in each other’s warmth.

“Corey?”

“Yeah?” His face was nestled in the crook of my neck.

“I love you.”

He slowly sat up and gazed at me with those dark eyes I could sink in to. “You love me? Even after all this shit?”

“I loved you well before this, but didn’t tell you right away. It was building until I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I had truly fallen for you.”

“I love you too.”

A smile teased my lips. “Yeah?”

“Hell fucking yeah.” He gripped the back of my neck and brought our lips together.

Corey loved me. He wasn’t ready to kick me out. He didn’t tell me to go and never return. He fucking loved me. I was going to do whatever it took to make myself worthy of him.

Today had been fucking awful, but it had also given way to me telling him the truth. I didn’t have anything left to hide from him, not even how I felt. He had all of me now.