Page 63 of Reasons We Break

“Or you’re a people pleaser.”

Simran frowns. Zohra, meanwhile, glances again at the door. She appears to be warring with herself, but finally, she rises to close it. The sounds of the party fade.

Zohra turns to face her. “I didn’t tell you the full story with Jai.”

A chill runs down Simran’s spine. Where this is coming from, she doesn’t know, but when Zohra sits again, her voice is hushed.

“The older I got, the more Jai asked me to do. He’d rent properties and insure cars in my name. He had me get my firearms license and buy guns, so his friends could break into my car and steal them. It made me nervous. But when I started pushing back, Jai said I owed him. That’s when I saw a new side of him.” She wraps her arms around herself. “The only control I had was when I cheated on him. But he didn’t even seem to care. In fact...” She takes a deep breath. “He was more than okay with me having sex with other people. Last fall, he tried to talk me into doing it with his friend.”

Simran stares. “Why?”

“For money. We’d split the profits, right? Except I knew it didn’t work like that. I’d seen some of those girls...they weren’t exactly on equal footing with their pimps.” Zohra smiles grimly. “I finally said no to him.”

“And?”

“He got mad.” A shadow crosses her face. “I ran out of the house. Rajan was there. I got in the car, Jai was waving his gun around, screaming that he was going to kill me, and...I didn’t think.”

Simran realizes, suddenly, where the story is going. “It was you,” she breathes. “Youran him over.”

Zohra’s eyes dart around, like someone might hear. “Listen, I wasnineteen.I was freaking out. Murder? I could go to prison. And even if not, all my law school dreams would be over. But...Rajan was seventeen.”

Simran’s still processing this. “He took the fall.”

“I didn’t ask him to,” Zohra says defensively. “He just...did. The cops bought it. So did the courts—Rajan pled guilty, it was an open-and-shut case. Jealous boyfriend, they see it all the time with the gangs. They’d kill each other over a parking space, you know? Even theLionsthought Rajan did it. Everyone knew we were sleeping together. Only Nick knows the truth.” Her eyes take on a faraway look. “I guess I owe him for that. I always will.”

Simran is quiet. Rajan went to juvie, got all sorts of labels that will stick to him for life, for something he didn’t do. What if they’d tried him as an adult? Does his own life mean so little to him? Or does Zohra mean that much?

Zohra’s voice brings her back. “Being a people pleaser got me to the worst place of my life. I have a feeling you’re like me that way, so I have a question for you that would’ve saved me a lot of trouble: How far are you gonna take it?”

Simran raises her eyes to Zohra’s.

“Have you ever asked yourself that? Because you should. You need to find the point where doing what other people want makes you more sad for yourself than happy for them.” Zohra rises from her seat. “And you need to figure it outbeforeit happens.”

RAJAN AWAKENS TOhis head pounding.

For a second, he doesn’t know where he is. The leather couch is unfamiliar. As is the crystal table in front of him, the fireplace, and the floor-to-ceiling window allowing sunlight to assault his eyes—

Shit.

Memories of last night flood back. The cops. Sukha. His father. Nick and Zohra. And...his eyes fall on the table. The remnants of what he’s done, still there.

Unexpected disappointment crushes him. He drops his head back to the cushion.Why? Why couldn’t he just hold on? He gotso far, and now it’s for nothing.

But god help him...it feltgood. And if that isn’t the part that makes him feel the shittiest—how, in the moment, it was areliefto relapse. Like finally coming home after months. As if no time had passed; as if all the cravings he fought, and the drug rehab he went through, didn’t matter. As if it never will. Because whether he’s one week, one year, or one lifetime away from his last cocaine binge, it will only ever really be one bad day away.

Nick chooses that moment to walk into the room. “Oh, you’re alive?” He plops onto the opposite couch, voice gratingly loud. “In case you were wondering, Simran got home safe. Don’t worry. I doubt she’ll report you.”

Rajan glares. He didnotneed the reminder that Simran saw him like that, too. “I get it, okay? I fucked up.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” Nick tosses a bunch of books on the table between them.

Rajan struggles to his elbows to squint at them. Patterned hardcover notebooks, the nice-stationery types. “What—”

“Have you already forgotten you were begging to help find a bookkeeper?” Nick taps one of the notebooks. “Here’s the accounts. I’ve been researching these people. If you were serious about wanting to help, this is your chance.”

Slowly, Rajan takes one. It takes his sluggish brain several seconds to make sense of what he’s seeing. Pages and pages ofnames, each corresponding to a different code. Four-digit codes...just like those used in the ledgers. This is the key to it all.

Simran would probably drool over this information. Rajan, however, just rubs his eyes. “It’s six in the fucking morning. Can’t we do this later?”