So damn sorry.
Sorry he’d ever been tempted by the thought of easy money. Sorry he and his friends had traumatized all these good and decent folks. Sorry he’d considered killing them in order to save his own neck.
But he’d decided saying he was sorryput the focus on him. Onhisfeelings. And his victims—yes, he’d come to terms with the fact that they were his victims—didn’t deserve that. They deserved the focus to be onthem. Which was why he started out by thanking them.
“Thank you all for takin’ care of me and Brady. The doctors say Brady’s injuries mighta left him stove all to hell if ya hadn’t been so quick to patch him up.”
The lump that’d formed in his throat the instant Fin died was still there. Firmly lodged into place. He figured it was just part of him now, same as the scars on his arm. But that meant he’d gotten good at being able to talk around it.
“Ya treated us better than we deserved. And I’ll always be grateful for that.” He swallowed and forced himself to once again look each of them in the eye. Would hereallyhave gone through with the plan to kill them? God help him, he would have. And that was the most disheartening revelation of all. That he had that in him. That he was capable of such atrocity.
“And not that it matters one way or the other, ’cause what’s done is done,” he continued hoarsely. “But I want ya to know how sorry I am. How sorry we all are for what we put ya through. If we could take it all back, we would.”
Oh, how I would.
He couldn’t stop the tears that pricked behind his eyes any more than he could stop recalling the sound of disbelief in his mother’s voice when he’d called to tell her what’d happened. But the disbelief in her voice was so much better than the disappointment he’d heard in his father’s voice. Of course, worse than all of that had been the look of betrayal, the look of disgust that’d come over Sheila’s face when she’d flown down to visit him in the hospital.
“How could ya?” Her big green eyes had filled with tears when he’d explained what he’d done. “How could ya have done this to us, Will?”
He’d tried to reach for her, but he’d been thwarted by the cuff securing his hand to the hospital bed’s guardrail.
“I was trying to do itforus, Sheila,” he’d said, choking on a sob when she didn’t step forward to take the hand extended her way.
“We werefine.” She’d shaken her head. “We were strugglin’, but we were makin’ it work because we were all together, ya dubbah. Now you’re goin’ away for who knows how long, and what are me and the boys supposed to do, huh?”
He’d had no answer for her then. He had no answer for her now.
A part of him wanted to beg her to wait for him. But if the prosecutor went for felony murder, and if he and the others were convicted, they would be looking at life. He couldn’t ask his loving wife to lock herself away in a prison of her own making just to stay true to him.
She was still young. She was still beautiful. She still had time to make some other lucky sonofabitch the happiest man on earth. Which meant his boys would be brought up by someone else.
The thought of another man parenting his sons sent a steel boat hook straight through the meaty part of his heart.
But at least I’ll still be able to write them letters,he consoled himself.At least I’ll still be able to tell ’em how much I love ’em. Fin can’t even do that.
Every time he thought of his best friend, he broke into tears.
This time was no different.
“Sorry,” he croaked when his eyes overflowed. His cuff made a jangling noise against the restraining bar when he leaned toward the table to brush away his tears. “I didn’t ask ya to come in here to watch me blubber like a baby. I just wanted to thank ya, and I felt like ya should have the chance to say to me whatever it is ya feel ya need to say.” He straightened and blew out a shaky breath, ready for an earful. “Don’t feel like ya need to hold back. I deserve anything and everything ya got.”
“What you did was wrong.” LT’s eyes were penetrating as they held Will’s stare. “And you’ll pay a price for that. But despite what you were willin’ to do to us, none of us wishes to add to your ills. We’re happy to let Lady Justice do to you what she feels is right.”
Will nodded, unable to speak around the tears in his throat. He’d expected them to scream at him, to call him all the things he’d been calling himself. Somehow, their grace and mercy was worse.
Because it highlighted just how far he’d fallen.
So far there’s no way to climb back up.
William White had spent his life thinking of himself as a good man. And now he was forced to face the truth.
He’d only been as good as circumstances had forced him to be. When he’d been tempted by easy money, he’d been willing to do the unthinkable. And that weakness, that inability to avoid temptation, hadn’t only ruinedhislife. His parents and wife and sons would pay the price too.
For that, he’d never forgive himself.
Chapter 32
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