“And then what?”
“With every intention of finding who took my cousin, I inserted myself into the porn. I was first a man making porn, and then . . .” I clear my throat. “The money came in just like it’s doing for you. I got popular just like you. I got power-hungry, thirsty for so much more that I forgot about Megan. I killed the guy who had my position and took it for myself and shoved Megan to the back of my mind.”
Noll is going to have a field day with this when I tell him everything because he deserves everything I should tell him. I owe him the truth, and the truth is: He was right all along. He was right, and he chose to never give up on me anyway.
“I never cashed the money,” she says, a blush rising to her cheeks. She sets her glass down and crosses her arms over her chest, wrinkling the dress around the swell of her tits.
I cock my head to the side. “Why?” And then it hits me, and my face relaxes in understanding. “It’s evidence.”
She nods regretfully and hugs herself a little tighter. “I meant what I said. I’ll protect you as best I can.”
“No one can protect me,” I say after a moment. “I’ve done what I’ve done, and I’ll pay the price for it.”
She shakes her head. “I’ll think of something.”
I don’t answer her because I know the truth. What I’ve done – all I’ve done, especially the parts she doesn’t know about yet – will come at a heavy price. All I can hope for is that Andre gets the worst of it. I can take care of myself, but in prison? He’ll become someone’s bitch, their plaything to get used and fucked whenever that person pleases,and that’s almost better than my fantasy about putting a bullet in the roof of his mouth. I just hope he’s fucked with a broomstick so hard that the pole comes out of his mouth.
“Do I really have to stay here?”
“Yes,” I answer truthfully. It’s the only way I can protect her if someone were to do some digging. Besides, the way we left so early, and no doubt because of those who heard us shouting, there’s bound to be some digging happening. “Do you not want to?”
“No, no that’s not what I meant,” she says, quickly shaking her head. “I just don’t want to impose more than I already am.”
“You’re not, mama.” I lean and rest an elbow on the counter. “Why did you become a cop anyway if it doesn’t pay well?”
“I’m . . .” She blushes again and looks away for a second. “New. I don’t get paid much because of it. And this? This undercover? It was supposed to be my way to a higher position. Of respect, to undo what my father had done.”
Questions brim in my mind about her father and what exactly happened there because she’s never once talked about her parents before, but she keeps talking. “I want to save people. That’s why I truly became a cop. I had a horrible childhood, and I’m lucky I turned out the way I did. I want to save as many people as I can from a life they were forced to have.”
I let her relive the memories for a second before I ask, “What kind of upbringing did you have?”
Her lips twist to the side, and she shakes her head in answer.
“No secrets, mama.”
I almost think she won’t answer, but then she sighs deeply and begins, “My mom was a drug addict.”
“That’s why you turned down drugs that first night with me, isn’t it?” It all makes sense now, how she was determined not to.
She nods. “I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t on drugs. There was, however, a time when my dad tried to get her to stop, but somewhere along the way, when I was just coming into my teenage years, things changed.”
When she pauses and looks away, I whisper, “Eyes on me.”
She swallows thickly but does as I demand, just like she always does. “My dad was a cop just like me. He knew where to go and when to go and who to go to to get her drugs. She threatened to leave us, and he loved her so much that he ended up buying her the drugs himself.”
“Shit,” I whisper.
She starts taking out the pins in her hair, and I almost wonder if she does it because she’d rather be tugging on the roots right about now instead. I’m sure this topic is uncomfortable for her. “I was at senior prom when it happened. Miles, my father’s partner and now mine, came and got me in the middle of dancing with my boyfriend.”
“What happened?” I urge on.
“My mother killed him and then herself.”
“What?” I breathe out, a scowl deepening my eyebrows. It doesn’t make sense. Why would she kill the man who was getting her her next fix?
“Miles knew about it all though we’ve kept it a secret, he and I. He said that my father told him he was going to refuse to buy her any more heroin and demand that she get clean before she inevitably overdosed. As a result, she stabbed him thirteen times and then did the very thing he feared: overdosed.”
I curse under my breath and go to her, wrapping her in a hug when the tears she’s holding back threaten to leakfrom her eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say, murmuring into her now loose hair.
