Fall From Grace

I swallow and then let the words out. “That was the first time, but it wasn’t the last.”

“What are you talking about?” he hisses.

“I checked your bank accounts. Payouts around certain trial dates.”

“It’s called collecting my retainer.”

I shake my head. “No, Carson, it wasn’t just payments made to you. It was payments you collected as well, and I can only guess it was from your clients and their friends getting you to forge documents to prove their innocence.”

He scoffs at me. “You can’t prove that.”

“I checked the offshore ones.”

His face falls. “No one knows about those.”

“I found them, Carson. And if I can find them, then you know that others will too.” Winnie’s boyfriend, Adam, found them. And when I started connecting the dots together, piecing together the history of Carson’s past, my heart broke.

“Fuck! I fucked up years ago, back when Noah was going through his divorce, I liked the extra cash. I didn’t do anything entirely wrong, just immoral.”

I shake my head. “I know about that but it wasn’t just that, Carson. For years, you took bribes and cash to win cases. To make sure your clients were innocent.”

“You don’t have any proof of that.”

“I have enough.”

“Bullshit.” His blue eyes darken, and I know this is the last time I will ever speak to him.

“I’m publishing the article.”

“I’ll go to prison, Grace. Is that what you want? For me to be locked up for years, all for just some stupid article.” He grips his wet hair and screams. “Fuuuccckkk. I thought I fucking loved you. I know I did. I loved you, Grace. I fucking loved you.” His words are coming out of his mouth in a staccato tempo. “And now you are going to destroy everything. My life, my family’s, all for your own glory.”

I get up in his face, tears cresting my eyes. “You were the one who told me to do the article. You told me to write it. To live my dream. So don’t tell me this is my fault.”

“Is that why you came here? To find me and destroy me?”

I shake my head. “I swear to you, Carson. I had no idea you were involved.”

“I’m not involved,” he yells so loudly I step back, scared. “I’m not involved. Yes, I helped Williams years ago, but I have nothing to do with this. I was doing a job. Doing my job. And I did it. I helped Pennington win the goddamn case. Like I was supposed to do.” He breathes out and I can feel the anger rolling off him. “And I would do it again. I would risk my career to gain a promotion. Which sounds just like what you are doing. Dragging the people who have nothing to directly do with this case through the mud. So you can what? Win some award? The Pulitzer? Get the job of your dreams at The New Yorker? I’m glad I meant so much to you that you could care so little about what happens to me.”

His rage pisses me off and only fuels my own fire. “Just add it to my list of knowing how to pick men.”

“Fuck you,” he spits.

“You did, and I hope you enjoyed it.”

I run out of his house, tears streaming down my face. I have no idea where my rage comes from. But it explodes out of me. I didn’t want to hurt him. I never intended to. And I know that article would do just that. But I wrote it to give myself room to breathe. To know that I held power in my hands. But I still had no idea if I was going to submit it or not.

And after all of that, I can’t. I can’t destroy Carson. He loves me. The man I would move mountains for loves me, and I love him too, but I am too much of a coward to say it.

And even knowing what he did, the path he took years ago, the way he climbed his way to success. The very things I fight to expose to the world. Despite it all, I still love the man.

I cry the entire way home and then collapse into my bed, so confused about what to do.