Breaking The Sinner (The Breaking Series Book 4)

by Ember Leigh

  Her favorite moment of that solo walk was one she had relived several times. Hands in the air while the white alders loomed overhead, golden-hued sunlight breaking through the yellowed leaves, screaming, “I’m getting my fucking passport!” Birds had flown away at the sound of her voice. She’d taken that as agreement.

  Because she was going to Europe.

  Turned out that emotional devastation could really prime the pump. Cobra hadn’t returned a single call or text. His phone was so off that she wondered if maybe he’d run it over on his way back to LA. Part of her wanted to track him down again.

  But after he’d walked out on her—not only dumping, but abandoning her—even Gen knew that he held the cards. Despite every last inch of her body vibrating with a bone-deep need to see him, she wouldn’t crack.

  The days after Thanksgiving became a productive blur. Back home with Sophie, as Gen recounted the epic-failure saga of her trip back home over beer and sushi, Gen filled out an expedited application for a passport.

  And then began the hunt for discount airlines.

  Thank God she had extra days off for the holiday, because there was almost too much to learn about traveling abroad and going through airport security and how much bags should weigh and absolutely what not to pack. That didn’t even touch individual destinations—what countries were safer for single women, what countries had indecipherable metro systems, which language sounded the sexiest, which airports were the best for overnighting in to avoid using a hotel.

  By Sunday morning, Gen had her itinerary planned—Greece, Spain, England—which meant that on Monday, she would break the news to Travis at work. She’d phase out of Holt Body Fitness as soon as possible. She’d gotten a few months’ work experience, which had been the plan.

  Sophie made pancakes for lunch on Sunday, which was part celebration of Big Life Decisions and part random craving on her part.

  “I haven’t had pancakes in like, six years,” Sophie declared, cutting off a slice of butter on top of a still-steaming pancake. “I hope I’m not pregnant.”

  The offhand comment made Gen sit up. In the hullabaloo of planning this spontaneous European trip, she’d forgotten all about that life-changingly good unprotected sex in the back seat of Cobra’s car.

  “Oh God. Why are you looking at me like that?” Sophie asked.

  “I forgot to tell you.”

  “You’re pregnant?”

  Gen laughed a little. “No. But I could be, I suppose. I had unprotected sex.”

  Sophie grimaced. “Girl, I was just kidding about me being pregnant. Are you okay? Did the condom break?”

  “I wanted it,” she said, trying not to get caught up in breathy recollections of the handful of times they’d made love. Because that’s what it was—every time with Cobra had been made of love. A sacred union that far surpassed what she’d ever imagined for any future spouse.

  Maybe she’d found what her father wanted for her after all…in the last possible place he’d imagined.

  Sophie nodded, tucking some jet-black hair behind her ear. “How was it?”

  Gen huffed. “Too amazing. I can’t even talk about it.”

  “I had unprotected sex once with this guy I dated. But the sex sucked overall.”

  “Listen to us,” Gen said. “Our parents would probably pass away from shock if they heard us talking right now.”

  “I’m surprised that you saying ‘shit show’ at the Thanksgiving table didn’t off them right then and there.”

  Gen smirked. “So not using a condom can actually be bad?”

  Sophie’s eyes went wide for a moment. “Oh, yeah. Not all sex is blessed by the angels like with you and Cobra. Trust me.”

  Gen sighed, shaking her head. Cobra had walked out of her parents’ house three days ago, but it might have been three years. “It was beautiful and so meaningful.”

  “You talk like it’s never gonna happen again.”

  “Well, do you think it will?” Gen scoffed. “You weren’t there to hear what he said to me. It was serious.”

  Sophie cut into her pile of pancakes, stacked three deep. “He seems to always come around.”

  “It’s the end of our agreement, Sophie. The agreement you helped me decide on. Remember?” Gen lobbed a sigh. “You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “About falling down that long, dark tunnel of love.” Gen frowned, picking at the zipper on her Holt zip-up. “It happened. And it’s the best and worst thing that ever happened to me.”

  Sophie nodded, chewing a big mouthful of pancakes, as she reached over to pat Gen on the back.

  “Yep. That’s about the long and short of it.”

  Emotion tightened Gen’s throat. It was easy to get lost in the planning for the Europe trip and not think about Cobra. But it had to come back and be dealt with at some point.

  “Your trip to Europe will help,” Sophie said. “If you’re still thinking about him, missing him, not over him after your three months abroad…well, then…you’ll know it might be real.”

  “But I can’t imagine not seeing him for three months,” Gen whispered. “I want this trip so bad. I’m going no matter what. I just wonder…”

  “What?”

  “Maybe it would be better if he came with. He might want to come with. We had talked about traveling before.”

  Sophie sighed, forking out another slice of pancakes. “Honey, if he wants to come around, he’ll do it. And maybe that’s part of what this trip is for you. Realizing that a person’s journey is their own. You can’t force him to see the light. He has to do it on his own.”

  A few pensive moments slid by as Sophie chewed her food. With a loud swallow, she added, “The best thing you can do is continue with your life. Go to Europe because it’s for you. Don’t add him to the mix.”

  “Even though he left me at my parents’ house—”

  “Which was a dick thing to do,” Sophie interjected.

  “I still want to make sure he’s okay,” Gen finished.

  “Of course.” Sophie sent her a wicked smile. “Because you love him.”

  Gen gave it until Monday. To allow herself to cool off about the whole thing…to figure out what she wanted to say to Travis…to imagine how the conversation with Cobra might go. So when she showed up to work, got settled in, and Cobra wasn’t there? Part of her wasn’t surprised. Not even a little bit.

  More calls to his phone ended in straight to voicemail. By the end of the workday on Monday, the verdict was in.

  Cobra had not only broken up with her and abandoned her, he also planned on never coming back to work.

  Gen rapped on Travis’s office door before she left. He called for her to come in, and she shut the door behind her quietly.

  “Hi, Travis,” she said, sitting with her hands under her thighs. “Have you had a good day?”

  “Yeah, pretty good.” He pushed back a pair of glasses he’d started using when on the computer. Thick black frames that he’d called “the most hipster.”

  “What brings you into my office, Gen?”

  She drew a fortifying breath. All of the monologues she’d practiced over the weekend completely dissipated. She had no idea anymore.

  “I, uh…” She scratched her nose, then her forehead. “I know we started this arrangement as sort of an internship. I came to Los Angeles not really knowing where I was going or what I’d end up doing. And, uh…well…I made a decision.”

  A brow shot up. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’m planning a backpacking trip to Europe.” The words prompted a smile from Travis, which made her feel bolder. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. And after a recent sort of…I don’t know…clarification process, I think it’s better if I go now. Or, I mean, soon. As soon as you don’t need me anymore, I mean.”

  Travis smiled, bringing a closed fist up to his mouth. “Yeah. That sounds great, actually. Do you think you’ve learned enough during your time here?”

  “Oh, I’ve
learned…so much,” she said. “I can’t even describe how much. You wouldn’t actually believe me if I told you how much.”

  “Good. Good.” He nodded again. “Well, feel free to make your plans. I’m okay with you leaving whenever you want. Even if it’s at the end of the week.”

  She covered her mouth. “Really?”

  “You’ve done a great job at keeping my books organized. Seems like you learned the new system really well. I’m sad to see you go, but you’re right. It was an internship, so it wasn’t going to be permanent.”

  She rolled her lips in, nodding. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Your trip sounds amazing.”

  “I think it will be.” She paused. “I do have one other thing I wanted to mention. Cobra.”

  He nodded. “What about him?”

  “He didn’t come into work today. Did he call or anything?”

  Travis sighed, removing and replacing the cap of his pen. “He didn’t. Why do you ask?”

  Gen nibbled on her bottom lip. “I worry about him. And I…” love him. “I think there’s something you should know about him.”

  A line formed in Travis’s brow. “Go on…”

  “He’s not planning on taking his certification test because he doesn’t have a college or a high school diploma.” She swallowed, watching as a strange emotion passed over Travis’s face. “He thinks there’s no point in bothering with the test if he can’t satisfy the requirements, so I’m almost positive that he’s planning on not coming in again because of it.”

  Travis frowned. “Did he say if he wants to get a GED or not?”

  “Didn’t seem like it.” Gen sighed. “But I don’t know.”

  “That sucks,” Travis said. “I would totally help him get his GED, if that’s what he needed.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” she said, pushing to standing. The words that had been on her mind since Thursday came flooding back to her. “But you can only help a person as much as they want to be helped.”

  As far as she could see, she’d done more than enough to help Cobra.

  Now it was time for him to help himself.

  Chapter 40

  On Tuesday night, Cobra started to miss the gym. He hadn’t been there since the Wednesday before—before Thanksgiving, before the brick of dynamite entered his world, before walking out on the one good thing to ever come into his orbit. He had a few ways of categorizing it.

  He’d smashed his phone in the parking lot on Saturday, part anger, part stress-relief, part delirium of missing Gen. All contacts, messages, and photos were lost.

  He couldn’t figure out if losing Gen’s number was the best or worst part about it. He’d seen her reaction when he let it slip that his mother was a murderer. Saw the color drain from her face, the resolute shock harden into a mask on not only her sweet face but on every single one of her family members’.

  The actions of monsters didn’t just affect them. They stained everyone around them. And Cobra was stained for life.

  He’d fled because he couldn’t handle it anymore. He could have waited, but he didn’t, because it was easier to blame it on her. Easier to pretend he’d given her an ultimatum and she’d made her choice. When really, the choice that had been made was to retreat to his cocoon.

  Depression was his oldest friend. It came and went in thick, crushing waves, pushing him toward escapism, toward distraction, toward music, toward nothing. It ground him down into dust and then put the chisel in his hand, as if it had been him all along.

  After last weekend, depression had come back with a vengeance. And it sought revenge for Cobra’s brief escape from its clutches, punishing him doubly for having dared to try enjoying life without its stinking, deluded directives.

  He knew what to expect. It always let up eventually. He had to ride it out. Suffer through the numbness and the despair. Gen had provided a bright light in his dark tunnel. But he’d done what he always did: returned to the familiar contours of his cave. Sought the predictable. Pushed away anyone who dared shake things up.

  But usually when he walked away from some glimmer of hope, he felt nothing. Because he’d trained himself to expect nothing.

  Except now? Walking away from Gen, from the gym, fucking crushed him. He didn’t feel nothing. He felt everything. It pushed sadness and devastation and regret through his veins, pummeling and overbearing. And there was only one way he could see to alleviate it, even a little bit.

  He still had a business card with Travis’s cell number scrawled on it, shoved into the corner of his mirror at home. The one number he had left anymore. Cobra hustled to the nearest store and bought a shitty pre-pay phone, then sent Travis a text around nine p.m. “It’s Cobra. I’m sorry I went MIA. I had some personal issues come up. If I can still come work, I promise on my life this won’t happen again.”

  About a half hour later, Travis wrote back. “See you tomorrow.”

  Cobra stared at the text for what felt like an hour, happiness swarming him. He still had the job. At this point, he could admit to himself he didn’t want to lose it. He just had to decide the way forward. Working at Holt Body meant working with Gen, and he still hadn’t determined what dosage of her might be safe for him. The logical side of him said: zero. The part ruled by his heart wanted every last bit of her.

  He didn’t see her at work on Wednesday, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think about her. Thursday, she didn’t show up either. Then he started to get nervous. Imagining she’d stayed behind in Fresno in the khaki skirt. Making the choice to choose blood family, however abusive they were, over her freedom.

  Amara came into the gym Thursday afternoon. Cobra headed her way without a second thought.

  “’Sup, Amara?” He cornered her by the cubbies when she came into the weight room. “You got a second?”

  “Of course, Cobra.” She flashed him a genuine smile. She’d always been nice to him, for how sullen and introverted he acted. All these people had. Gratitude shuddered through him, catching him off guard for a second. He pinched at the bridge of his nose. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Kinda going through something.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, studying the ground. Trying to find the words that struck that balance between lovesick fool and concerned friend. “I got a new phone recently, and I wondered…do you have Gen’s number?”

  Amara’s smile fell a bit. And maybe that was nervousness rolling off her. Cobra couldn’t quite tell. “Uh…why do you need it?”

  He worked his jaw back and forth. Best to go for the gold. “She hasn’t shown up to work, and I’m worried. We kinda got into a fight, and I…” All the air left him in a big whoosh. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  Amara nodded, stuffing her purse into a cubby. “Yeah. That sounds fine. You ready?”

  Cobra’s hands shook as he typed Gen’s number into his new phone. It was a flashy new smartphone, something of a splurge last night once he’d gotten sick of his slow-as-molasses off-brand pre-pay phone. After all, he still had his job, and he was getting paid next week, so why not? His big fingers kept pressing the wrong numbers. He swore, starting the number over for the third time.

  “Easy there, tiger,” Amara laughed. “You’ll get it.”

  “Fuck. I guess I’m…I dunno.” A weak laugh escaped him. “I’m an asshole. I need to make it up to her.”

  “What’d you do?”

  Cobra saved her contact before stuffing his phone into the pocket of his workout shorts. “I ditched her. In a bad way. She doesn’t deserve that.” The familiar self-flagellating insults worked their way up from his core, like bile up a throat—you don’t deserve her either. You’re worthless. Why do you waste her time? Down in the depths of him, where they’d been planted and carefully cultivated first by his mother and then by himself. But this time, he stopped before he could put a voice to them. It might make them a sliver less real inside him.

  “What are you gonna do to make it up to her?” Amara asked, a curious
grin curving her lips. “It better be something good.”

  “I’m working on it,” Cobra said. “But now I’m a little messed up that she’s not coming in.”

  “I just love her,” Amara said. “She’s so extremely sweet and lovely. I’m so happy that she’s part of our family here.”

  Amara’s words were a punch to the gut. Swift, almost painful. But like a cleansing brawl among friends, the surprise punch brought clarity with it. Holt Body Fitness was a family. Lex, Travis, Amara…Gen. They were becoming his family.

  “Yeah. I love her too,” Cobra whispered, jerking his gaze to the ground. Emotion cinched his chest, and he needed to get out of here. Go pump out some pull-ups. “Thanks, Amara.”

  Cobra waited until he’d clocked out and safe in his car before sending a text.

  “Hey. It’s me. I’m ready to start begging for forgiveness now.”

  He took the long way home, stopping by the grocery store, spending too much time picking out vegetables that he’d liked to take over to Gen’s house once she wrote back. He bought three bouquets as well.

  But Gen didn’t write back. Not that evening, not that night, not even the next morning. All the flowers were wilted and wimpy when he got into his car the next morning. He frowned the entire way to work.

  On Friday he started calling. Her phone would ring and ring and click over to the generic voicemail. Extremely unlike Gen, which made his stomach knot harder.

  By Saturday, he knew it was time for the big guns. Gen not responding to him was serious business, and the core of him worried that he’d pushed her goodwill and forgiveness too far. This, of all the things in his life, was his biggest fuckup.

  But he’d make it right. Because he couldn’t fathom life without Gen in it. This much, at least, he knew.

  His skin crawled for wanting her. The continued silence felt like nails on a chalkboard. Nothing seemed right in the world. And it wouldn’t be, until he made it up to her.

  On Saturday morning he slept in, then slipped out of the apartment as fast as he could once he realized Klay and Tyler were out. The idea had been simmering in the back of his mind for a while. Thinking about how much she would like a puppy. Imagining the way it would light up her face. How hard she’d hug him. Helping her cross off one more item from her list.