Page 54 of Brazen Mistakes

Some of my joy deflates.

RJ continues. “This is what I can do, so it’s what I’m doing. I think I’ve started the ball rolling on at least three divorces in the past few months. These monsters need to lose everything. More than everything. But their money’s a good start.”

I pull back far enough to see the sincerity in his amber-flecked eyes. “Thank you.”

His hands slipped under the sweatshirt during my grateful attack of him, and my skin burns where his fingers brush beside my spine. “Clara, I did this for you. But I also did it for me.”

My confusion must be clear on my face because he explains. “When I started as a kid, I wasn’t careful, and I probably stole from people no better off than my family. I’m sure of it, even if I never checked. Now—God, this sounds so fucked up—but now I feel good about stealing. It’s justified when they’ve already taken so much, and it has nothing to do with making a quick buck. For the first time, I’m almost moral, and I’m confident that I’m doing the right thing.”

He presses me closer, my throat tight. “It’s like, maybe I learned all this shady shit just so I could do this work, so I could protect these kids. I know I’m not a hero. That choice was taken from me years ago. But now? Maybe I can be somebody’s secret dark knight. Maybe, if I can keep just one more kid safe from these predators, then maybe all the bad shit I’ve done will be wiped clean, you know?”

Our foreheads rest together as I try to put into words how I feel about him, about how big this is. “RJ, youarea hero.”

“No, I’m not. I can’t be. But I can be a hurdle. There were a few guys that looked like they were searching for real-life meets, and I’ve blocked their messages. I won’t catch all of them, even though I check every day. Usually, a few times a day. There are too many of them to police solo. But I can slow them, delay them, and financially decimate them. I’m more of a digital bear trap than a hero. I can’t kill them, and if they tryhard enough, they’ll get free, but it delays the danger, at least for a while.”

“That makes you a hero. You can’t see the people you’re helping, and they may never even know they were in danger, but you’re saving them, just the same.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It’s more than anybody else is doing for these kids.”

He’s silent, staring at the screens. Wrapping my arms around him, I squeeze as tightly as I know how, trying to show him how big this is. Because it’s huge. And he didn’t tell me for months. This wasn’t meant to impress me or to exact vengeance on my behalf. No, he saw a problem and realized he had the skills to fix it.

What was it Jansen said? That being a crook is just having a collection of ordinary traits used in extraordinarily illegal ways?

Because that’s what RJ did.

If your illegal actions keep kids safe, are you still a criminal? Probably.

But it’s not that simple. Good and bad, they’re a broken paradigm, simple rules we teach children that don’t apply in the real world.

Here, things are gray at best.

And I’m getting a hell of a lot more comfortable with that.

Chapter 20

Clara

Trips drops a tablet in my lap when I meet him in the living room. “Read it.”

“Okay. Can I eat first?”

“Can you read and eat at the same time?”

Taking the tablet with me, I pull out the last of the Christmas leftovers and put a few things that look vaguely appetizing onto a plate, Trips mirroring my actions while also making a pot of coffee.

We eat in silence, Trips lining up a collection of milk, sugar, and cocoa in front of me with my mug before I remember the syrups from Emma. Only, he’s being nice, so I leave them for now. My second cup can be crazy creative.

I toss the cocoa and the milk in with the coffee and dig deeper into the document Trips prepared for me—a dossier on his family.

And it’s nasty.

It’s dry and clinical, like this world is separate from Trips, like it’s not the life he was born into, the violence and manipulation he grew up thinking was normal.

I want to vomit.

Page after page of abuse, of blackmail, of control so absolute, I hardly understand how Trips is here, at this house, attending the U with us.

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