Chapter 31 When Love Turns Into Leverage
Harper’s Pov,
"You don't have to fix anything, Crew. Just get better," I said, reaching toward the glass, wishing I could touch him… even for a second.
"One minute," Dr. Kim interrupted again.
One more minute and then he'd be gone again for who knows how long.
"I have to go," Crew said, and his voice sounded wrecked. "But I'll call again as soon as they let me. Maybe in a few days if I can convince them."
"I'll be here whenever you can call. I promise."
"Take care of yourself, okay? Don't just survive. Actually take care of yourself."
"I will. You too." I said, smiling.
"Love you."
"I love you too."
The line went silent for a second and then Dr. Kim's voice came back.
"Mr. Lawson has returned to his session," she said. "Ms. Sinclair, can you stay on the line for a moment? I'd like to speak with you privately."
My stomach twitched. "Okay."
Another click, then just Dr. Kim and me.
"Ms. Sinclair, I monitored that entire conversation as I told you I would." Her voice was calm but firm, the way a doctor sounds when they're about to tell you something you don't want to hear. "And I need you to understand something very clearly. Crew knows you were lying to him."
"I was trying to protect him—"
"You were enabling him," she cut me off sharply. "One of the core components of addiction recovery is learning to handle reality without using substances to escape. When you lie to Crew about what's happening in his life, you're teaching him that he's too fragile to handle the truth. That he needs to be protected from difficult information. And that's the exact same pattern that led him to pills in the first place."
"I don't want to stress him out when he's trying to get clean."
"Stress is part of life. Learning to cope with stress without self-medicating is literally what we're teaching him here." Dr. Kim's voice got firmer. "The next time you speak with him, I want you to tell him the truth about what's happening with his team. All of it. Don't leave anything out. Let him practice handling difficult news while he's still in a supported environment where we can help him process it."
"What if it makes him relapse?"
"What if lying to him destroys his trust in you and that makes him relapse?" she countered. "Ms. Sinclair, I understand that you love him and want to protect him. But protection isn't the same as support. Support means trusting that he's strong enough to handle reality. Protection means treating him like a child who can't cope. Which one do you think will actually help him stay sober long term?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
"Think about it," Dr. Kim said. "And when he calls you again, tell him the truth. That's how you actually help him."
The line went dead.
I sat there on Maya's couch staring at my phone, Dr. Kim's words echoing in my head.
"You were enabling him."
"How did it go?" Maya appeared in the doorway.
"His therapist says I'm enabling him by lying. That I need to tell him the truth about the Titans threatening to fire him."
"Are you going to?"
I knew Crew asked me directly to tell him the truth… and I'd lied straight to his face because I thought I was protecting him.
But Dr. Kim was right.
I wasn't protecting him. I was treating him like he was too weak to handle reality.
And that was exactly what had led him to pills in the first place.
"Yeah," I said.
"I'm going to tell him everything. But first, I need to do something else."
"What?"
I pulled out my laptop and opened a new document… then started typing.
"Harper, what are you doing?"
"Morrison gave me five days to break up with Crew or they fire him. Richard's been orchestrating this whole campaign to destroy us. The DA escalated my charges because someone's been feeding them information. And Brianna's family is bankrolling a lawsuit I can't afford to fight."
"Okay, so?"
"Well can't you see? They're all connected.” I said, my fingers moving faster across the keyboard
“Richard’s been coordinating with the Titans… probably with Brianna’s lawyers too, maybe even with the DA’s office. That’s not just a smear campaign. That's a conspiracy. And if I can prove it before my trial…”
“The whole thing falls apart,” Maya finished for me.
“Exactly.”
She sat down next to me. "Well… how are you going to prove it?"
"Remember that flash drive Emma gave me? That's our weapon.”
“It’s got every single email Richard ever sent her. Every conversation. And yeah, I know Monica said we can’t use it in court because it was obtained illegally… but nobody said anything about giving it to a journalist.”
"Harper—"
"Look Maya, I'm not breaking up with Crew to make their lives easier. I'm not pleading guilty to charges I don't deserve. And I'm sure as hell not letting Richard Moss win." I looked at her.
"I'm going to blow this whole thing wide open, expose it to the media, and force them to answer questions about why Joel's agent has been coordinating with the Titans and the DA's office to destroy his ex-girlfriend."
"That's incredibly risky."
"To be honest, everything I've done for the past three months has been risky. At least this time I'm choosing the risk instead of just reacting to it."
Maya stared at me for a long moment. Then she pulled out her own laptop.
"Okay then, let's do it! I know a sports journalist who hates corruption stories. Used to work for ESPN before they fired him for being too aggressive with his reporting."
"Will he take the story?"
"If the evidence is solid? Absolutely." She started typing.
“But Harper, you need to understand what you’re starting here. Once this goes public, there’s no taking it back. Richard will come after you harder than ever, and the Titans will probably fire Crew just to distance themselves from the scandal. Which means your criminal trial is about to get even messier.”
"I know all this Maya."
"And you're still going to do it?"
"Hell yeah," I said. "I'm going to do it."
Maya grinned. "Good. Because I'm tired of watching you get destroyed by assholes who think they're untouchable. Let's make them touchable."
She pulled up an email and started typing:
Mike - Got a story for you. Corruption, conspiracy, sports agent coordinating with team management and prosecutors to destroy a player's girlfriend. Evidence included. You interested?
She hit send.
…..
Thirty seconds later, her phone rang.
She answered and put the phone on speaker. "That was fast."
"Are you serious right now?" A man's voice, sounding rough and excited.
"You're telling me you have evidence of an agent working with team management to interfere in a player's personal life?"
"Not just any evidence. I'm talking about emails, recordings… a whole paper trail."
"Send me everything. I want to see it before I commit."
"I'll send you a sample. But if you run this story, you run all of it. No holding back to protect anyone."
"Maya, when have I ever held back?"
She smiled. "Never. And that's why I called you."
She hung up and looked at me. "He'll run it. Mike doesn't care about burning bridges if the story's good enough. And this story? This story is nuclear."
A second later, a new email popped up in my inbox.
I opened it… no sender name, just a random string of letters and numbers.
___
Heard you had an interesting meeting with the Titans today. Hope you made the right choice. Tick tock.
\- R
____
Richard. Still gloating. Still thinking he'd won.
I showed Maya the text.
"You know what?" I said.
"I really hope he keeps gloating. Because when this story breaks and his name is all over it, I want him to remember that he could've stopped. That he could've left us alone. But he didn't."
"So now you destroy him instead."
"Now I destroy him instead."