Page 47 of Wicked Sins

There’s a fire in my chest.

“We’d probably still be staying there, if it wasn’t for his son.”

His son. I try and bring up a memory. Dark hair, green eyes. Attractive, in a rugged way. He worked at the sawmill with Mom. He’d drive her home sometimes if she missed the bus.

On those nights, she’d always come home pissed and reeking of beer.

“The one you used to go to the bar with?”

She glances away as she lets out a dry laugh. Not a stitch of humor there.

“You mean the one who offered me a hundred bucks so he could fuck you? And then threatened to kick us out every time I said no?”

“What?” I give her a confused smile. “That doesn’t—”

“The only way I could keep him happy, keep us there until I had enough money in my pocket to rent a place, was to let him fuck me whenever the mood struck him.” She cocks her head. “Better than letting him have you, right?”

The ground goes soggy under my feet.

“You’re making this up.” I look away, shaking my head. I feel like crying, but I think I’m all used up. There’s nothing left in Dam Candace—no tears, no emotions, notrust. “I don’t know why, but you have to be making this—”

Her acrylic nails bite into my arm. I flinch and try pulling out of my mom’s grip. But she yanks me so I’m facing her, turning the barstool and my body in one go.

“Your dad said you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen,” she whispers.

Hot prickles dance over my skin.

Mom never—never—talks about Dad. All I know is he left us a year after I’d been born. To this day, I don’t know why. To this day, I’d always thought my mom had picked a fight with him. As I got older, the reason became more obvious—Mom was a slut, and Dad couldn’t take it anymore. She slept around so much that it didn’t matter that he had a daughter of his own—he left us both and never looked back.

I’m convinced he thought I’d turn out just like her. Nothing but a slut. And who can love someone like that?

Mom leans in even closer. Like a car wreck, I can’t look away from her red-veined eyes or her trembling, clumpy eyelashes.

“Nothing ever pleased your dad.Icertainly couldn’t, that’s for sure.” Her bitter laugh paints my face with a warm, wine-tainted breath. “Should’ve known it was a curse. So fucking pretty, no one could keep their hands off you.”

“Mom…”

She ignores my broken voice, my desperate plea.

Don’t take away my last vestige of a normal life. I’d grown up thinking everything had been fine until Dad had left…If that’s wrong…what the hell is left for me to believe?

“I’ve been watching grown-ass men stare at you like a piece of meat my whole fucking life.”

No.

“Mom, please—”

“You know what, Candy? I’m done.” She pushes back her shoulders and lifts her chin. “The next time a boy burns up your shit because you wouldn’t screw him?”

I already know what she’s going to say.

Everything inside me dies.

“Ask him what the fuck makes you so special.” She gives me a cruel, condescending once-over that leaves me feeling shriveled. “Because I sure as hell can’t see it.”

Chapter Eighteen

Josiah

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