Page 136 of Wicked Sins

It’s a motherfucking conspiracy.

The world had it out for me from day one. Whatever governing body sorts out who goes where, it decided I’d get the worst card of the shittiest hand. It birthed me from a mother who already wished I was dead.

And yeah, things only got worse from there.

After nearly two decades of persistent torture, the world, the universal fucking mind, decides to tease me with a glimpse of what could be.

The ghost of Candy future was the most exhilarating, enticing thing I’d ever experienced. And yes, I was ready to sell my soul for the pleasure.

But I showed my hand too soon.

Should have kept that poker face till I’d known the game was won.

Because cunning, putrid,disturbedWayne saw right through me.

He’d obviously read the desperation in my eyes that first night when I met him. The night I shook his hand, when I couldn’t take my eyes off his handsome face and his hand-tailored tuxedo. Maybe he caught me leaning in to catch a whiff of his expensive cologne, and knew that this little fish would bite anything he put on the hook.

There’s a clink of glass against glass. My eyes swivel in their sockets. With a massive struggle, I move my head the inch it needs so I can focus entirely on the chessboard.

“I’ll start,” Wayne says.

The fire pops.

He doesn’t flinch. But neither do I.

It’s a stalemate.

The referee crackles and spits on the hearth as we wage our pathetic battle of wills.

“Pawn to E4,” he says, moving his piece. Then, “Pawn to E5,” as he moves mine. There’s a tingle in my hand as if I’m trying to reach through my paralyzed body to make my own move.

He whistles through his teeth. “Clever girl.”

Clink.

Clink.

My toes start tingling too.

I’m regaining sensation.

Whatever he drugged me with, it’s wearing off.

“Still not sleeping, Candace?”

I glance across the beige carpet and lock eyes with Winona. We’re in her study—a room that wouldn’t have been so cramped if she hadn’t filled every wall with framed pictures of the various rejects and delinquents that roam these figurative halls.

It doesn’t help that most of those frames are just ever so slightly askew.

“Nope.”

“Hmm…” Winona ducks her head and makes a note on the creased page of a notebook that looks like she sleeps with it shoved down her panties. “Did you try those breathing exercises I recommended last week?”

“Yeah.”

I tilt my head, but that just makes those pictures that are level seem skew.

“Candace, dear, please can you look at me when we’re talking?”

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