Page 15 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

The kind of love that, even after nights at a convenience store, days at a dollar store, made her find time to pore over my homework with me and not get frustrated when my brain balked at math. The kind of love that, when I cried about a dress I saw in a magazine that I could never afford, had her spend secret months and months in the slow times at work sewing that very dress for me—so that for prom, even though I had no friends and no valid reason to be there, I had the most gorgeous dress.

“How old are you now?” my mom’s chanting now, giggling like a girl, clapping her hands.

I join along. “How old are you now?”

But then Damon yells, “Can you keep it the fuck down in there?!” and the spell is broken, and I remember everything I’ve been trying to forget.

Mom smiles valiantly, though neither of us buys it. “I think his team is losing,” she whispers conspiratorially. She wiggles her eyebrows then gestures to the cake. “Well, what are you waiting for? Make a wish!”

I stare at the flickering candles. All the noise—pickups screeching past outside, babies wailing, someone yelling at someone else, Damon cursing at the screen—all of it fades away.

Leaving only the question:what do I really want?

The answer comes, immediate and impossible:I want a new life. And because I’ve had enough birthdays and unanswered wishes to know that wishes don’t come true, because it doesn’t matter anyway, I wish it. I close my eyes and think those words as hard as I can.

I wish for a new life.

Then I blow out all the candles.

“All of them—that’s good luck!” I open my eyes to see Mom winking at me. “Means your wish is on its way now.”

“I’m sure it is, Mom.”

She takes my hand and squeezes it. “You hungry? I know sometimes you like to eat at work—and hey, aren’t you home early?”

“They let me off early.” It isn’t exactly a lie. I’ll tell Mom later. I just don’t want to see my own fear and disappointment and frustration reflected in her eyes right now.

Anyway, she’s already moving over to the cake, still smiling away. “Just my luck. That cake smell has been tormenting me. Here, let me grab the big cake knife so you can do the honors.”

I cut us both generous slices. What the hell, I got fired, it’s my freaking birthday, life is short—pick your excuse. Then we dig in.

The cake is as good as I remember. Pure chocolatey gloriousness, with thick enough icing to put me in a chocolate coma if I eat as much of it as I want to.

Mom makes a happy noise as she puts her fork down. “We’re really lucky.” She nods as she looks at me.

“I guess,” I say. I mean, depending on your definition of ‘lucky,’ a harpooned hippo in Africa is lucky, but I’m not going to say that. Mom really tried here, and she’s got enough on her plate without me being a sarcastic bitch.

“We’ve come a long way,” she continues.

I try not to peer at Mom’s face too closely, to see if she really means it.

“I mean, think,” she insists, “Safe and happy here, both of us with jobs …”

I bob my head, keep my lips clamped shut. Because, even with those facts (one of them no longer true), there’s the whole everything else that stabs a big fat hole in the bubble of her ‘we’re lucky’ theory.

How we’re a flat tire away from dead broke.

How we’re living with a fat, drunken leech whose only redeeming quality is that he doesn’t beat us.

How this apartment complex is the cheapest in the city, populated by welfare mommas who churn out babies like it’s a business, incompetent drug dealers and pimps, pedophiles, criminals, and the odd person who seems nice for like a month but inevitably turns out to be some kind of human-trafficking, alcoholic scumbag.

“Joy?” Mom’s looking at me with concern.

It’s because I’m supposed to tear up, agree with her, hug her. Normally, maybe I’d be able to muster some of that up for her. Not after the day I’ve had today, though.

My smile cracks as my gaze goes to the cake, to Mom. She really tried.

“And your present,” Mom’s saying, “Tomorrow, we’re going shopping! I’m taking you to Guess, and any dress you want—and yes, Joy, I meanany—it’s yours.”

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