Page 102 of Corrupted Deception

She opened her mouth, but I held up a hand.

“And she wasn’t lying,” I went on accusingly. Because unlike the daughter, the mother had been an open book.

I knock on the door that’s half-rusted off its hinges. I’ve never been to her apartment before, not until today. She’s never let me walk her home, never invited me over.

I can hear sounds coming from inside, a couple of footsteps, then a dull thud. More footsteps.

The door squeaks open and a woman appears on the other side. A woman with dark circles under her eyes and deep creases across her brow and at the corners of her mouth. She’s too thin—gaunt—with cheekbones so defined, they look sharp.

There’s an overwhelming stench of garbage in the air, whether from the woman or the ramshackle house, I’m not sure.

“What do you want?” she asks, wrapping an old, ratty robe more tightly around her. It’s a short-sleeved robe, revealing line after line all the way up her forearms. Track marks.

“My name is Cielo Luciano,” I say, narrowing my eyes, searching for any bit of Charlotte in this woman. Maybe I’ve gotten the wrong address. But no, she’s there in the shape of her face and the sprinkle of freckles across the woman’s nose. “I’m looking for Charlotte,” I say.

“Aren’t we all?” she snaps, but she doesn’t have her daughter’s knack for hiding. The anger is shallow—paper thin.

“She hasn’t been to school the past three days. I was just worried, Signorina Santoro.”

I have a feeling I’m showing this woman more respect than she deserves. But Charlotte’s never missed a day of school before, so I’ll play along to get the information I’m after, to make sure Charlotte’s all right.

The woman’s eyes water, and she looks away, staring at the chipped doorframe. “Yeah, well, we’re all worried. Didn’t stop her from leaving, did it?”

“She left?” I ask as an uncomfortable sensation settles into my chest, heavy and tight at the same time.

The woman nods, making a tear spill over and trickle down her sharp cheekbone. “She hit the road, Jack,” she says in a sad, almost sing-song voice.

I look at the woman. She reeks of sadness, but I don’t pity her, not for the sheen in her eyes or the tear on her cheek, not even for the wobble of her lips as she tries to press them together. This woman is a junkie, a drug addict mother whose daughter probably did more to support her than the other way around.

I take a step back as the realization hits me hard: Charlotte left.

I take one more step back, then turn away. I don’t blame her for running from this garbage heap and the worthless woman inside it. But not one word? Not one god damned word?

Charlotte sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed. “You’re right, I did leave,” she said nonchalantly as she stood up and walked naked to the closet.

Christ.

My cock jerked and started to harden. Maybe I could put the anger on the back burner for another hour.

“I just packed a bag one day and decided to leave everything I’d ever know behind so I could branch out on my own,” she said with her back to me as she threw open the closet door. “Sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing for a teenager to do, doesn’t it?”

For Charlotte? Probably. But I knew better than to answer that question.

“I saw your house, your mother. I get why you would have wanted to leave,” I said, deciding I could be angry and enjoy the view at the same time. Her ass still wore my handprints and her movements were fast and jerky, making her tits bounce enticingly. “But you couldn’t bother sticking around long enough to say goodbye?” I asked, old anger and hurt bleeding into my tone as I sat up, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and threw on my boxers.

She spun around, clothes in her hand, but still standing there stark naked. “I had twenty bucks to my name, Cielo. If I’d waited a day, she would have taken that too, and I would have been stuck. But you’re right. I should never have left,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm as she threw on a black tank top with chains lacing up the sides over bare flesh. “Really, you’ve made me see the error in my ways now. I should have stuck around,” she continued as she slid a tight pair of black pants up her tanned legs. “I should have gotten on board with my own fucking mother pimping me out to her dealers so she could get her next fix. I don’t know why I—”

“Your mother did what?” I asked, my voice quiet, while inside, it felt like a bomb had gone off.

She looked at me. For the first time, I could clearly recognize the hesitation in her expression. Then she scoffed, and it disappeared. “Not everybody grows up with a silver spoon in their mouths, charming. Some people haverealproblems.”

I swallowed, like it could somehow force back the red haze that seemed to have settled in the air, clouding my vision. “Your mother just said you left,” I said, trying to make sense of the fragments left from the bomb’s explosion.

“She was right, I did—the day I woke up to her god damned dealer’s hands on me, naked and climbing on fucking top of me.”

I’d tortured and killed countless men, but I’d never felt anything, not guilt or sorrow, but not enjoyment either.

I looked away because I didn’t want her to see the delight I would have taken in tearing apart the man—the dealer—who’d dared to fucking touch her.

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