Wicked Liar by Faith Summers

Chapter Thirty-Six

Candace

“Please don’t tell them I’m a whore… I’m not.”My mother’s pleas echo through my mind loud and clear as I stare through the window at the inky black sky. The stars splash against the smooth black velvet like sparkling diamonds.

I’m sitting on the floor by the window with my head and back up against the wall. Dominic’s asleep in bed, undoubtedly drained from not knowing what to do with me. I woke up a little while ago and came here. I wanted to sit on the floor. Even though I can’t seem to pull myself together, there’s something soothing about it.

The sky tonight is the same as it was that night when the truth hit me and I found out what was going on in my home.

I was thirteen years old. At the time things had been bad for about eight months and Papa started working away.

It was while my father was away that Uncle Lucas would show his true colors. That sick bastard took advantage of his brother’s wife and child every chance he got. I never knew anybody could be so evil.

Horrific images fill my mind as I look at the darkness, and I see my mother as clearly as if she were sitting before me. Naked and beaten.

I wasn’t supposed to see any of that. I wasn’t supposed to know.

Mom told me to be in bed by eight and I wasn't to come out of my room no matter what I heard.

That night, as I heard her screams, I snuck out of my room and went into the basement. Under the floorboards of her room was a passage with a little door on the wall. The cracks in the wood allowed me to see everything that took place in her bedroom. That's when I saw them all in bed. Her with Uncle Lucas and that man, Tobias.

It was him. That was the first time I saw him and knew the truth behind her cries. They beat her so badly she could barely walk. She wasn't even able to put on that act that all was well.

Frightened to alert them to my presence, I had to watch it all happen. When they left, I only came out of my hiding place because I saw how badly they hurt Mom. I helped her, and she told me what was happening. She told me why she was doing what I saw her doing. All for Papa. They could only get away with it because at the time he was away for months.

Hours later, someone knocked on our door. It was the D'Agostino boys. They'd come by to walk me to school. I never even realized what time it was.

Please don’t tell them I’m a whore… I’m not…

That's what she said to me then, pleading with me not to tell them.

I never thought she was a whore. All that time I heard her and the voices of strange men in our home I never once thought of her as such. When she told me she wasn’t my heart broke for her.

A few weeks later, after enduring nights of listening to her suffer, I heard her scream out again and knew she was being beaten. There was no way I could just lay there and not do anything. So I disobeyed her one last time and that time I didn't go into the basement and hide. I was determined to save her. I ran into her room while Uncle Lucas was on top of her and stabbed him with the kitchen knife.

I got him in his side but the wound wasn't deep enough. He grabbed me and taught me a lesson neither my mom nor I would forget when he beat me and raped me.

Rape...it's the first time I've thought of that word in so long and now that I have it feels like poison in my brain.

Papa didn't know what was happening to us until that week he and Mom were killed, and he only knew what was happening to her. Not me.

He came back from his work and I don't know what Mom told him, or what made her tell him but it caused an argument like none other.

As I watched them die before me, I wished I'd said something or gone for help. Mom and I lived like that for close to two years. Maybe things would have been different, and I’d still have my parents with me now if i'd cried out for help even once. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but… Uncle Lucas threatened to kill me and my mother if I did. Then he used my fear to his advantage.

I wasn’t a whore either. Not at thirteen. Not at fourteen and not at fifteen.

I wasn't one either when I stood on that stage to auction myself to Jacques.

Now I'm here, struggling to come back to the light, but this hole in my heart forbids me.

Too much is happening. I started out wanting to find out who Richard Fenmoir is, and now I have the name of my parent's killer. Tobias Navarro.

Dominic is looking for Uncle Lucas and he's the kind of man who won't stop until he finds what he's looking for. That's great, except for the fact that all the secrets are being dug up along the way.

It's getting to the point where I'm losing the strength to keep up the lie and the will to keep certain things buried.

When my parents were killed, I explained everything I could in a way that would help those looking to search, but also hide the secrets. I never told anybody that I saw Tobias with Mom and Uncle Lucas in bed, and I never told anyone that it was Uncle Lucas who got the job for Papa.

Those were things I kept in the dark because I knew it would draw attention to me, and what was happening to me.

What's going to happen next?

Warm hands smooth over my shoulders, and I look up to see Dominic. I was so lost in thought I never heard him.

"Doll, come back to bed," he mutters and I stand.

I don't think I'll be able to go back to sleep, but I'll lie in the bed so he doesn't have to worry about me.

We lie next to each other and as he takes me into his arms, I wonder if he ever guessed what was going on with me. There were times when I would look at him, and I hoped that maybe he would know.

Then I realized he never noticed me. So how would he see what I needed him to see?

I was the immature thirteen-year-old, and he was the badass fifteen-year-old boy all the girls wanted to get with. It was always the same so only God knows how it is I ended up here in his bed. Only God in heaven must know what stars had to align to make this man look in my direction and knew I existed on the same planet he lives on.

There was always someone better than me. Someone prettier than me, someone who didn't serve his family.

Helen wasn't joking when she said women put the D'Agostino brothers on their wishlist. I was well versed in that, and it was my misfortune to fall for one.

Morning dawns and sleep never came.

Dominic gets up and insists on cooking for me. He tries to joke, but it doesn't work. At least I'm not crying anymore, though.

He stays with me all morning, then a call comes through that takes him away and Cory is tasked with watching me.

After lunch, Isabella and Emelia come by to see me with their babies, and I think seeing them is what set me off again on that wild train of thought.

I love them both, and the kids too. I consider them to be my closest friends, but I think maybe deep down a part of me resents that their men did so much to be with them. I watched Massimo and Tristan both fall viciously in love with their wives. I was there for all of it. There at their weddings. There at their children's birth, and still here watching them love their wives every day.

Yet, I had to suffer so much just to get attention from Dominic. Me, the Stormy Creek rat.

Isabella and Emelia don't stay for long, which I'm happy about, but I feel even more shitty than ever when they leave.

When the worries start filling my head again I find myself heading into the living room to the cabinet where Dominic keeps his best drinks.

I’m not a drinker, in fact I tend to steer clear of liquor because I’m such a lightweight. When the memories hit though sometimes a glass or two of something strong helps me forget.

I open the glass doors and reach for the scotch first. Of course, a man like Dominic has all the good stuff.

Pouring myself a glass of the dark amber liquid, I knock it back in one go. It burns my throat and I cough trying to clear it. I swallow past the burning sensation and savor the light buzz that fills my mind. It’s working, I can feel it already giving me that mindless mellow merry sensation people crave when they drink.

I close my eyes and allow myself to feel it, relish it. When I open my eyes again I prepare another glass. That one knocks the memories from my mind when it starts to take effect. I have to think hard to remember why I was upset.

I pour another glass and drink and another until I find myself drinking from the bottle unable to remember when I decided to do that.

When Cory comes into the room to check on me he blurs from my vision but I note the concerned expression on his face when he sees the bottle in my hand.

“Candace are you okay there?” he asks.

“Peachy,” I bubble.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have any more of that.”

“I’m fine Cory. Why don’t you just go away? Busy yourself with something else or someone else.”

He raises his brows. “I don’t think the boss would like that very much. Do you want me to call him?”

“No. Why? He doesn’t own me. Nobody does, even if he thinks he does. And, I don’t fucking need a babysitter, so you can fuck off.” I can honestly say I’ve never spoken to him like that before, or anyone. I never would.

He looks taken aback, as he should. “Doll, maybe you really shouldn’t have any more of that stuff. Probably give it a rest.”

“Like I said. Fuck off.”

Ignoring him, I grab a bottle of wine from the cabinet, something that looks more expensive than what Jacques showed off. The name is fancy, something I can’t pronounce right now even if I tried because I can’t really see it, or concentrate.

I don’t spare Cory a second glance when I strut past him and head out to the terrace. I’m pretty sure he’ll send whatever reports he wants to Dominic. I don’t care though.

I take the seat on the balcony and gaze down to the pool so far below me. Popping the wine open, I just drink straight from the bottle again, trying to drown out all the memories.

They’re there in the back of my mind. I drink and I can’t stop them from coming for me. No more than I could stop that bastard, Uncle Lucas.

I’m helpless and a slave to the past.

I guess people are right when they say the mind is a powerful thing. That mindless mellow the drink gave me from earlier fades away and what I see are the things I was trying to escape.

My parents' deaths, and my abuse.

I look down at the pool and wonder what it would feel like to jump from all the way up here.