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She glances at me almost resentfully, as if I betrayed her somehow by bringing in someone who can stand up to her better than I can.
My throat goes tight, and I have to work to hold her gaze and not look away.
I hate that she’s always using me. That even now, she’s blaming me for shit that she instigated. I hate that she lied right to my face, telling me some sob story about losing all the money gambling, just so I’d go away and she could keep the rest.
Malice steps back, looking satisfied. He folds his arms and lifts his chin, pinning my mom with a hard stare.
“Go get it,” he says, leaving no room to argue. “Allof it, everything that’s left. And give it back to her.”
Mom doesn’t even try to argue. She goes upstairs and then comes back down a few minutes later with a bank bag. With a sullen look, she thrusts it out toward Malice, but he shakes his head.
“Did I tell you to give it to me? Give it to her,” he repeats, nodding at me.
My mother’s lip curls, and she all but throws the small envelope-shaped bag at me. I take it, curling my fingers around it tightly.
“Is that all of it?” Malice demands.
“Yes,” Mom spits back. “Or do you want to go searching through my underwear drawer to make sure?”
He basically ignores that comment, leaning down so he’s right in her face again.
“Don’t you ever pull shit like this again,” he says. “If you touch so much as a single fucking dime of Willow’s money, you’ll pay for it. I don’t do second chances.”
Before my mother can splutter a reply, he grabs my arm and drags me back out to his car.
I get inside and buckle myself in, feeling like I’m in a daze. I’m just… stunned, and I don’t know what to say. The whole thing happened so fast, and this is one of the first times in recent memory that my mom has had any real consequences for something that she did.
I’ve stood up to her before, but she always finds some way to flip things around and avoid taking responsibility.
It’s weird, but I’m grateful to Malice in a way, and it changes how I look at him a little.
“Has your mom done shit like that before?” Malice asks.
The sudden question almost makes me jump, his deep voice breaking the silence in the car. I glance at him, and his eyes are still focused on the road, the steering wheel gripped tightly.
Part of me almost wants to laugh as I consider my answer. The list of crappy things my mom has done is long. From lying to me and stealing from me to letting a john grope me for a little extra money. I take a deep breath before the tide of awful memories can take hold.
“Yes,” I answer. “She’s… it’s hard. She’s not my real mom—not by blood, I mean. She adopted me when I wasn’t even two years old, when I had no one else. She gave me a home, and I’ll always be grateful for that. But it hasn’t always been easy.”
My stomach twists as I speak, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment at admitting so much personal shit to this man I barely know. Now that Malice knows she stole from me, part of me worries he’s going to see me as weak for the way my mom has used me.
So what if he does? Why should it matter what he thinks?
I don’t have an answer for that, but the thought keeps pricking at me.
Glancing down at my lap, I drag my fingers over the fabric of my jeans. “I guess you’re probably wondering why I put up with it,” I whisper. “Why I haven’t cut her out of my life yet.”
Malice shakes his head. “Nah. That part, I get. Sometimes the people you love turn your love against you, and it’s the most brutal weapon in the world.”
I look over at him as we pass through an intersection, surprised at his words. They’re revealing, and they show a side of him I haven’t seen before.
But he’s right. That’s exactly what it feels like.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “It is.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then he glances over at me. “Have you eaten today?”
“What?”
