forward. “Just tell me why. That’s all I want to know. My mom trusted you. She thought you would at least look out for me until I turned eighteen.” My heart broke at that. She thought he was manipulative and figured he might not love me, which was why she reached out to Raff—I could see that now. She wanted his pack to give me a family where she knew Lyle wouldn’t. But she had still trusted Lyle to handle the human part of things. She had always been trusting.
“Candice was always a goody-two-shoes,” he growled, pacing as he thrust his hands into his hair. I considered those words as I thought of my mom. I didn’t know about a good-two-shoes… She always had a really strong moral compass, if he wanted to put it that way. She’d taught me there was never a reason to cheat, even as a child. She hated it when I lied, even a small fib, but I’d always known she was in my corner. “When we were growing up, she was the golden child, hardly ever in trouble. Perfect Candice.” His words were mocking as he rolled his eyes. “My parents adored her, their golden child. Barely had time for me.”
Considering I hadn’t known my grandparents—they had died before I was born—I couldn’t really say one way or the other, so I merely shrugged. “Okay, so you were like most siblings.” I couldn’t see how that had anything to do with this.
He scoffed. “You don’t understand. Siblings are supposed to help each other. But no, not perfect Candice. When she found out I had some debts to people, she gave me a little money at first. That’s what siblings are supposed to do. Parents too. Help a kid out.” His hands were waving now as he ranted. “But what were gifts at first became loans. Then they stopped. They said that they wouldn’t enable me,” he sneered, slamming his hand down onto the hood of his car.
Oh, shit, Zev spat.
Makes sense, Chann growled. Gambling debts.
“So you gambled,” I surmised. “Or are still gambling.”
“It’s not gambling if you win,” he hissed at me, tugging on his collar.
Yeah, but I don’t think he’s winning, Shannon muttered. Careful, Pixie. His emotions are frantic.
“She told our parents it was tough love. That the therapists they kept sending me to were right. If they kept enabling me, I wouldn’t get better. The drinking and gambling wouldn’t go away. So they left me to the people I owed. They beat me, Penelope,” he snarled. “I was in the hospital for a damn month.” I winced at that but nodded along. “Candice came to see me then, asked if I was willing to get help. I told her to fuck off.” Growls sounded in my head, and I ignored them, focusing on the man pacing in front of me as if he’d lost all ability to control himself. “She told me our parents had passed away. Car accident, she said.” He shrugged as if it meant nothing to him. “I think she thought I was behind it.”
“Were you?” I asked. I didn’t have Zev’s power active to tell, but it didn’t seem like he even cared enough for it to matter.
“I wasn’t, I didn’t ask if they were,” he admitted, and I swallowed hard against the nausea rolling in my stomach. “I cried, though, in front of her. She couldn’t tell it was because I was in pain, she just saw her baby brother crying over his parents.”
The fuck is wrong with this guy? Zev growled in horror.
Watch him, Ian cautioned. I don’t like this.
Me either, I agreed, shifting slightly to balance better on my feet, the grass sliding beneath my sneakers.
“I thought I’d finally be able to get ahead. Our parents were wealthy, did you know that? A nice house, retirement accounts, savings accounts, plenty of spending money, useless fucking knickknacks cluttering up their stupid hallways and cabinets.” He grimaced at some memory. “Always shelling out for something or other. Not your mother though. She never knew what to do with money, always squirreling it away for later.” He snorted in disgust, shrugging out of his suit jacket and hurling it against the windshield of his car. “Satisfied to leave me in outdated clothing or old furniture. Never wanting to give up what was mine.” He was panting now as he glared. “It was my money. My share. But she’d had it put in her name. I could use it