The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel Read Free

from my lips of their own accord.
    A cruel smile curved his lips. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
    Something inside me snapped with his words. I wasn’t the same little girl anymore. The same girl who let her heart get broken over a silly crush. I let my lips curl up in the corners. “I could never forget my big brother, Rhett.”
    Something even more sinister covered his face. “Step-brother,” he corrected me. “Clearly we don’t share blood.” He gestured between us, like the very idea was absurd.
    “What are you doing here?” I hissed clenching my hands at my sides.
    “I’ve been looking for you for a good while.”
    “Why?” I couldn’t help the excitement that jumped into my throat. Rhett’s dad had married my mom when I was barely nine years old. He was ten years older than me and was gone to college a lot, only coming home on holidays, but that didn’t keep me from crushing on him. When I was younger he played with me when no one else had time and then when I turned fifteen he came home for the whole summer. It was easily the best three months of my life. Rhett was different than anyone else I’d ever met. He was so kind, so handsome. He made me feel safe. That was the only time since my mother had married Taylor that I spent more than two nights alone in my bed.
    “It’s your mom,” Rhett said quietly. I blinked, coming out of the past.
    My mom? I didn’t think about her much. In fact I pushed her as far out of my mind as I could at every opportunity. But to have someone sitting in front of me, someone who had seen her, who knew how she was doing, it made my heart swell and my eyes feel hot. “What about her?” the words came out as a whisper. What had she been doing these last three years? Was she okay?
    The smirk left Rhett’s face and he brought his hands back into his lap. He looked a little uncertain, as if my reaction had surprised him. “She’s dead.”

THREE

    A bubble of laughter escaped my lips. “No. She’s not. You’re wrong.”
    “She died yesterday,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.
    “No.” I shook my head. “You have the wrong person.” The back of my eyes grew hotter.
    “I don’t, Faye Turner. You know that.”
    She couldn’t be dead. Not my mother. Not the woman I left three years ago in her expensive state-of-the-art kitchen, humming a Journey song while she mixed herself a fruit smoothie.
    A hot tear escaped, trailing down my cheek. Rhett’s hate-filled gaze followed its descent. “What happened to her?”
    “She had leukemia.” He paused. “Cancer.”
    “I know what it is,” I grumbled, more tears following the first one.
    “Okay, Jarrod, let’s go.” The guy in the driver’s seat put the car into gear and started pulling onto the service road.
    “What? No! I’m not going with you.” I pulled at the handle of the car again, trying to get out.
    “Yes, you are.”
    “No, I’m fucking not, Rhett.” All I could think about was getting to the little tent I called home and seeing Shauna. “Let me out of the car.” Tears blurred my vision.
    “Yes, you are, Faye, and you know why?” His tone was lethal making me pause. “Because Jessica wanted you home. That’s all she wanted in the last three fucking years since you ran away. And you’re going to do that. You understand?” He grabbed my chin between two fingers. “You’re going to come home and go to that fucking funeral and then you can come back and sell your body all you want. But you will go that funeral.”
    I stared up into his eyes, so green, so familiar, but different, angry. I’d never seen him like this. Never angry, not with me. Even when he’d broken my heart into a thousand pieces he hadn’t looked at me like this. And just like that, I let all the fight peeter out of me and dissolve into the air around us. “Okay.”
    Rhett released my chin with a shove and scooted away from me. “Good.”

    I sat down on the edge of the bed in my new temporary room. It