Page 170 of A Million To Fall

My heart plummets. Shit. He knows.

“What are you talking about?” I groan, just as his fist buries itself in my stomach.

“I saw the fucking pictures. You lying, back-stabbing son of a bitch!”

Another blow snaps my head to the right, sending blood spattering into the snow. “How long, Boston?” he yells. “Just fucking say it. How long have you been fucking my mom?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” I gasp. “Please just… fuck, Jake, let me explain!”

“There’s nothing to explain. I saw the pictures. You and my mom. In my house. After everything I did for you—”

His knuckles crash into my face, right below my eye.

“How long?”

“Stop, Jake!” I rasp.

Every time I try to move out from under him, he throws another punch.

“She paid me, Jake,” I finally yell, the words ripped from me. They taste worse than the blood.

Jake freezes mid-swing.

His clenched fists hover over me, but he doesn’t move.

For now.

“What do you mean?” he grinds out.

I lower my arms cautiously. My vision is blurred, my left eye already swelling shut.

“She… She propositioned me a few days after you offered me to stay with you,” I choke out. “She offered me five hundred dollars to sleep with her.”

He listens, lips pressed together, nostrils flared.

I don’t bother to look at Archer. I already know he’s enjoying this.

“I didn’t… At first I wasn’t going to do it, Jake,” I say. “It… I knew it was wrong, okay? But then, I got a call from Cassie that night. She told me she and Bronx were getting moved again and… she begged me to come get them.” My voice cracks.

“But I was homeless, man. I had nothing. No place to take them. No way to help.”

His silence is deafening.

“Those five-hundred dollars… that’s a shit ton of money for me, Jake. I just…” I shrug. “Sucked it up and… Fuck, I hated myself for it. The next morning, I decided I’d just go back to where you found me.”

My gaze flicks to Archer. He’s fully alert, hands still in his pockets but clearly listening.

And smirking.

Jake clambers off me.

I sit up, dizzy from his repeated blows, and plant a hand in the snow to brace myself.

“But you didn’t leave,” Jake says, taking a few steps back.

“No,” I say, pushing to my feet slowly. “Your mom… she offered me a thousand dollars a week to be at her beck and call. That kind of money—I didn’t think it through. I needed it to get a place, pay for a lawyer. So—”

“So you did it,” Jake finishes for me, nodding.