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JACE
Ihated that fucker more than ever.
After dropping Allie off at Poison’s, where she’d be safe for the night, I pulled into the driveway and cursed myself for ever coming back. I should’ve stayed at Poison’s with Allie to make sure she was all right after what had happened. She had hit her head, yet I had been too blindsided by rage to ask her if she was okay.
But I needed to set things straight with that fucking asshole. He could slap me around all he wanted, but he would never touch Allie ever again. There wasn’t a reason for it. She had done nothing but be nice to the man.
Harlanand Allie’s mom were both in the dining room, eating a late dinner when I arrived.
As if nothing had ever fucking happened, Allie’s mom smiled at me with her perfectly corrected and straight teeth and patted the seat next to her. “Come sit.”
Dad cleared his throat and looked at Allie’s mom. “Sweetheart, I need to talk to Jace alone,” he said to her. He opened his wallet and handed her his credit card. “Why don’t you go out and get yourself something nice?”
Allie’s mother hesitantly grabbed the card, looked between us, and then pushed the card back toward him. “I think I’ll stay. I have some things to clean up around the house. So much work to do. Jace, do you want to—”
“Leave.” Dad didn’t stutter and didn’t even look in her direction.
She scrambled to her feet, pressed her lips together, and grabbed his card. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she said, hurrying to the door before she could witness my father lose complete control and slap me across the face.
“Don’t come home until morning,” Dad said.
Allie’s mother stopped at the door and gulped. She didn’t look back, yet she nodded. “I love you, Harlan,” she said. To me, it sounded like she was trying to calm him down, so he wouldn’t hurt me so badly that I ended up in the hospital.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
Allie’s mom hurried through the hallways to the front door. I stood in the doorway with my heart racing in my chest. I hated being alone with him, would try to find any reason not to be here while he was here. But I couldn’t put this off any longer.
“Don’t ever lay a hand on Allie again,” I said to him through clenched teeth when the front door closed. My voice trembled slightly, and my chest tightened at the memory of terror on Allie’s face after my father had knocked her off her feet.
I should’ve stayed with her. I should’ve fucking made sure she was okay.
Harlan stood to his full height and looked me in the eye, grasping a glass in his hand. “You stole my money, Jace.”
He hurled the glass in my direction, and I didn’t duck in time. It shattered across my cheekbone, the glass centimeters from my eye.
“You fucking stole two million dollars from me.”
I stepped back from him, pulling glass from my face. “On alcohol,” I said, as it was the only thing that came to my mind. I couldn’t let him know that it had gone straight to Poison in exchange for information. “I’m becoming a raging alcoholic, just like my father.”
Lunging forward, Harlan grabbed my collar and slammed me into the wall. I pushed him back, tired of being beaten up over this shit over and over. Why couldn’t I have a normal fucking family for once? Why couldn’t we go back to the way things used to be?
Yet Dad had seen it coming and slammed his fist into me so hard that my head bounced off the wall. I could feel the indent of his wedding ring against my jaw. He hit me again before I could regain my balance.
“Where’d the money go, Jace? Where’d my two million dollars go? Because it surely didn’t go to alcohol. You can’t spend that much in the three weeks I was gone.”
“I spent it on alcohol,” I said as I spit up blood. “And Allie. That’s fucking all.”
He didn’t take that as an answer. “Are you trying to put me in fucking jail? Did you use that money to try to get some kind of evidence?” he asked me. “Try all you fucking want, but you’ll never find anything. What happened to your mother is the past.”
I went to hit him back, but he slammed his fist into my mouth. I stumbled back again, unable to move. Maybe this was how Mom had felt. She was tired of constantly putting up with his bullshit too. I used to hate her for cheating on Dad, but if she lived like this all the time … I didn’t blame her for trying to find love elsewhere.
“You’re shit, Jace.”
Punch.
“You keep this up, and I’ll put you back in jail.”
Punch.
