Page 90 of Defiant
My mouth was zipped shut, but I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want to win. That this wasn’t what he thought it was, but I knew it’d be pointless. Not right now, not when all he saw was red and hate for me.
Maybe, once he calmed down, I could reason with him, convince him this wasn’t my fault, but…that was probably a pipe dream.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see if I can be added to my dad’s accounts so I can continue to pay my family’s nurse while he’s in jail.” Those words were said to hurt me, and with everything else I’d learned, they did hurt me more.
A family nurse? Why would his family have a nurse? There had to be more to this I wasn’t aware of, more to Archer’s family problems than just his dad stepping out on his mom with someone underaged.
Fuck. I’d really gone and fucked everything up, huh?
Chapter Twenty-Four – Archer
I couldn’t believe it. I honestly could not believe what was happening in my life, not right now. I sat in my car, having just gotten home from visiting my dad in jail. I got him to sign the bank papers, which I now had to take to the bank so I could get added on his accounts and pay the bills and do everything else to keep the house afloat and Mom with her nurse.
But I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Dad had already tried to hire Oliver Fitzpatrick, and Oliver had refused him. No, fucking Oliver Fitzpatrick was going to be the prosecutor in my dad’s case, which meant no matter how much money my dad could throw at a team of lawyers, he’d probably lose. No one beat Oliver.
My hands still gripped the steering wheel, though the car had long been turned off. The sky above was a dark grey, and it was too late to swing by the bank; I’d have to make a trip out tomorrow morning, first thing.
I didn’t want to go inside. I wanted…it didn’t really matter what I wanted anymore, because I never got it.
I’d genuinely thought Jaz was different, I’d thought she was a good person, but she was just as dirty as the rest of them, spilling my family’s secrets like she couldn’t wait to tell the world what the Vegas were hiding.
The sun would set in a few hours, and I felt defeated. So utterly defeated, depressed, and tired.
It was pure irony that I still couldn’t get away from Brittany, even after the truth came out. This was the truth that had kept me to her side, but now…if she was possibly pregnant with my child, I couldn’t just walk away and leave. Such things never turned out well. She’d go after me, find a new way to hurt me.
You’d think, after all this time, after being wound around her finger like a fucking toy, I would’ve hardened myself, created a steel cage around my heart. You’d think I wouldn’t let this hurt me…but I did. It felt like I was breathing in glass, like I could not bear to live another day like this.
But I had to. With Dad in jail, facing charges, I was the only one Mom had. Dad would get out on bail, once they stopped dragging their feet and set it—the police department was using every loophole they could to make sure they had an impregnable case against him before having it set.
Things would never be the same afterward, even if, by some miracle, my dad got out and avoided prison. Getting a fifteen-year-old pregnant, taking her to an abortion clinic and signing all the papers, acting like he was her father when he wasn’t…was illegal in more ways than one.
I hated him. I hated my father for so long, and now that everything was crumbling around me, now that I could do nothing else as I watched my world burn, I knew this was what my dad deserved. He got what was coming to him.
Still, that meant my mom had no one but me. If something happened to me, what would happen to her? Would she be thrown into a nursing home, surrounded by strangers who didn’t really care about her? I couldn’t let that happen.
No, that was why I had to suck it up. I had to stay by Brittany’s side and I had to do what I could to keep this family stable.
I shouldn’t have gone to Midpark, shouldn’t have confronted her. Of course, I didn’t know for a fact it was Jaz’s doing, but who else would’ve tipped off the police? Brittany sure as hell never would’ve; she’d been lording that over my shoulders since last year, since she found out due to the fact the girl my father stuck his dick in was her cousin’s friend.
Yeah, my life was a shitshow of crap, huh?
I couldn’t help myself, though. I wanted to see her, wanted to look into those warm, big, brown eyes and confront her. How the hell could Jaz act so innocent? How could she stand there and give me that pitying look?
I shouldn’t be thinking about her. I shouldn’t ever let her cross my mind. Not now. Not when my life was falling apart before my eyes and I could do nothing to stop it.
Heaving a sigh, I got out of my car, my body feeling stiff. Had to be the stress; I hardly slept last night, so my body felt like I was lugging around a sack of bricks. I headed inside the house, finding my mom’s nurse doing laundry.
She nearly dropped the shirt she was busy folding, rushing to me as she asked, “Any luck?” I knew she loved my mom, she’d been with us for years, but even she had to put food on the table. She wouldn’t stick around once our money ran out.
And with the lawyer fees and the court fees…it just might, if this thing wasn’t over soon. I had the feeling it wouldn’t; I had the terrible, awful feeling it would go on and on.
I nodded. “I’m going to the bank tomorrow.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Good, good. Your mother is upstairs. She’s…very upset your father isn’t here.”
Trying to tell my mom, who sometimes wasn’t in her right mind enough to recognize me, that my no-good father and her no-good husband was in jail for pedophilia and a few other charges was not something I looked forward to.
Hmm. Maybe I didn’t have to tell her the truth. Maybe I could just tell her he was gone, that he’d be gone, for a while. That it would just be my mom and I, and the nurse.
