My blood goes still. He doesn’t look at me. Just peels the label from the beer bottle like he’s skinning something alive.
“Benedict Harrow,” he drawls, like it leaves a bad taste. “Turns out he’s not back for the gigs. Or the bar. Or you.”
His grin cuts toward me, teeth bared. “The bastard’s such a fucking lowlife he let his own family file him missing. Drugs, most likely. Rotting in a gutter somewhere.” He leans in, voice dropping, almost delighted. “But no. He’s here because Mommy’s dying.”
Something twists hard inside me, jagged and mean.
Jacob’s laugh scrapes the air, hollow as a grave. “Sad story, isn’t it? Cancer. The slow kind. Sucks to be her.”
“Jacob—” My voice catches, thin as a thread.
It’s too quiet. Too soft. He lifts the bottle in a mock toast. “To family, huh?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Didn’t say it was.” He shrugs. “But it is convenient. Means he’ll be crawling back to whatever gutter he came from soon enough. I mean, it’s for the best. He leaves without breathing a word to you again. Otherwise, he might meet the Lord Almighty before his mother does.” His eyes gleam. “That shit hole trailer behind the bar. It’s temporary. Like him.”
“Stop.”
It’s not a scream. It just slips out—brittle and cutting.
Jacob freezes. Not with shock. Not with rage. Withfocus.His whole-body stills. The bottle pauses halfway to his mouth. The silence that follows is suffocating.
Then he sets the bottle down. My stomach twists.
Wrong. You did it wrong.
He stands. Not fast. Steady and unhurried. The air in the roomcontractsaround him. And when he speaks, his voice is quiet. Almost curious.
“Say it again.”
I shake my head and step back. He follows.
One step.
Two.
His eyes are ice. The calm before the storm.
“You speaking up for him now, huh? Say it again.”
My lips tremble. Nothing comes.
He lowers his gaze to the floor—spots a sliver of glass. A flick of his boot sends it skittering. His stare snaps back to me.
“I gave you this house,” he hisses. “A roof. A bed.” A low, brutal chuckle. “What’s he given you? A promise of an escape to his shit hole trailer?”
He’s at my side now, so close I taste my fear on his breath.
“How do you—” I whisper.
“Do you think I’m stupid, Summer?” He speaks slowly, a beat between each word. “You think I don’t know what’s going through that fucking head of yours?”
“Have I left with him?” My voice cracks, as I shrug my shoulder. “No, I’m still here. He just—he showed up. I didn’t ask him?—”
A harsh laugh. “You didn’t ask him? Yet you let him stand on my porch and put his fucking hands on you!”
His hand darts out but he doesn’t strike. It seizes my chin. He tips my face up.
