Page 107 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“Or what?” I waited for him to see it, that I was not cowed or intimidated by him for one second. “You’ll take legal action? Drag this through the courts?” Mum started to shift restlessly beside him, always the one to sense the potential for embarrassment first. “Maybe even have the details published in the newspaper for everyone to see?” I nodded slowly, seeing my father put two and two together. “Means nothing to me and mine. If I pay my bills, my suppliers are happy. Real estate agents fall all over themselves for the privilege of selling my houses. They know they’ll make a nice chunk of change in commission and I… I’ll organise a payment plan with the judge.”

“With interest.” Dad snapped.

“Which I won’t like paying much, but I’ll do it. I’ll fucking do it, and…”

A persistent buzz from my phone told me I had a text, then another and another. Them coming in rapid succession had me looking down at my phone.

Then smiling.

I never, ever wanted to see photos of my mother getting dick from two guys again, but when I saw they were coming from Van, I knew what he had done. Found me dirt on my parents and then handed me the weapons I needed for just this moment.

“There’s also the matter of these.”

I held up my phone, and Dad’s eyes narrowed, but while he reached for his reading glasses, Mum gasped.

“Where did you…? How…?” She was up and out of her chair, pacing back and forth.

“What…?”

Dad’s voice faded away, and I felt a vicious kind of satisfaction then, that I’d managed to shut up Mark Woods. His gaze was perfectly flat, making clear he understood that the tables had been turned. I didn’t want to stoop to his level and blackmail him, but fuck… There was no reasoning with my father, ever. Might equalled right in his eyes and if he was the mightier one, he was calling the shots.

“And what do you think you’re going to do with those images?” Dad said coolly. “Sharing sexually explicit images without permission is a form of sexual assault. Young Kenny went to court for just that.”

“And I’m prepared to do the same to protect what’s mine,” I growled. I rose to my feet, slapping my hands down on the table. “Whatever it fucking takes. I’ll pay your loan off more aggressively, pay interest if that’s what you want, but we will formalise whatever agreement we come to in a legal document, and you will not pull this kind of bullshit again.”

“Do it…” Mum’s voice was thin, her hands fluttering. “Do it, Mark! You borrowed enough money from my father to set up your businesses in the past, and Dad had to bail you out more than once.”

“Granddad…” I blinked and stared at my father like he was a complete stranger.

“I was going to talk to him today,” Mum said, shooting me a weak smile, but it faded as soon as she saw my phone. “Ask him to sort this problem out.”

“Jane—” Dad growled.

“Don’t Jane me.” She shook her head sharply. “You tried to play hardball with our son, but Connor learned the same tactics at your knee. You could’ve tried to talk to him, Mark.”

“No, he couldn’t.” I stared at my mother, seeing the woman I always dismissed as weak gain a spine, but how long would it last? “Nobody has a say over what goes on in my relationship but the people that I share my life with.” I shook my head. “And that’s not you two. Have your lawyers talk to mine,” I told Dad. “Because we won’t be discussing this further.”

My mind wouldn’t let me take the victory as I strode out of the house, but I felt lighter. We still needed to pay that debt off, sooner rather than later, though… I smiled then, my face feeling stiff, and as I got into the van and passed all the familiar houses, it got wider. My grin grew and grew, right up until I parked outside our house, only to find all of the other vans were parked out front.

They were here.

Everyone I loved or cared about was under this roof and right now that was all that mattered. I opened the front door, calling out Kendall’s name.

“Kendall, you up? You will not believe the morning I had. I have seen photographic evidence of our parents, yours and mine and Gage’s and Connor’s, all having a gang…”

I found her alright, sitting in the kitchen, along with her family.

Chapter 53

Kendall

It is a truth universally acknowledged, in Australia at least, that men are ridiculously protective of their female family members without actually doing a good job of it. Like they have this whole bro code, established between them and other men, about what is OK to do around another bloke’s mum or sister. A guy will fight one of his friend’s for dissing his mum but then do very little to actually show he loves and respects her as a person. So as I watched Dad puff himself up, I frowned slightly and then shook my head.

And Mum’s expression was a perfect copy of mine.

Gage had arrived home with Mum, Dad, and Finn in tow. I’d hastily pulled a pair of shorts and one of the guys’ shirts on and met them in the kitchen.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

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