Page 56 of Ride or Dies

I was tempted to just curl up in the guest room and pretend that the world didn’t exist, but now that I knew the video was out there, I couldn’t stop myself from watching the trainwreck.

True to his word, Tucker had gotten the video off the site he found it on, but in the time it took me to settle in here and get online, people were posting links to other sites and talking about how they’d downloaded it to their personal computers.

I threw up the first time I read that, but after nearly thirty minutes of reading comments, seeing social media posts, and watching as legitimate news sources started to pick up the story, I just felt numb.

Looks like Becca James was right. Hayes really is a whore.

Fat bitch slut.

Anyone wondering if Randall Downs actually cheated or if it was just an excuse for her to fuck those guys?

Don’t blame Downs for cheating on a slut.

How the hell did someone so fat get men like that?

I heard those guys are like her best friend’s brothers. Isn’t that kinda like incest?

Daughter’s a lesbian and sons are fucking the same woman. What the hell kind of mother do they have?

The ones that attacked Sue were the worst, but I flinched every time they said anything bad about any of the Bradshaws. Yeah, I was angry at the guys, but they didn’t deserve this. None of them did. They’d taken me in when my mom had a revolving door of men and no food in the house.

My phone buzzed, making me jump. On my way here, I’d set it to Do Not Disturb, with only a handful of numbers allowed through. The text was from Jenna.

I’m here and the cops just cleared the street. Let me in before the vultures come back.

The moment I opened the door and Jenna wrapped her arms around me, I finally burst into tears. Somehow, she managed to close and lock the door without letting go of me, and then she led me over to the couch and just sat there with me as I cried. I hated crying, but everything that’d happened over the last few days was too much to keep bottled up when I finally had someone here who wouldn’t judge me for any of this.

That didn’t, however, mean that we weren’t going to need to talk about it, so as the tears slowed and I gathered my composure, I braced myself for a conversation I never thought I’d be having with my best friend.

“I have a seating chart for us to work on,” Jenna announced as I pulled back, wiping at my face. “Go wash your face, pour us a glass of this wine I brought with me, and then we’ll get started.”

A surge of love went through me. I didn’t deserve to have this woman in my life.

“I’m happy to help,” I said. “But there is one wedding thing we need to talk about first. It’s okay if you don’t want me to sing or even be in the wedding. I won’t take it personally.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Jenna said, rolling her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I want you involved?”

“You saw—”

She held up a hand and I stopped. “I saw more than I ever wanted to see of my brothers, and that’s probably scarred me for life, but absolutely nothing in that video or in what people are saying would make me want to kick my best friend out of my wedding.”

“I just don’t want to ruin you and Isabel’s big day.”

“Isabel’s with me on this,” Jenna assured me. “We’d already planned on keeping it fairly small, and if anyone has a problem with you or my brothers, they’ll just save Isabel and me the trouble of having to figure out where to make some cuts.”

“Are you sure?”

She turned toward me and took my hands in hers. “There are only two things about this situation that I’m pissed about. One is that my brothers clearly did a shit job of protecting you, and I’ve already given them an earful about that. The other is that you didn’t tell me what was going on with the four of you.” She nodded toward the wine. “So we’ll include that in what we talk about once you pour the wine. I’m gonna need alcohol to have that conversation.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Mason

We found only one camera, which should have been a good thing—but the fact that there was a camera in our president’s bedroom in our fucking clubhouse meant that there were no good things until we found out who did it and why, and took care of them and any video they had.

After Evie left and Levi sent Sweeper to guard her house, my brothers and I went to Levi’s office to decide our next steps.

“Do we do this as a group, or one-on-one?” I asked, looking to Levi even though I knew he’d include Tucker and me in the decision.

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