Page 538 of Savage Bosses

My body tenses in Ambrose’s arms as his eyes darken and shut down. My heart slams against my chest, and I only want to disappear.

I pull away from Ambrose, peering over his shoulder to see my brother stomping up the driveway as Shayla peers out the window.

“Brayden. What are you doing here?” I ask, stepping off the porch.

“What’s up?” he asks, hands spread out at his sides.

“Brayden—”

“Where’s the trust, dawg? You know how I feel about this.”

“If you can’t trust me, who do you trust?”

“If your ass was trustworthy, you’d have stepped to me correctly, Ro! Sneaking behind my back and seeing my sister ain’t it, chief!”

Ambrose moves from beside me. While I’ve never seen either of them argue, I don’t want them to start now especially about me.

“Bray, stop. I have to tell you something.”

“And you? Was any of that even real? Pretending like you didn’t care for him?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about, Bray. This isn’t new; this thing with Ro and me.”

“What?” Brayden spits, narrowing his eyes.

“I knew you’d behave like this, if not worse. Besides, it wasn’t Ro’s fault. I made him promise not to tell you. He wanted to. I was the one that didn’t want you to know.”

I see the hurt in my brother’s eyes as his face scrunches up in confusion, and he finally looks at me.

“We’re better than that, Bryn!”

“We were, but you make things hard. You feel like you have to cover Dad’s role by making sure whomever I date is good enough for me. I’m grown, Bray, and I make my own decisions. I’ve loved this man for more than a decade. I lost him because he knew I’d never stand up to you for our love.”

“You cheated on your wife with my sister?”

“No! I would never hurt Bryn. Not willingly. We’ve dated since her sophomore year…that shit with Lynds—”

“You’ve been fucking with her for that long and never said anything? You got my sister caught up in—”

“Bray! Stop!” I shriek, unable to take anymore. “Have you heard anything that I said? This isn’t about you but about Ro and me. We were in a relationship that I didn’t want to disclose because I didn’t want him to lose you as a friend.”

“Too late for that,” Brayden says, hopping into his car and slamming the door.

“Brayden!”

“Leave him alone. He’ll come around,” Ambrose says, pulling me into the curve of his arm and rubbing mine.

Tears well in my eyes. “This isn’t how I wanted it to happen.”

“Yeah, well, people have to make their choices and live with them. You may not have wanted him to find out this way, but when we weren’t proactive in telling him, we created this. He’ll get over it and forgive you.”

“What about your friendship?” My voice wobbles.

“I’ll do the best that I can to resolve that. Not for you to worry about,” he says, kissing my forehead. “Like I said, people make decisions and must live with them. We didn’t tell him, and this is our consequence. I chose you, Bryn. Maybe not back then, but I do now, and I’ll always choose you. Whatever consequences come with that, I’m willing to live with them.”

Tears well in my eyes because I don’t know where this leaves my brother and me. I can’t think of a time when he wasn’t close by being my protector and my best friend.

I think about calling my sister, Makenzi, but she’s happily pregnant and living her best life with her husband, Shep, and her adopted son, Caleb. I don’t want to stress her out.

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