My nerves start to get the best of me when they show up.
Seriously, I haven’t been nervous about anything since I lost my virginity. God, why am I such a damn chicken right now? Jagger isn’t going to let anything happen to me, and once Mad and Beck find out what happened, they will go on the warpath, too. When they get together, I am sometimes seriously scared of what they might do.
“So spit it the fuck out,” Maddox finally says, taking a long pull from his beer.
I twist my fingers in the bottom of my shirt as I wait for Jagger to say something, anything. The longer he waits, the more likely one of them will call Ridge to tell him they found Jagger and me together in his apartment.
With the way Ridge has been acting, I’m afraid of what might happen. Not that Jagger couldn’t handle himself if it came down to blows, but I hope it doesn’t.
“Last night, Ridge called me to tell me someone was trying to get in touch with me. He passed the number along. Before we hung up, he asked me to check in with Bresin because she wasn’t answering his calls or texts. When I asked her about it, she told me something happened with Ridge a week ago.”
All eyes turn to me. I sure as hell am glad he thought to leave out the information about us fucking. As I look down at my hands, a hand grabs my chin.
“What happened, Bres?” Beckett asks in the softest voice I’ve ever heard him use.
My eyes move to Jagger, who nods. I close my eyes for a second and take a deep breath.
“A week ago, we had our usual family dinner. Ridge had been acting strange all night, getting pissy with everyone for no damn reason, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell his problem was. I tried to stay away from him for most of the night, but before I left, I changed my clothes because I was going out to a party with Ireland.”
I take another deep breath and look at Jagger. He makes me feel stronger, even though I am anything but strong right now. “He caught me before I could leave and pushed me up against the wall because he didn’t like what I was wearing. His hand went to my throat and he started to choke me. I begged him to let me go, but he wouldn’t. No matter what I did, he wouldn’t stop.” A tear falls down my cheek. “He called me a slut, saying I was just like the girls the four of you fuck at parties. That I was just asking for it and he wouldn’t be surprised if someone raped me. That I deserved it.” A sob falls from my lips, then I feel myself being pulled into a body.
Jagger’s cologne envelopes me as I cry against his neck. “I’m going to calm her down, then we can talk about it.” He picks me up and carries me toward his room.
When he sets me on his bed, I cling to him. I didn’t tell him everything that happened. Now that he knows, I don’t know how he can look at me the same. He lay down, pulling me into his arms, soothing me the best he can. His hands run up and down my back slowly, and I can’t help but close my eyes to try and stop the tears.
I hate to cry in front of him because it makes me feel so damn weak, but I can’t help it. “Bresin, I’m not leaving you. The three of us will always protect you, even against your brother. Just breathe, little girl,” he whispers. I nod, but refuse to release him. I’m not ready for him to walk away from me right now.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper brokenly.
He kisses my head before tucking me tighter into his body. “I won’t. I promise.”
Being in his arms gives me exactly what I need. I close my eyes and just hold tight as long as I can.
My teeth hit against my lip ring as I get up, making sure I don’t wake Bresin. I would much rather stay with her all damn night, but the guys and I need to talk. I didn’t know it was that bad. She didn’t tell me the whole story, and now I know why.
Walking into the living room, I see two sets of eyes on me. “I don’t want to hear shit about it,” I state right off the bat.
“We don’t give a shit about that. What we care about is that he crossed the fucking line. Why didn’t she come to us when it first happened?” Beckett growls. “She should have known we would have dealt with him.”
I roll my shoulders. “I don’t fucking know, but now that she has said something, we need to deal with it. There has been something off with him for months. I thought that maybe shit was just getting away from him with work and the stress of dealing with their old man, but him saying that shit to her went too far.”
They both nod as I take a seat on the couch. “You think he’s using again?” Maddox asks.
I hoped like fuck that he wasn’t, but I’m not sure anymore. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with Ridge using. Three years ago, we caught him shooting up heroin. He begged us to keep it from his family, especially Bresin. He didn’t want her to think he was a loser because he couldn’t say no to the temptation.
“We can throw his ass back in rehab, but I don’t know if it will help. I mean, he stayed clean for three years, but whatever caused him to fall off the wagon can knock his ass off again if he isn’t careful,” Beckett says. I nod, trying to figure out what the next step is.
“We need to find out how bad it is.” Maddox runs his hand over his week-old beard. I study both of them for a few seconds before I say what has been weighing on my mind.
“He’ll be pissed when he finds out we know. Maybe he’s trying to test her, but why the fuck would he not just seek her out and find out if she is going to tell? Honestly, I don’t think she would have. You don’t know what I had to do to get her to tell me in the first place.”
Maddox snorts at that, but doesn’t say a word.
“Yeah. I’m sure it was so damn hard to get her to talk to you. Let me guess. You had to take one for the team and fuck her to get her to spill her guts to you,” Beckett says, shaking his head.
“Yeah, fuckhead. We see the two of you together. We aren’t stupid, and I know for sure Ridge knows you and Bresin have fucked before. It might be the reason he asked you to check on her instead of us. He knows how the two of you tiptoe around each other.”
I reach over and punch Mad in the thigh before grabbing my beer from the coffee table. Taking a long pull, I ignore them both.
“So you two going to make this a thing?” Beckett questions, staring right at me.
I shrug because I honestly have no idea. I would love nothing more than to have that girl in my arms every fucking night, but it will rain a whole lot of drama down if we got together. “Ridge is a wild card. I don’t want Bresin getting hurt because he’s pissed. We all know the damage he can do if he blows.” They’re silent. I know they are thinking the same exact thing I am.
“Shit,” they mutter at the same time.
I run my hand over my shoulder and rub the tension out of the muscle. “We need to talk to him, ask him what’s going on. If that doesn’t work, we drag his ass, kicking and screaming, to rehab.” I hate that we have to be the bad guys. It’s how Ridge will see us when we corner him about this shit, and it won’t take more than a few seconds before he blames his sister or me for this.
“It needs to happen,” Maddox says, draining the rest of his beer before getting up and walking into the kitchen to grab three more. He brings them back, setting them in the center of the coffee table and taking his seat again.
“We need to talk about something else,” I mutter, not wanting to talk about the new information I got today. The anger still rages through me every time I think about the lies my family has told. I don’t understand why it mattered that I wasn’t Mary’s son.
Grabbing my phone, I pull up the damn picture I had Bresin send me again and hand it over to them. They stare at the screen, their mouths wide open.
“Who the fuck is that, and why does he look so much like you?” Beckett passes the phone to Maddox.
“Seriously, he looks just like your damn twin.”
“Well, minus the tattoos and that damn piercing.” Beckett laughs.
I flip him off and run my hand over the lip print on my neck. Whenever I need a way to center myself, I rub my hand over her lips. It’s almost like she’s there, calming me.
“How the hell did you even find him?” Mad asks, handing my phone back.
“He showed up in Bresin’s class today. She actually texted and asked me when I found a pill to look younger. When I asked what the fuck she was talking about, she sent me that photo. So I showed up and waited for her class to let out so I could find out who the fuck he was.” They both stare at me like I’ve lost my mind. I feel like I have. “His name is Dax Matthew Bishop. Apparently, he is my younger brother. We share the same mother and father.” I snarl out the word because I hate that son of a bitch right now.
They both look like they’re trying to put the pieces together. “You mean, your parents gave a kid up?” One of them asks. I’m not even sure which one. I’m so pissed, all I hear are the words, not the voice.
“No. Mary Bishop isn’t my mother. She’s just the bitch who married my father to make us look like a damn family in front of the board of his father’s company.” I take a deep breath. “My mother’s name is Josephine Mac. She gave birth to another son six months after she left me with my father. She kept Dax a secret all this time.”