Chapter Forty-One Bryden （Mountain）
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
brYDEN (MOUNTAIN)
I hate that she’s hurting. Hate that she had to see, read, and hear those things.
She’s been searching for answers, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together since her mother passed, and I just made it worse.
I want to tell her everything that I found in those clips was just the tip of the iceberg. But she can’t handle that right now.
So I just hold her close, giving her the space she needs to feel.
We’re way past vault status, beyond burying the hard feelings in the depths of my phone’s deleted folder.
This is too big, too heavy to just erase once it’s over.
It’s going to live with them for years to come.
Alex, Kane, Sam, Gracie… even Christina, Jackson, and so many of our other peers.
They’re all unknowingly wrapped up in this.
And given their ages in relation to when some of that footage was taken, it’s looking more and more to me like some breeding cult.
Except Sam, having been born a year after the club shut down.
But what I don’t get the most is if that’s what they were doing, breeding these women, why raise some of the children themselves but not others? Clearly they’ve at the very least still provided for them, considering what we now know about Kane’s monthly payments.
Why do any of this at all?
Sam settles into me, her cries piercing me to the core.
How do you comfort an invisible pain? Sure, I can hold her like I am, kiss her and prove that I’m here, but it won’t stop this from festering.
She’ll move on, seem well for a while, and then something will trigger these memories, and she’ll hurt all over again.
So, no, right now, I won’t tell her about everything else I saw. Instead, I’ll share the one thing that I know will give her hope.
Sam sniffles and dries her eyes. When she pulls away, her face is puffy, eyes now beaming red. Each breath she takes is shallow, as if getting enough oxygen is the hardest thing for her to do. And maybe it is.
“Why would they do something like this?”
“I think we’ll never understand the minds of people who do bad things. And while these women willingly joined that club, there’s enough evidence that proves nonconsent. We can only hope they get their justice, and maybe then the world will be just a little safer.”
“I didn’t expect this.” She shakes her head. “I just wanted to know about my damn scholarship.”
“Look at me,” I demand.
She does and wipes her nose in the process.
“I know today was hard. Seeing that wasn’t easy for any of us. But I found something else that might make you feel better.”
Sam stares at me, confused, but she doesn’t ask me to elaborate.
Picking up the laptop, I open a transaction document.
As the page pulls up, Kane and Alex rejoin us.
Whatever animosity was brewing between them has seemingly faded away.
Good. Because the tension I saw coming from them last night and this morning wasn’t like them.
And I get it, secrets were held in, but they were brothers long before last night.
Sam points her attention to them, her expression twisting into concern.
She tosses the covers from over her legs and stands.
Her eyes are trained on Kane, and I watch the way his body relaxes under her gaze.
Like her presence soothes the turmoil inside of him.
It makes sense given they’ve been bonded since they were kids.
She knows his pain because she’s lived it.
Alex moves out of the way, making room for her to get to Kane.
She throws her arms around his neck, and he wraps his around her waist, pulling her so close they might as well be one.
Neither of them says a thing. They only stay like that, holding each other until Alex speaks, drawing everyone’s attention.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his eyes taking in the items on the screen.
I glance at him, then down to the laptop.
“He said he found something that I needed to see,” Sam interjects as she finally releases her hold on Kane and retakes her seat.
Resting my arm on her thigh, I take in a breath. “While I was digging around, I concentrated on finding out more about Sam’s ‘scholarship,’” I add with air quotes. “Every transaction is labeled with initials and a transmission date. Which we learned last night.” I point to the $200,500 payment.
Sam follows my finger.
“What I found might be the answer to Sam being able to get custody of her brother.”
It’s not something we’ve talked about much.
Family is a touchy subject for Sam, and I get that.
Losing her mom so young, having to watch her struggle through years of abuse, living a life filled with toxicity at the hands of the very person who did the abusing.
From what Sam’s told me, her stepfather wasn’t home when it happened and was visibly broken when they found her.
But he wasn’t innocent, and how could he have been when he’s spent years contributing to breaking her down mentally and physically?
As we got to know each other, she shared her story, her reason for coming to SKU in the first place. And that was for her brother, so that she may one day make enough money to convince a judge to grant her custody. But she’s only nineteen and in no way financially capable.
Today that might change.
“Okay.” The skepticism in her voice is glaring, but she trusts me anyway.
“Kane isn’t the only person receiving monthly payments from the club,” I say matter-of-factly.
Sam watches my every move, her attention fully on the screen as I click out of the document to pull up the folder with a full list of payment transfers.
Kane sits on the arm of the chair directly behind Sam while Alex observes from the center of the room.
When I type her initials into the search bar, her eyes grow as over seventy transactions load.
“This one—” I point. “The fourth one. That’s your scholarship payment.”
“All right. So, what are the other ones?” she quizzes.
I release a breath. “Monthly payments.”
“To who?”
“You.” I pause.
“Me?”
I nod. “And they go back a little over six years, give or take a couple of months.”
Her spine snaps straight, and I see the moment she registers what I’m insinuating.
“When my mom died.” Her voice is merely a whisper, the tremble she had just a bit ago slowly creeping its way back.
Kane rubs her shoulder, kneading it to comfort her.
“Remembering the bits you’ve shared about your mom, I decided to search for her initials. And given that Kane has been receiving payments, first to his mom and then two years ago, it switched to him, figured maybe it was the same for you.”
I type in the initials MC and an entire new list populates.
“So, I searched for your mother. There were nearly a hundred seventy payments wired to Miranda Collins before the same amounts started being transferred to an account in your name.”
Sam’s forehead creases, and she exhales deeply while hanging on every word.
“And there’re so many like this. I check the initials and names on the statements against the different folders and it all matches.”
“So, these women join for money?” Alex asks.
“I don’t think so. There are some of these names without payments. Like your mom. And Gracie’s mom. Even Christina’s.”
“The wives?” Kane interjects.
“So, what, they marry some and not the others?” Sam scratches her head.
“I think it’s deeper than that. I think them and any of the women without payments were girlfriends of some of the members. At least that’s true for Alex’s and Gracie’s moms. Their folders clearly state that they were in relationships with your father and Senator Martinez.”
“So they partied normally with their girlfriends, but did worse things to the girls they drugged?” Sam tilts her head, blowing out a heavy sigh.
I nod.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Your mom and Ms. Kane knew each other from school and this club before you met at Wyndmoor.
And based on the audio and the article you and Gracie found, Ms. Kane clearly had some type of psychiatric break.
What are the odds that two of their members end up in a mental institution? ”
“Whatever they were doing to them triggered something and drove them insane,” she speculates. She shuffles in place, goose bumps pebbling on her legs against my forearm. “They were paying them off. Funding their lives to keep them from talking.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. The payments started when the club closed in 2005.”
“Before we were born,” Kane adds.
“Some received lump sums, others residuals. But they all signed NDAs. Including your mom, Alex. It’s all in the files, every detailed documented from the women joining and who they were assigned to.
The things they did to them. Even personal information, medical history, everything.
They even paid for your moms’ mental health treatments,” I continue.
“So, they just pay these women for emotional damages as if it makes up for what they’ve done? For how long? The rest of their lives?”
“Unless they have children,” Alex deadpans.
“That would it explain the payments switching to me when my mom was readmitted,” Kane says.
“And why your mom’s payments were canceled and moved to an account in your name, Sam.”
“They did god knows what to these women and use this one account to pay them all?” she asks.
“That way no one can ever trace it back to them,” Kane utters.
“And my guess is my father has all of this for leverage,” Alex assumes.
“Or they all have copies. Everyone’s name is in there, right?” Sam stares between us, the question rhetorical. “Why would they give one person that kind of power?”
“Because there isn’t leverage,” I concur.
“This was some sick twisted game for them. They control everything. The women have been paid. Most probably want to forget what happened,” Sam says, sitting with the weight of that.
“If they remember,” Kane deadpans. “When I showed my mother that picture, she kept saying, ‘They can’t know we remember.’”
“And I bet your mothers aren’t the only women who’ve suffered some mental struggles after that.” Alex rakes a hand over his head.
“This is so fucked,” Sam groans out. “Those poor women.”
“You said this would help Sam get custody of her brother?” Kane asks.
“Yeah. She needs money, and according to this, she has it. Probably a lot of it at this point.”
“And you didn’t know about that?” Alex directs his question to Sam.
“You think I would have continued living with my asshole of a stepfather if I had?”
“Then he’s getting the payments and just never told you,” Alex assumes.
“No. This says that they have been sending upwards of ten thousand dollars a month to me. If Gary was getting those checks, I would have noticed. No one can have access to that type of money and show no signs.”
“True.”
“So then where is the money? “Alex crosses one hand over his chest, the other out at his side. “If he doesn’t have it, where is it?”
“I don’t know. But if we can at least find a name of the bank in the files, maybe we can get her access to it,” I suggest.
“I’ll have the means to get custody of Desmond.”
I rub her leg, kneading her knee as I watch tears pool in her eyes.
“What are we going to do?” Kane asks.
The three of us look at Alex. These files were found on his father’s—their father’s—computer, and while this incriminates so many others, this is about the chancellor. If anyone should make the decision, it should be Alex.
“We report it. Give them what we found. They don’t deserve to get off freely while the women they harmed still suffer the consequences.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “So, we go to the police. Today.”