“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’sspent 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.
