Chapter 117 Drunken actions
Ryder's POV
"When did it turn into more than talking?"
"About two hours in. She was crying about how she couldn't remember the last time Snake had touched her, and I made the mistake of putting my hand on her shoulder." Diesel's voice dropped. "She looked up at me then for the first time, and I saw the exact moment she realized who I was."
"What did she do?"
"She froze. She just stared at me like she couldn't believe what was happening. And I thought that was it, thought she'd tell me to fuck off and go cry in the bathroom or something." He shook his head. "But she didn't. She just kept staring at me, and then she said, 'Diesel?' And I said yeah. And she said, 'I don't want to be alone tonight.'"
Fuck. I could see where this was going and it was worse than I thought.
"She kissed me first," Diesel continued. "Grabbed my face and kissed me right there at the bar like she'd been thinking about it for hours. And I was drunk enough and stupid enough to kiss her back instead of pushing her away and telling her this was a terrible fucking idea."
"How long before you ended up in the bathroom?"
"Maybe five minutes. We couldn't keep our hands off each other after that first kiss. She pulled me off the barstool, practically dragged me toward the bathrooms, and I followed like an idiot because all I could think about was how good her mouth tasted and how long it had been since anyone had looked at me the way she was looking at me."
I didn't want to hear the rest but I needed to understand the full scope of what we were dealing with. "What happened in the bathroom?"
"What the fuck do you think happened?" Diesel's voice was harsh. "We went into a stall and she pushed me against the wall and started undoing my belt. I tried to stop her and I tried to say that it was a bad idea, but she wasn't listening. She was crying and kissing me and telling me she just needed to feel something other than empty for once."
"So you fucked her."
"Yeah. I fucked her." He said it like a confession. "Right there against the stall wall with our clothes half off and people in the other stalls probably hearing every goddamn thing. It was desperate and messy and we were both drunk enough that we didn't care about anything except making the loneliness go away for a few minutes."
"And Mark filmed the whole thing."
"Just enough to be damning." Diesel pulled out his phone and showed me the video again. "You can see us going into the stall, see us fucking through the gap at the bottom, and hear Lisa moaning."
I watched the video again, seeing just how messy the whole thing was. There was clear evidence of Diesel and Snake's wife having sex in a public bathroom. There was no way to argue it was someone else or that the footage was doctored.
"When did you realize you'd been recorded?"
"Not until three days later when Mark sent me the video with a message saying he wanted two grand or Snake would get to watch his wife getting fucked by his brother." Diesel's hands were clenching and unclenching. "That's when I realized how completely fucked I was."
"What did Lisa say when she found out?"
"She had a full breakdown. She started calling me constantly, panicking about what Snake would do if he saw the video. She's been begging me to fix it, to make it go away, to do whatever it took to keep her husband from finding out." He shoved his phone back in his pocket. "She's terrified, Ryder. Genuinely terrified of what Snake will do to both of us."
"She should be. Snake finding out about this would be a bloodbath."
"That's why we have to kill Mark." Diesel looked at me with desperate eyes. "It's the only way to keep everyone alive. Me, Lisa, and anyone else who might get caught in the crossfire when Snake inevitably loses his mind."
I stared at my friend and saw the truth of it. There was no good solution here. Every option led to someone getting hurt or killed. The only question was whether we controlled who died or let fate decide for us.
"Fuck," I said, knowing I was about to agree to something I could never take back. "Alright. Tell me the plan.”