Maverick's POV

We stood in silence at the top of the stairs until we heard Jazz's car pull away.

"Who the fuck invited Jazz round?" Trent ground out, looking between us.

"I did!" Mum told us from the bottom of the stairs where she stood watching us.

"Why?" Trent muttered.

"Because, I recognised that Anni was trying to keep the peace and not cause me any more stress last night when she agreed to you showing her round. I thought Jasmine would actually be able to help her, to repair some of the damage you boys have done" she explained and I nodded.

"You're right, we screwed up, but if she keeps avoiding us, how will be be able to make amends" Beau questions.

"I don't think she wants you to" mum replied and we all stared at her.

"What?" Beau finally replied.

"Come downstairs, if we are going to have this conversation, I am going to be comfortable" she laughs sharply at us and walks off.

We scramble to follow her, finding her sat in the sun room waiting for us. "Sit down" she waves her hand at us.

"What's going on?" I ask nervously, the expression on mums face giving nothing away.

"John and I saw the footage of the party, I saw what you did to her" her voice cracked as she looked at us. And I can feel our own guilt at what we did gripping each of us.

"Fuck, mum, we are sorry, we didn't know, we thought..." Beau leapt in with our excuse but she shook her head.

"You set her up, belittled her and encouraged your friends to do the same... she is seventeen years old, living with a father she thought had abandoned her and a new family who made it clear she was not welcome, having been discarded by a mother who had used her to get what she always wanted" she paused looking at us sadly. "And she still protected you, by accepting your excuse, by putting herself in a position she felt would cause the least tension for us all, NOT PUTTING HERSELF FIRST" mums voice had risen to a shout by the end.

"She is the innocent victim in all of this, her mother, other people who abused their power to get what they wanted, our abandoning her because of her mothers lies , then your actions, I don't know how she's stayed so strong" she finally whispers and I watch the tears falling.

I glanced at my brother and could see they all felt like I did, we were dirt.

"How?" I croak out "how can we help her?"

Mum raises her head and looks at us, her gaze hardening "Stay away from her, unless she seeks you out or needs help and make sure everyone knows you lied, everyone at that party will think the worst of her because of you, tell the truth and make the lies you told go away"

She stood up and looked down at us "I also don't want any of those people who came to the party at the house again, no one stepped forward to help her, no-one thought to check you on your behaviour, they just followed and attacked when you told them to, take a look at your lives and the people you surround yourself with, are they really the type of friends you want to around you?" With that she walked out leaving us reeling.

"Fuck" Beau's hands were in his hair and I knew we all felt it. Every accusation mum had levelled at us was true.

"What do we do?" I asked looking between them, seeing Trent lost in thought, I nudged him.

"What? He growled at me.

"What do we do, keep away as mum said..."

"What was with mums comment about people in power taking advantage, I know what they told us about her mother lying but mum called her a victim, do you think something happened?" He muses and I know both Beau and I are watching him now.

Trent had always been the one to ferret out secrets, picking up on comments we didn't always notice. This time though as I think back over mums words I could see what he meant.

"Her mother sounds like a real piece of work, but something obviously spooks her, she froze when you stepped in front of her this morning, her reaction was to instant it's a learned response to danger" Beau mutters and we all share a groan.

"So we keep out of her way" Trent says with a grimace.

"Unless she needs us" I remind him.

Beau snorts, "I can't see her needed help from us, not now Jazz is in guard dog mode, fuck that means Jazz is going to be round here more, her lectures are worse than mums"

"Any ideas how we deal with changing people's minds from what we said" I asked them, knowing that was going to be a challenge, mum was right, most of our so called friends thrived on conflict and were bully's, so were we.

"Well I know at least one person who will say I told you so" Beau scowled "Fucking Jack is going to have a field day with this"

"Come on, if we head over to his, we can start working out a plan" Trent suggested and we all agreed.

I dropped into the back seat, pulling out my phone, checking my social media, to see just how bad a mess we had created and groaned at what I saw, someone had recoded it and shared the video. John and mum were going to go ape.