How to open doors

Full disclosure is a bi-ach. It's hard when you have to weigh what you are willing to share and what you actually have to. And this is the latter.
I have two children who make up elaborate stories that go down avenues, alleys, paths, boulevards, thoroughfares, you name it, their tales make their way through every possible twist and turn of intrigue always to end up at the same place; a big stupid transparent lie. Luckily for me, they are so bad at it, I can catch them pretty quickly. But this last experience brings in a new format and that is Jake lying to his brothers in order to subvert dealing with me or Eamon.
This comes on top of him having just asked Gus to take the ACT for him.
Yes, that's right Jake is willing to sacrifice his brother's academic and perhaps entire future so he can appear to do well on a college entrance exam. The wrongness of that had me speechless; but not for long. Then, after my parents visit, I found out he had asked Jack for the money that his grandparents had given him. Jack had it in his pocket for about 20 minutes before he handed it over to his brother who professed he needed it for a car repair.
In Jack's case, it's lying about school stuff, homework and or detentions. For me, the trouble there is that I feel an openness with Jack a camaraderie and that gets hindered when he makes stuff up. The end result of all of this, the fallout; That would be my husband and I cowering in our room last night watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, as if our lives depended on it.