"This is different." Pedro sets his mug down with enough force to slosh coffee onto the table. He doesn't seem to notice the mess spreading toward the phone. "This isn't him picking the restaurant without asking or choosing the movie without checking what anyone else wants to watch. This is him deciding that a woman who ran from her own wedding is going to marry him anyway." He pauses, searching for the right word. His doctor brain working overtime. "That's not confidence. That's not even delusion. That's pathology."
"It's control," Nacho says, standing up. His chair scrapes against the hardwood floor with a sound that sets my teeth on edge. He moves to the window overlooking the backyard, hands clasped behind his back in that military straight posture he defaults to when he's thinking. "I've seen it a hundred times in my work. Abusers who convince themselves their partners are just confused. That if they push hard enough, apply enough pressure, the resistance will eventually break."
The word hangs in the air between us.
Abuser.
I stop pacing again and lean against the counter, gripping the edge hard enough that my knuckles go white.
I think about Callum. Golden boy Callum with his easy smile and his designer clothes and his family money that solved every problem before it became a problem. The guy who taught me to throw a football in his parents' backyard when we were nine. Who stood next to me at high school graduation with that cocky grin, certain the world was going to hand him everything he wanted.
Who was my best friend for years.
Three days ago, I saw Jessica outside the pharmacy. She looked haunted. Exhausted. Jumped when I called her name, then ran like I was the threat instead of the man she used to laugh with.
During those final months before she left town, I watched her change. Her laugh got quieter. She stopped telling jokes at dinner. Stopped laughing at my carpentry puns, which hurt more than I want to admit because I made those jokes for her.
"Okay, but can we acknowledge something?" I break the tension. "We're four grown men sitting in a Victorian house at midnight, drinking whiskey and having feelings about a woman's laugh. If anyone walked in right now, we'd look like the world's saddest book club."
Sergio snorts despite himself. "We don't have a book."
"We have Jessica's whole situation. That's basically a psychological thriller." I gesture with my glass. "Chapter One: The Great Wedding Escape. Chapter Two: Four Idiots Realize They're In Love. Chapter Three: We Maybe Sort of Stalk Her For Her Own Good."
"That's not what we're doing," Sergio says.
"Isn't it though?" I grin.
"We're literally planning how to not scare her away. That's the plot of every romantic comedy where the guy has to win backthe girl. Except we're four guys. So it's like a romantic comedy meets a math problem." Nacho's lips twitch. "A math problem."
"How do four alphas court one omega without overwhelming her?"
I tip my glass toward the ceiling. "And Carlos had to kiss her first and ruin everything."
"You're ridiculous," Pedro mutters, but there's warmth in his voice.
"I'm self-aware. Which is different." I stand up.
"Now, who wants more of Sergio's depression whiskey before we all go to our separate rooms to pine dramatically?"
Then yesterday, in her flooded bedroom, when I kissed her? She melted into me like she'd been waiting her whole life for someone to hold her without demanding something in return. Grabbed my shirt with both hands. Whispered "don't stop" like it was the first time she'd given herself permission to want something.
That's when I knew. Callum didn't just control her—he broke her. Made her forget she was allowed to want. To laugh. To take up space.
"Son of a bitch." The words scrape out of me.
Sergio looks up from the phone. "What?"
"We knew." I start pacing again, can't stop moving. Three steps to the fridge. Turn. Three steps back. My hands are clenching and unclenching at my sides. "We all knew something was wrong with him. With them. For years." I stop and face my brothers. "We knew, and we didn't do a damn thing about it."
"We didn't have proof," Pedro says, but his voice carries a defensive edge that tells me he knows I'm right.
"Of what? Being a controlling asshole?" I'm pacing again, can't help it. The movement helps me think. Helps me not punch something. "We had plenty of proof of that. Remember the Fourth of July barbecue three summers ago? She made somejoke about his music career, something about how his one hit was technically a fluke, and he spent the rest of the night giving her the silent treatment."
I'm walking faster now, my boots loud against the floor. Sergio winces at the mud trail I'm leaving.
"Wouldn't look at her.Made her apologize in front of everyone before he'd acknowledge she existed." The memory makes my hands curl into fists. "And we all just stood there. Eating hot dogs. Drinking beer. Pretending it was normal."
"I remember," Nacho says without turning from the window. His reflection in the glass looks grim. "I also remember the party at when he criticized her dress in front of thirty people.'"
