The word hits him like a slap.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." I step forward, and he steps back. "You didn't build anything. You dismantled her. Piece by piece. Criticism by criticism. You took a woman who was kind and funny and brilliant and you convinced her she was worthless. That her needs were too much. That her feelings were unreasonable."
"That's not..."
"I've known her for years." I cut him off. "I thought you loved her."
"I do love her."
"No." I shake my head. "You don't love her otherwise you wouldn’t treat her like property."
Callum's hands ball into fists.
"You want to hit me?" I widen my stance. "Go ahead. Give me a reason."
He doesn't move.
Smart. First smart thing he's done all day.
The front door creaks behind me. Footsteps on the porch. Carlos appears on my left. Nacho on my right. Pedro emerges from the side of the house, still wearing scrubs from his shift.
Four brothers. One line. Between Callum and the woman inside.
Callum's eyes dart between us.
"This is insane." His voice goes high. Desperate. "You're choosing her over me?"
"Yes." Carlos's voice is flat. No jokes. No humor.
"Without hesitation." Nacho crosses his arms.
"Should have happened sooner." Pedro's jaw is tight.
Callum looks at me. The friend he used to know. The loyalty he's taken for granted for three decades.
He won't find it.
"She's everything." I let the words settle into the silence. "She's everything, Callum. And you lost her the moment you stopped seeing that."
His face crumples.
For one second I see the boy I grew up with. The kid who shared his lunch when I forgot mine. The teenager who helped me through my first heartbreak. The man who stood beside me at my parents' funeral and didn't say a word because he knew words weren't what I needed.
Then the second passes. And all I see is what he's become.
"You'll regret this." His voice shakes with rage. "All of you. When she gets bored. When she moves on. When she realizes you're just a pit stop on her way to something better. You'll come crawling back."
"No." I hold his gaze. "We won't."
"I'll destroy you." He's backing toward his truck now, pointing, jabbing his finger at each of us. "I'll ruin your business. Your clinic. Your reputation in this town. My family has connections you can't imagine."
"Your family has money." Nacho's voice is ice. "Money doesn't mean much when the sheriff has video footage of you assaulting a woman in a grocery store."
Callum freezes.
"That's right." Nacho pulls out his phone. "Security cameras. Every angle. Your hand on her arm. Her telling you to stop. You refusing. Followed by her extremely satisfying act of self-defense."
