He doesn’t slow down. His hand comes up to push me aside and I grab his wrist, plant my weight. For a second we’re locked there, his arm in my grip, my back against the frame, everything I just confessed still hanging in the air between us like smoke.
The punch comes fast and desperate. His fist catches me across the jaw—not a trained strike, just a man with nowhere left to put what he’s feeling, who’s decided on a path and won’t be stopped.
My head snaps back. Pain blooms white across my vision. And then my body answers before my brain catches up—not training, just instinct.
We crash into the kitchen island, sending a ceramic bowl spinning off the edge and shattering on the floor. His elbow catches my ribs. My fist connects with his cheek, skin splitting under my knuckles. I drive my shoulder into his sternum and we hit the wall, knocking Marcella’s herb pots from the windowsill. Soil and ceramic scatter across the tile.
“Stop it!” The voice cuts through our struggle like a blade. “Both of you. Enough.”
We freeze. Breathing hard, his shirt twisted in my grip, blood from my split lip on his collar.
Mason is in the kitchen doorway. Callie beside him. Their expressions—identical fury, identical disappointment.
“What the fuck,” Mason says, his voice carrying the quiet edge that reminds me exactly why he survived three years undercover in cartel territory.
Marcella appears behind them with Zoey in her arms, takes one look at the broken pots, the scattered soil, the two of us still locked together, and retreats toward the back of the house.
“Sit down,” Mason says. “Now.”
We separate. Slowly. Chris takes the far end of the counter, leaning against it with his arms crossed. I sink into one of the kitchen chairs. My jaw throbs and my heart pounds.
Callie looks between us. Whatever she’s feeling, she doesn’t let it reach her face. She crosses her arms. “Tell me what happened.”
Not what’s wrong with you. Not how dare you. Just—tell me.
Somehow that’s worse.
Chris speaks first. “Nina needs me. Wyatt seems to disagree.”
Callie looks at the broken pottery on the floor, the soil from Marcella’s herb pots scattered across the tile, the blood on Chris’s collar. Then she looks at us like we’re the dumbest men she’s ever met.
“She told you.” Not a question. “And you didn’t handle it well.”
“We didn’t get a chance to handle it at all,” I say. “We barely had a conversation earlier. She told Chris just before he ran her off. And now he wants to charge after her without thinking.”
Chris’s nostrils flare. He turns to his sister.
“You know her, Callie.” Chris’s voice is rough. “She’s not going to ask for help. She never does. Either you go or I go.”
“Nobody’s going anywhere tonight.” Callie’s eyes move to the cut on Chris’s cheek. “You show up at her door looking like this and she’s going to blame herself for it. You know that.”
Chris doesn’t argue.
“Why couldn’t she just tell us when she found out?” I say it before I can stop it—the question that’s been gnawing at me since she stood in the garden barely holding together. “We wouldn’t have judged her. She has to know that.”
Callie’s expression shifts, her patience running thin.
“She wasn’t afraid you’d judge her. She was afraid you’d be sad. That you’d mourn a future she never wanted, and she’d have to carry the weight of your grief on top of her own shame.” Callie holds my gaze. “In her head, she took something from you. Even though it was never yours to have.”
Chris’s throat works. “She’d be wrong.”
“Maybe, but she couldn’t hear whatever you’d say back. Because the shame isn’t about your opinion—it’s about something she’s been carrying since she was a kid. The fear that she’s broken because she doesn’t want what women are supposed to want. And then she had to make a choice that confirmed every fear she’s ever had about herself, and tell two men she believed might have wanted what she chose to end.”
Silence. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of Marcella’s voice in the backyard singing softly to her granddaughter in French.
Mason, who’s been leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, speaks for the first time since the initial standoff. “She needs tonight.”
But Chris is already standing. He picks his keys up from the counter without a word.
