Chapter 15 #2
"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 some joke 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.'"
"And the poker night thing." Pedro stands up, stretching muscles stiff from a long night at the clinic.
His scrubs are definitely wrinkled. There's a coffee stain on his sleeve that matches the one on my shirt.
"When he told her she couldn't come anymore because it was 'boys only.
' Even though she'd been playing with us for over a year. "
"She cleaned me out three weeks in a row," I say, and the memory hits me like a fist to the gut.
Jessica in our living room, feet tucked under her on the couch, blonde hair falling in her face as she studied her cards.
Laughing as she raked in another pot with that competitive gleam in her eyes.
"I went broke buying lumber that month because she kept taking all my cash. "
I stop pacing and grip the back of a chair.
"Then suddenly she wasn't allowed to play cards with us. And we just accepted it. Made jokes about how Callum was protective. How he wanted quality time with his girlfriend." I shake my head. "We made excuses for him."
"He was isolating her," Sergio says, and his voice cuts through our memories like a blade. "Piece by piece. Cutting away everyone who might have told her she deserved better. Everyone who might have helped her see what he was doing."
"Including us." I let go of the chair and start pacing again. Can't stay still. "He isolated her from us specifically. Moved her to the city. Made excuses every time we tried to visit."
Three steps. Turn. Three steps back.
"And we let him, because we didn't want to admit that our best friend was turning into someone we didn't recognize."
The guilt settles over the room like a funeral shroud.
We let him.
For two years, we watched Callum slowly suffocate the woman we all loved, and we did nothing.
I stop pacing and brace my hands on the counter, hanging my head.
"There's one more message." Sergio's voice drops to barely above a whisper. "He sent it an hour ago."
He turns the phone around so we can all see the screen.
I'll be there Friday. Make sure she's ready.
Make sure she's ready.
Like Jessica is a package to be prepared for pickup. A piece of property to be handed over on demand.
"Over my dead body." The words explode out of me before my brain catches up to my mouth. I push off the counter and start pacing again, faster now. "He shows up here expecting to collect her like she's a goddamn delivery, and I'll—"
"You'll what?" Pedro cuts me off. "Attack him? Give him exactly what he needs to play the victim? 'My ex-fiancée's new boyfriend assaulted me when I came to talk things out.' His lawyers would have a field day."
I stop mid-stride and turn to face him. "So what, we just let him waltz in here?"
"Pedro's right," Nacho says, moving away from the window. He straightens his uniform. "We can't give him ammunition. Everything has to be above board. Documented. Legal."
"So what are you suggesting?" I spread my hands, frustration boiling in my chest. I need to hit something. Build something. Do something with all this energy. "We just stand around with our thumbs up our asses while he does his manipulative bullshit?"
"No." Nacho moves to stand beside Sergio, presenting a united front. "We make it absolutely clear that Jessica isn't going anywhere unless she chooses to. Her decision. Her terms. Not his. Not ours."
I grab a dish towel off the counter and start twisting it in my hands. Need to do something. Anything.
"And if she wants to go back to him?" Pedro asks, joining our loose circle by the kitchen island. "If she decides, for whatever reason, that she'd rather be with Callum than stay here with us? What then?"
"She won't." Sergio's certainty is absolute. Immovable as granite. "I talked to her last night. In this kitchen. While we were making cookies. She's done with him. She sees what he is now. The blinders are off."
I drop the dish towel on the counter.
"But does she know what we are?" The question that's been burning a hole in my chest since she walked through our front door finally comes out. "Does she understand that this isn't just us being friendly? That we're not offering her a guest room out of the goodness of our hearts?"
I start pacing again, can't help it.
"That every single one of us has been in love with her for years? That we're not just helping out a friend in need, we're courting her? That we want her to be pack? To be ours?"
The silence that follows is deafening.
I stop pacing and look around at my brothers.
We've never said it out loud before. Not to each other. Not directly. It's been this unspoken thing between us for so long that I'd almost convinced myself it was just in my head. That I was the only one pathetic enough to fall for my best friend's girlfriend and spend years pretending otherwise.
But looking around the kitchen now, seeing the same guilt and longing and desperate hope reflected in three pairs of eyes...
I'm not the only one.
We all kept our mouths shut. You don't steal your buddy's girl, no matter how wrong they are for each other.
I lean back against the counter and cross my arms.
"We need to tell her the truth." Nacho's voice is steady. Certain. "About Callum coming Friday. About what we feel for her. About what we're offering, if she wants it."
"And what exactly are we offering?" Pedro crosses his arms over his chest, his stance defensive. "A pack bond? A relationship with four men at once? A complete upheaval of everything she thought her life was going to be?"
"Whatever she needs," Sergio says, and his dark eyes move around the circle, meeting each of ours in turn. Making sure we're listening. "Whatever she wants. We lay out her options. Real options. Not ultimatums, not pressure, not guilt trips. Just possibilities. And then we let her choose."
I push off from the counter and start pacing again. Three steps to the fridge. Turn. Three steps back.
"And if she chooses to leave?" Pedro won't let it go. "If she decides all of this is too much, too fast, too complicated?"
"Then we let her go." Sergio's jaw tightens, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. "But we don't let Callum take her. There's a difference between Jessica walking away because she wants to and Jessica being dragged back to a man who thinks he owns her."
I stop pacing and really think about that distinction.
Jessica leaving because she needs time, because she's overwhelmed, because four alphas is a lot and she's barely had a chance to catch her breath... I could handle that. It would hurt like hell. I'd probably sand furniture until my hands bled. But I could respect it.
But Jessica going back to Callum? Back to the man who rewrote her wedding vows because they were "too emotional"?
I grip the counter edge again.
"He never deserved her." The words feel like a confession. Like something I've been holding back for years. "Not for a single second. He got lucky. She said yes because she didn't know any better, and he spent two years making sure she couldn't take it back."
"He spent years trying to break her," Pedro corrects quietly. "And he almost succeeded."
"But she did." Nacho moves closer to the group. "She ran. She got out. She came here."
"To us." I straighten up from the counter.
Something that's been locked away for so long I'd almost forgotten it was there.
"Out of everywhere she could have gone, everyone she could have run to, she came to Largo Waters.
Ended up in our house. Wearing my henley.
" I pause. "Apparently stress-baking cookies with Sergio at three AM. "
"Triple chocolate chip," Sergio says with a small smirk. "Not bad."
"The point is," I continue, starting to pace again but slower now, "she came home. Whether she realizes it or not, she came home. To us."
The implication hangs in the morning air.
"Callum's not going to see it that way." Pedro shakes his head. "He's going to see this as us stealing his property. Betraying our friendship."
"Ex-friendship," I correct, stopping my pacing. "He lost the right to call us friends when he started treating her like a possession."
I move to the coffee pot and pour myself a cup of Sergio's toxic brew. Take a sip. Wince. It tastes like regret and bad decisions, just like I thought.
Perfect.
"He'll retaliate," Nacho says, his sheriff brain running through scenarios. "Money. Lawyers. His family's connections. The Whitmores have power in this state."
"Then we'll fight back." Sergio's voice is steady as granite. He stands up from the table, his full height suddenly imposing in the morning light. "We have resources too. Our businesses are solid. We've got roots in this community going back generations."
He looks around the circle at each of us.
"And we have something Callum doesn't."
"What's that?" I ask, setting down my coffee mug.
"Each other." He spreads his hands to encompass the kitchen, the house, the four of us standing here in the early morning light. "A pack. Callum has money and influence, but he's alone. He's always been alone."